Feels Like the End

Well, it does. Because it is. It's the end of the summer term at Rose State College, so today I turned in the grades for my lone section of Fundamentals of English. It was an interesting term, and I'll give you the breakdown:

• We had eight weeks to cover sixteen weeks worth of material. We had the same number of class meetings that we would in a normal semester, but instead of twice a week we met four times a week. The classroom time was not a problem, but the students' out-of-class work time and information processing time was seriously truncated.
• I had thirteen people registered when I last checked before the term started. I had ten on my roster the first day of class. I had eight on my final roster, and I never saw three of those. One dropped the first week of class and another stopped showing up on the last week of class.
• I had one day with only one student present.
• I had one day with only zero students present.
• Since this was a developmental class, it was great that I was able to give them so much one-on-one time. Unfortunately, these students were true developmental students and had the usual problem of unpreparedness. The one-on-one time could have been more productive.

So now I'm getting ready for Fall semester. I have five sections at two colleges: one Comp I, three Comp II, and one Intro to Philosophy. I haven't taught any of these courses at the schools where I'm going to teach them, so I have four preps. This should be interesting.

But now I'm faced with a decision I haven't wanted to make: do I pursue my interests or do I meet my obligations? There was hope through the summer that I'd be able to do both, but that hope died. Actually, the death of that hope has changed me. I'm still going to teach, because that's the only work I've ever done that I think was worth my time, but my inability to parlay my qualifications and general personability into full-time teaching means I'll have to take other work, too. At least for the short term.

So this feels like the end of hope, too. And at the end of the month I'll put this blog to rest and start the next one.

...And Then a Hedgehog Shat on My Hand.

It's been an interesting summer so far. For one thing, I think I can finally talk about Other Things. For another thing, even though it's an interesting summer there isn't a whole lot to say about it.

The Other Things to which I kept alluding were potential jobs. OCCC posted three jobs I felt at least minimally qualified for, and I applied to all three. The possibility of my becoming the Communications Lab Supervisor ended pretty quickly, as I wasn't even called for a first interview. That job eventually went to a friend, and she was clearly more qualified than I was, so there's no tension there. If I were on the hiring committee I'd have hired her, too. Though that would be awkward, being on the hiring committee for a job I was trying to get. I'll stop thinking about that now. It's silly.

The second job opening was for a Professor of English Composition. The twist was that it was for a new program of classes for ESL students. No problem. I've had ESL students in every section of Comp I've ever taught. They have different issues than native speakers do, but their problems aren't impossible to overcome. I made it through a third interview for this one, but didn't get the job.

The third position I applied for was the one I really wanted--Professor of English. It involved teaching some Comp, some Humanities, some Literature, and some Philosophy. Perfect. If I were to write up a job description that would fit me, this would be my design. I felt like I had a lot of advantages in my favor: I was the only adjunct (that I was aware of) who had taught a philosophy class for them, I have a good rapport with the full-time faculty and my supervisors there, and I understand they like to hire people from other places. I even used my mentor at OCCC (I'll call him "Martin" here) as a reference.

It wasn't to be. All of my advantages were real advantages, and I interviewed well. I met with the hiring committee, then the Dean of the Arts and Humanities division, and finally with the President and Vice President of Academic Affairs. All of those meetings were good ones. I answered all of their questions, my presentations went well, and the interviewers even laughed at my jokes. The only way I wasn't getting this job was if someone more qualified was interviewing as well.

The problem was that someone more qualified was interviewing as well. Martin. My mentor.

He's been full-time faculty there for eight years or so. He's just shy of having his doctorate in Philosophy. He's also one of the nicest people I have ever met. Every advantage I had he had even more of. When I learned he was interviewing (five minutes before my first interview) I figured my chances were slim. About the only way I'd get the job is if the division didn't want to deal with replacing Martin too after this process. Turns out they just decided to hire the best candidate. Go figure.

On the bright side, now his position is posted. I'm submitting my application today.

Also, we're hedgehogsitting for a family who we've really barely met. They seem like nice people, and "Hedgie" (the animal was named by young boys) won't be a burden to keep. He's quiet, doesn't eat much, and takes up little space. But right after they dropped him off and left, while I was still letting him run from one hand to the other and back again, he pinched a loaf all over me.

It smelled like cereal.

200th Post

After 199 of these things in the last year and a half, I'd like to be able to say something profound on such a monumentous occasion. I don't know that I can, though. This blog has helped me keep my mind clear of the random stupidity that sometimes gets in the way of my thinking clearly, and that's good. (That's also why I sometimes go weeks at a time posting nothing but junk--I have to clear it out.)

Some random thoughts:

• OCCC finally posted an opening I'd been hearing grumbles about. The position's for full-time faculty to teach Comp, Literature, Humanities, and Philosophy. Reading through the job listing is encouraging--it looks almost like the position was built for me. I'll put that delusion away, though, as I tinker with my CV and ready myself for interviewing.
• Writing is going slowly, but at least I'm writing.
• My Fundamentals of English classes at Rose are going to be an odd kind of challenge. On the second day of class I had the students write about where they see themselves in five years. It's a bit depressing to see almost all of them write, in one way or another, that they hate where they are and want drastic change.
• Last night for dinner we had sushi and sake. That was the first time I'd ever had sake, and I'm not sure what to think of it. Michele says it tastes like tequila to her. My reaction was a little different, but sake sure isn't something you fill a goblet with and gulp down. Have to keep in mind, too, that it's a ten-dollar bottle of sake purchased in Central Oklahoma. Might not be the best quality, and who knows how long it's been on the shelf.

Have to get ready for dinner. We have a party to go to tonight, to celebrate one of Michele's colleagues passing his final PhD qualifier exam. The dreaded "E&M" qual. "E&M" stands for "Electricity and Magnetism."

Here's to hoping the next 200 posts will actually contain significant thought.

A New Semester

I have all my ducks in a row, for the most part. My schedule was simplified last Wednesday when the Assistant Humanities Dean called to tell me I was losing my Comp II section. Now I'm teaching the two Comp I sections and two Fundamentals of English sections. I don't have much planning to worry about for Comp, now that I've taught this textbook for a semester, and Fundamentals shouldn't be too tough--less intense grading than for Comp, anyway. So I'm not worried about that.

I don't like the loss of income resulting from the change, though, so I'm going to find another part-time job for weekends. Now that we have no holidays ahead of us, no travelling to think about for a while, I can just concentrate on wage-slaving. This has been a hard year, with disruptions from the move, periods of unemployment (and underemployment), and the chaos of transferring our entire lives to a largely uncertain new setting. Now we're pulling out of it, though.

So when classes start tomorrow (and Michele sits at home because her class was canceled--boo) I'm presenting a new face. The no-nonsense, deadly-serious taskmaster.

Right.

We'll see.

Today a Job, Tomorrow . . . the World

Today I got a job. It's a good job. I'll be teaching two sections of Comp and one section of Intro to Logic. I like my new job. These are good times.

The only problem is that my new job doesn't start for a month. So I might need to get another new job to occupy my time in the interim. When school starts, though, I could quit this second, hypothetical new job and concentrate on my real new job.

For now, though, I am content.

It's Been a Hell of a Week

I haven't posted in a while, but that's only because there isn't much to say. Life has been bumping along pretty monotonously since the holidays wound down, which is mostly a good thing. I'm only working about 55 hours a week now, so I get a little more time to write than I'd had while Book Store was blazingly busy. Just a few things are worthy of mention:

1. It's cold. According to Michele's perusal of the internet this morning, it was -13. With wind chill? -34. I'm not one who generally takes note of the temperature, because it just doesn't impact what I do or how I do it, but this is crazy. The air, without movement, makes my cheeks sting. My eyes continue to water ten minutes after I've gotten inside. Days like this make me hope Michele gets a letter of acceptance from the University of Texas at Austin. And fast.

2. I'm a loser. American Zoetrope announced the winner of their screenplay contest, and it wasn't me. They also listed the top ten runners up. No me. The semifinalists and quarterfinalists included about a million names. But not mine. Lucky for me I have another screenplay in the works and it feels better than Running the Asylum did as I wrote it. It's more cinematic, funnier, and more commercial. I hate thinking of that as a benefit, but screenwriting is as much business as art. Maybe more.

3. I was sick. Yesterday I only lasted two hours at work before I had to go home, green and gasping with nausea. Just the day before we'd been exposed to others with the same bug, but I didn't worry--I never get that stuff. I have a stomach of iron. If either of us gets something, it's usually Michele. No consolation when I was facedown in the throne yesterday doing the technicolor yawn.

4. I'm interviewing. I sent my resume off to an online university, and while they're not hiring right now, they want to put my materials on file for future possibilities. I identified about ten courses they list that I'd be qualified to teach and they agree on four of them, so they sent me an e-mail interview. It feels weird interviewing without seeing the interviewer, for a job at which I may never see my supervisor or my students. Complete disconnect. But I have no way to predict our direction for the next six months or so, and I really want to teach. This might be the only way.

Hopefully we start hearing from grad schools soon. That will help a lot. This limbo crap sucks. On the bright side--I'm writing pretty well now, though I have creative ADD. I spend a week on my short story, then completely fail in the AZ contest and hit the screenplay hard. I should be taking some sort of drugs, I think. Prozac or Zoloft or crack*. Something.

*I am, of course, kidding. I would never take Zoloft.