And so I bid farewell to the mountain of pulp: drafts, photocopies, correspondence, bibliographies, copies of copies of articles.  I can’t throw it away, of course.  No academic worth their salt would throw it out, since this is all the foundation for THE BOOK.  (Which really is Dissertation 2, Revenge of The Dissertation.)

So, in locking up the Tower of Babble, I bid farewell to the imperfect dissertation, and eagerly await the printed version … which is also imperfect.

Gracias, tesis, mi antiguo amor. Time to say goodbye.

Until we meet again…. sometime in 2012, probably.  ‘Til then, rest well, and dream of a better conclusion.

I also try not to abuse emoticons.

It turns out that as a First-Year Academic, there is a lot to say, because the surprises that one meets on the way are so shocking at times that one *must* write about them.  And since some of these things, these arguable disillusionments, transcend the personal, writing in a journal will simply not suffice.  It has to be shared in order to process it.

Today is Sunday, Labor Day weekend, so I don’t have to teach tomorrow.  I get a day off.  Yippee.

If I don’t sound enthusiastic about it, it’s because lately, I feel more at home in my office, the 8 hours of the day that I am there, rather than in my own space.  I frankly do not understand this.  I love my apartment.  I do not want to give it up.  But when I’m at work, I find that there are things that I don’t think about AT ALL while I’m there — situations in my life that trouble me deeply, they disappear when I’m ensconced in my office or rattling off something or other in the classroom.  Work, I suppose, is my new crutch for my Assiduously Avoidant being.

Job market listings come out in about a week.  Christ.  That will be a chore.  Perhaps a happy one.

As someone who is generally in the same field as I pointed out recently, even though we have never interviewed for the same jobs, we definitely have applied for those same jobs, and so, for now, he says “I spit in your general direction.”  HA!  Normally this would make me recoil in anger, but it was said with such good humor, and expresses so well the state of things On the Market, that all I can do is laugh.  And toast, hopefully, at Big Scary Convention in January to our mutual success.

Job Hunting: oh, the dread.

Things look different this year.  *I* look different this year, thanks to the fact that I’ve been living on granola bars, V8, whole wheat pasta, cottage cheese, and coffee for the past few months.  (Yes, I’m getting my protein, although the fruits-and-vegetables thing could use some work.)  And as for the CV, well, there are some winners (Dr. vonCookie!) and some losers (I had to remove 3 lines from the “Conferences” portion of my CV because I was unable to attend those conferences at which I had been accepted.  Lame.)  But either way, it looks VERY different now, compared to ’09 or ’08.  (WTF was I thinking going On the Market in ’08???)

Ramble ramble ramble.  I could blog about my concerns and preoccupations all day.  But I’m not gonna.  Instead I’m going to go re-read Sonata de otoño by Valle-Inclán and get ready to Teach It, Sister! on Tuesday.  Expect a blog post about decadentismo/modernismo in early 20th-century Spanish lit sometime in the near future.  Until then, please ponder the eccentric and ravishing beauty of Valle and his beard…

The Tremendous Beard of Valle-Inclan, Image courtesy of Wikicommons

Contemplate the beard, and imagine the kind of literature he would have written. Chances are, your imaginings will not be far from the truth.

TTFN.

The reasons as to why it was a bad decision I am still mulling over, because clearly they demonstrate my complete naivete as a First-Year Academic.  The reasoning of the Seasoned Academics was the following:

• Letting 5 people into my class is a 33% increase in workload.
• 5 extra people in a writing intensive course means 125 extra pages of reading/grading for me, which is a significantly heavier workload.
• Said heavier workload means less attention paid to each individual student, thus canceling out my “good-for-the-students” argument.
• Also, taking in more students tells the University (indirectly) that I am willing to take on more work without receiving any financial compensation for doing so.  Therefore, the Uni will assume they can throw more work at me, and I will accept it, without them having to return in kind.

It is this last argument that really sticks in my craw.  I don’t like the fact that I should be putting a price tag on my service as a teacher.  I understand that the person who made this comment is “right” — in a way.  But I still feel strange about putting my financial well-being ahead of that of my students.  I mean, technically, yes.  If I am going to take on more work, there should be some compensation.  However, I’m viewing my compensation in terms of  experience.

Which brings me to the last argument of the Seasoned Academics:

• Taking on more students means less time for research, which is what will get me a job.  Not teaching.  Publishing.  Apparently, “publish or perish” is still totally en force in academe.

Dammit.

I know I need to publish and do research and such.  But the thing is: I’m finally in a place where I’m enjoying teaching.  For years I’ve been doing nothing but research and positively *dreading* teaching.  Now it’s the other way around.  And I’ve waited so long to feel at home in the classroom.  Why should this be considered a bad thing?  Shouldn’t I prioritize my teaching skills if that’s what I enjoy?  If that’s what needs the most work right now?  It would seem so… to me.  But I guess I’m wrong, according to Those Who Have Tenure.

Something seems askew to me here.  Being told that teaching comes always second to either status within the University or financial well-being just doesn’t suit me.  Not right now.  But maybe I’m missing something, I don’t know.

Now, this weekend, I must face the question: Prepare my class?  Or work on an Article?  Even though I’m trying to take the “Labor” out of “Labor Day”, in my current position, I cannot reasonably do so without getting far behind in my work.  So work I must.

Isn’t “working” on its own good enough?

As the MLA-JIL comes out in under two weeks, I must figure out a way to make myself the most attractive candidate possible.

Article it is.

And let my Altruism die a peaceful death, please.

Or else what?

Well, or else they’ll have to leave being a major, and take up a minor instead, and essentially deprive your department of much-needed support, not to mention $$.

What do you do, when the course requires, for each student, over the course of the semester 20-25 pp. of written work?  What do you do when you’re teaching that particular class that meets twice a week, plus another class that meets 5 days a week at 8 a.m., and at the same time doing all this admin and service stuff that complicates your schedule?

What do you do, when you’re supposed to do all this, and publish as well, because you’ll be on the market again in approximately two weeks when job listings come out (ah, incipient depression!) and you’ll be dedicating a significant chunk of time to that endeavor every single free moment that you have, not because you want out of the job you love, but because the department expects you to want to move upward and onward towards the elusive tenure-track position in your sub-specialty.  Or even sub-sub-specialty?

What do you do, when you receive panicked emails late at night from students who flatter you with pleasantries and compliment your teaching style based on hearsay from other students, blatantly sucking up to you… and you know for a *fact* that they’re trying to court you, convince you that they really, sincerely want to learn from you, whatever it is that you’re teaching?

What do you do when you’ve had a limit of 20 students before and managed just fine, but never had such a heavy writing requirement, and have never had to teach more than one class at once.

What is the ethical choice here?  To admit all the students and encourage them to go on in the major, knowing that you won’t be able to provide the same amount of detailed feedback that you usually would, simply because the stack of papers is five higher?  Do you keep the strict 15-student limit and explain that they won’t get the same amount of individualized attention if you were to let them in?

What. Does. One. Do?

Public education is suffering from classes that are overcrowded on one hand, or from class limits that keep students out of the courses they want and/or need in order to graduate successfully and on time.  What do you do when you know that these same students who are currently barred from the class may have to delay their graduation because they didn’t meet the requirements for the major and then have to become “Super Seniors” and bear *more* student loans and terrible financial hardship in order to do so?

In other words, when do you step up and try to make public education viable again?  When does quantity matter more than quality?  What can you do, ethically, to encourage students to continue their study, when you know that the toll on you personally is going to be inescapably damaging?

… and all this while suffering from a persistent workaholic tendency that is destroying both sleep-schedule and peace of mind…

Where does the personal become the political and vice versa?

After many years at Big U, watching it suffer thanks to the Governator and such, I want to know, at last what *I* can do to make public education viable again, not just for a few, but for many?

What do *I* do?

Answer: Very simple.

I remembered this morning that I am a bit of an altruist, an idealist, a believer in a fair, affordable education for people of every code, creed, and class.  I remembered that I came from privilege, and that I got my Ph.D. so that I could pass on what I’ve learned over the years.  I remembered that I need the experience, and the opportunity to learn efficiency– how to streamline my grading and such, how to, in essence, be a professional academic that has a commitment to Higher Ed.  Not just the Ivory Tower, but to the students themselves.

What did I do?

Need you ask?

I let them in.  I let them all in.

But, come what may — and I truly fear the workload — I will be able to write someday, on my tombstone, my Great-Grandmother’s motto:

“She did what she could.”

And that’s what matters right now.

Here’s my problem: while I’ve studied both 19th and 20th century Spanish literature extensively, I feel a little ragged with Clarín, mostly because the last monograph course that I took on him was in 2003 (!) and because my QEs when I was last tested on his work was in 2005.  That’s a lot of elapsed time.

Still, I’m sure I can find something to say, and hopefully, I’ll say it well enough.  But this is my first class with this group, who are all majors, 80% native or heritage speakers… not that that really intimidates me much anymore… this time it’s the fact that they’re all majors that has my nerves all wrangled.

I’m staying up late to write my lesson plan, somewhat ignoring the fact that I have an 8am class that I have to teach 5 days a week as well.

… So this is my first year, huh?  For a non-tenure-track position, they sure are testing my mettle.  I’m very proud of that.  And a little overwhelmed at the moment.

I would launch into a diatribe about the merits and lessons to be learned in “¡Adios, Cordera!” but I’m sure that’s of minimal interest to most everyone, except those who tend to land on my blog when they Google obscure titles in Spanish Literature.  Suffice it to say that “¡Adios, Cordera!” is about the contrast between technology and campo and that Spain was really struggling between the poles of modernity and traditionalism even at the end of the 19th century.  It could be argued that part of the reason the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936 was due to this continuing tension between traditional values and the desire for modernization.

… but I digress…

…actually, I don’t digress.  I think I’ll write a little outline for a lecture that highlights that tension.

See?  That’s why I blog.  To figure out what I’m actually thinking.

For some reason, lately, that’s been very hard to do.

Wish me luck!

vC

I have been working (perhaps unduly) hard since July 1, which was my hire date at Big U.  Since then, over the course of the 8 weeks since that particular date a few things have happened.  A list of random bullets, so that it’s easier to digest:

• I have ceased to wear jeans except in my own home, when no one else is around.
• I have learned to (at least once a week) function on four hours of sleep.
• My apartment has become a place of confusion, not just in terms of the random crap strewn about, taking up the space where the dissertation library books used to be, but in the sense that I no longer know what to *do* with myself when I’m rattling about in my cramped studio.  I feel lost in my squalor, and unable to fix it, mostly because I’m so. damn. tired. when I get home.  Result? I feel more comfortable in my office than I do in my own space.  ::sigh::  That’s not right.
• My personal relationships (some more than others) have suffered tremendously in the wake of my recent marriage to my career.  Apparently at this juncture I have no room for anything that transcends my Job Description.  I honestly don’t know how I feel about this, because at the same time that it feels horrible to watch relationships wither on the vine, it feels refreshing and cleansing to be so dedicated to my work.  How to reconcile these? I ask myself every day.  Answer: As the immortal poet Scarlett O’Hara once said — “I can’t think about that yet… I’ll think about it tomorrow.”  She knew her limits, her boundaries.  No wonder she was my hero as a child.  (I tended to overlook the fact that she was 100% Unadulterated Evil Bitch.)  I know I’m being an ostrich, but sometimes, sand around one’s head has its benefits.
• I have fallen in love.  Head over heels in love.  Loopy in love — with my work.  After 8 years of complete ambivalence, someone flipped the switch, and turned me on to the fact that I actually want to be an academic.  I think the word “overjoyed” might be understating the situation.
• I now have the following things, which have been spotty assets at best for many years:  boundaries, tact, discipline, joy, a smile, satisfaction, confidence.  What more can a girl ask for?  I also have some less attractive qualities that only seem to come out when I leave work: short temper, terseness, sleeplessness, impatience… but I’m sure these will diminish in time.
• Reno has become an even holier location for me.  When I get overworked, I YEARN for Reno.  Pure escapism. Weirdness. Indulgence. Everything that I don’t permit myself here, I permit myself in Reno.  And yet… my car (blessed be he) probably cannot make it over the Sierra again.  And Reno continues to shimmer in the distance, in the desert heat, a little oasis of vice that I can no longer have.
• I am grateful: Thank you, Big U, for everything.  I’m sorry you’re suffering.  I’ll do my best to help, in whatever way I can.  Which, in this case, may mean admitting 5 extra students to my Writing Intensive seminar and just accepting the extra workload as a First-Year Academic penance, or as practice in streamlining.  Either way: I’m obsessed with what is FAIR and JUST in the mission of Public Education, considering how jacked the situation is at the moment.  And considering that my personal life has been recently hacked to bits, I’m thinking I might have the extra time to deal with 5 extra papers per assignment.  It’s a small price to pay if it helps some senior graduate on time.

And so, in essence, this first year in academia is … edifying.  I’m learning, I think, more than I’m teaching.  I’m as energized as I am exhausted.  And for once, I feel — I know — I made the right choices somewhere along the line, if it all added up to landing me HERE.

There’s a sense of completion in my professional existence right now, the end of a quest that began in the early ’90s when I was shopping for colleges to attend.  All my friends and I were on the same mission: to find “The Click.”  We visited college after college, looking for “The Click” — That feeling of *this* is where I’m supposed to be, *this* is what I’m supposed to do, *this* will bring me Teh Happy.  I went from place to place, unsatisfied with everything, with this sinking feeling of “That’s not it” at every college I visited.  I settled eventually for HNEU.  And then that blew up in my face and I settled (a little bit better this time) for SELLAC.  But I never had/heard The Click… until about 2 weeks ago.   It all snapped into place, clicked, and wow, what a sensation of FULFILLMENT.  Worth the 17-year wait.

And that’s how it is, dear Readers.  Difficult, yes.  Filled with stress and turmoil, yes.  But I’ll take it.

I’ll take it every day at 8 a.m. and twice on Sundays.

Love, love, everyday.

I had every intention of going to bed early.  In fact, I passed out while watching Black Adder the Third — somewhere about the time when Bolderick starts talking about the highwayman “The Shadow” and how his life is so “dark and shadowy and full of fear and trepidation”: a line that my friends from Hometown High used to fling about in the same way that Bolderick flings about a chicken carcass while saying that line.  Very funny stuff, even after 20 years of watching it over and over again.

But when it came time to *officially* place my head on the pillow, and I was lying there, body ablaze because NO ONE in Liberal Paradise has A/C, all I could think about was the syllabus that I have to write tomorrow — OR ELSE.

Classes start on Thursday, and I’ve been so busy with my new role at Big U, coordinating language classes, that I have not had the time (or the brain power) to focus on the seminar I’ll be teaching this fall.  Fall semester will be decidedly bipolar (and I don’t use that term lightly or in a pejorative way) — it will be bipolar in the literal as opposed to the psychological sense of the word.  I am teaching Elementary Spanish on one pole, and a writing-intensive seminar at the other end of the spectrum.  Thus, bipolar: at 8 am I’ll be meeting with novices who are still learning the present tense and how to say “pencil” and “where is the Prado” in Spanish, and at 12:30, I’ll be having elaborate discussions of the ins-and-outs of early-20th-century Spanish prose.

From “Hola” to “Unamuno” in 60 seconds.  Oh boy.  Gonna be a rough ride.  Better buckle up.

*****

So I’m back to syllabus design, which I love, but the fact that I’m working on such a tight schedule, and in the middle of the first heatwave of the year, is making me a little uncomfortable, for many reasons.  Did I mention it took me 6 weeks to write my summer syllabus?  Well worth it, but, ach, I do not even remotely have that luxury this time.

As of the moment, I have about 15 books here on my desk, which is my bed, and my computer is nearly overheating with overuse.  The overhead fan is not enough to quit me of the heat, and it crunches with every rotation, providing a certain percussion to all these organizational and intellectual contortions that I must perform to get the syllabus into shape.

And, to confess: I did this on purpose.  I know for a fact that tomorrow it will reach into the 90s, and with only that lame and squeaky ceiling fan to cool me off, I will have the lamest syllabus ever, just because my the heat will turn my brain into a fried egg… as fried as that egg in those “Brain on drugs” commercials from the late ’80s.  This is my brain.  This is my brain frittata by freak-a$$ weather.  (Barely above 65 degrees all summer long and the day that I desperately need to work, we get *this*.  Grumble, grumble, grumble.)

I got out of bed, threw on shorts and a t-shirt and headed to the Sev, looking like hot hell.  Hella hot hell.  But the Sev Angel Man told me that I “am looking very beautiful” and reminded me, when I said I was going to be up working all night, “no work, more problems: work good.”

The wisdom of Sev Angel Man.  And of course I got the greeting that I love: “Hello, lady, long time no see you!”

Sev to the rescue, with coffee — coffee in this heat?  Stupid move.  Should have gotten a Mountain Dew or a Dr. Pepper or an overrated Red Bull.

I drove home listening to She Wants Revenge and it put me in good headspace.   Good associations with that (somewhat dark) album.

(Does anyone call it an “album” anymore, I wonder?  And here I go with the dating-myself again…)

And now back to the Syllabus Jigsaw Game.  I keep wondering how this is all going to turn out.  Writing intensive courses require drafts, outlines, abstracts, and a total of 25 pages of writing over the course of the semester.

That means hella grading.

That means my 8 a.m. class is going to suffer.

And that also means that I will be continuing to abuse the word “hella” regularly over the course of this semester.  Read: “hella tired,” “hella spent,” and, hopefully “hella impressed with my awesome students…”

…which I’m sure I will be, if I can get this syllabus done when it’s not just hot, but…

HELLA HOT-T-T-T!

(Paris Hilton and Eric Cartman be damned for ruining both those words!)

Hella hella hella.

Just to be clear, it is not a North Jersey accent.  People in South Jersey NEVER say “Joisey” (even if they still do tend to have big hair).

A few examples of South Jersey patois:

Water = Wooder (and you go Down the Shore to have Wooder Ice in the summer…)
Towel = Tal  (Down the Shore, after swimming, you dry yourself with a Tal…)
Crayon = Crown  (While lying on the beach, Down the Shore, lying on a Tal, while your passel of kids color in their coloring books with Crowns.)
South = Sath (As in I live in Sath Jersey)

But the most perplexing thing that struck me upon moving to SELLAC (situated in the Midwest) was the pronunciation of the very very round “o”… Not as round as Minnesooooota, of course, but still, when pronouncing a place name — say, “Ohio” — it came out sounding like it is spelled.

Me, new to the Midwest, pronounced the word “Ohio” (where I was now living) like a good girl from Sath Jersey… Ew-HI-ew.

And thus the rub.  Sath Jersey people consistently F*** up their “o”s.  Before an “r” they become and “ah” sound, and in every other location, they become “ew” and you have to smile when you say an “o” because it’s practically an “e”.   A few examples:

Horrible = Harrible
Orange = Arange
Forest = Farest
Home = Heeeewm

I forgot to mention the fact that there’s a bit of a drawl, too, that elongates the vowels, thus my Dad’s favorite example of Christmas in Sath Jersey, singing “Silent Night”:  The congregation stands and sings “Siiiiiilent night…. Heewwwwwwwly night.”  HA!  (And they had no idea…)

So, anyway, I get to Ew-HI-Ew and I’m instantaneously mocked for my strange accent.  Not that this hadn’t happened before.  A friend of mine from Oregon (ARegon in Sath Jersey) had already established the phrase “The Harrible Arange Fares at Heewwwm” to describe how I used to speak, and that’s still sort of LOL in my book.

I decided after about 3 days in Ew-HI-Ew, that it needed to become OH-HI-OH and that I needed to quit smiling all the time when I said the word.  I focused on shaping my “o”s and so, by the time I moved to Liberal Paradise in the early ’00s, I was geographically indistinguishable.  I had CNN-ized my accent.

… And so it’s been for nigh on a decade now.

But recently, I have no idea why, the Sath Jersey accent has resurfaced intermittently, and I cannot figure out why.  It makes me feels like I’m regressing.  Even when I focus on my “o”s lately, they’re coming out with a smile and an “eeewww” sound.

WTH???

Any explanations for this are most welcome.  ‘Cause I need to quit it.

…Maybe it’s something in the Wooder….

I was actively trying to make peace with the Earworm, just accept its presence and hope it would leave on its own.  Instead, last night, the Earworm actively ruined my evening.  It distracted me so much that I couldn’t concentrate on enjoying my dinner with TooBeaut.  That’s beyond not-cool.  That’s just malicious.

In my family, we have this theory that if you sing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” a few times, it will make any Earworm die, and quickly.  My experience has been entirely different.  I just end up getting “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” stuck in my head instead.

::sigh::

Well, I’ll give it a try, even though there must be a ring of hell reserved for people who play Christmas music in August.

Anything, anything! to get rid of the Earworm, who still wants to be the girl with the most cake.

Damn.

“I want to be the girl with the most cake / I want your love and I want your revenge, you and me could write a bad romance / I hear it’s cold out but her popsicle melts, she’s in the bathroom, she pleasures herself / and someday you will ache like I ache.”

Really annoying.  Pick a lane, Earworm, or give me something new to work with!  For a minute yesterday I finally got a different song on repeat, but it only lasted about an hour, and then the Earworm started up with his normal antics, so much so that now I can’t even remember what song was sent to relieve me of this two-week melodic torture.

Hole.  She Wants Revenge. Lady GaGa.  WTF, Earworm.  At the very least you could have picked three songs that were at least remotely of the same subgenre.  But no, I get late grunge, nouveau-new-wave-post-punk-gothic-rock, and dance-dance-revolution trashy awesomeness.  Not even in the slightest musically compatible.

Oh well. At least I like Earworm’s selections.

Rock on, Earworm, rock on.

(And I’m sure he will.  He’s not a Bad Man, he’s just overwhelmed…)