Well, That’s One Way to Stop Being Pissed Off

Apparently, what I like to do when filled with rage is to find something to distract myself.  Something that is totally me-focused, and that I feel like is meaningful and worth spending my time doing.  So far so good, yes?

Yes, but I have somehow put myself in a position where in just one month I will need to have a polished book proposal as well as a polished sample chapter. Of my book.  My book that isn’t really ready to be shopped to presses yet, except I’m apparently shopping the book to presses.  Because that is just what I need to stress out about throughout the month of December.

But on the bright side, it does beat stressing about stupid shit at work that I can’t control…

 

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Fed the Motherfuck Up

I understand that the course of true academia does not run smoothe.  I understand that there are snags and kerfuffles and miscommunications and problematic situations.  And, for the most part, I accept all of that.

But I am motherfucking fucking done with this semester, for the following reasons:

1) When I object to sloppy argumentation in a grad student’s culminating project, it is not appropriate for my colleague to counter with, “but a lot of feminist scholarship does the same thing, so isn’t this bullshit ok?”  (Note: what I said was, “um, it’s still sloppy argumentation.  Yeah, I’m a feminist, but I’m a scholar first, and you can’t get me to back down by pulling the, “your sisters did this first” card.  Because I don’t give a shit if there is shitty feminist scholarship that you want to cite as a precedent for this shitty scholarship – it’s still shitty, and I, as a feminist, refuse to sign off on it.  Fuck you and your full professor rank.)

2) No, my fucked up teaching schedule is not my fucking fault, even if I have innate curiosity and excitement about new things.  It is not a matter of me needing to “figure out what I want to be when I grow up,” and yes, that is a direct quote from my chair.  It’s even more clear that it’s not my fucking fault given my chair’s question today, after I gave him my “what I want to be when I grow up” schedule, about “whether I’d be interested” in teaching one course out of my field and another barely in my field in order not to have those courses deleted from the catalog . This immediately after I’d given him a two year rotation based on “what I want to be when I grow up,” as well as on what I was hired to do, and which I already have compromised on because “but we really need you to do x, y, and z because of all the things.)  Note: I’ve got something like 11 preps over 4 semesters while many colleagues of mine have… um…. maybe 6.  Also, let’s note, he didn’t ask those others whether they’d “be interested” in these dead fucking courses, even though they are precisely the people who can’t make enrollment and who aren’t contributing to our major.

3)  I’m a bad teacher this semester.  I’m not going to lie.  I am. In two of four classes. You know why, though?  Because workload in my world is not distributed equitably.  And because I’m floundering and because I’m fucking my students over because I can’t handle it.  And it sucks.  And I don’t want to do it, but here I am.  Fuck.

4) Drawing a line in the sand about what is “fair” isn’t necessarily what is just for faculty or what is best for students.  I’m just saying.  And it’s also not necessarily what’s best for a department.  It is the path of least resistance, though.  And that’s *grand* for conflict-averse administrators.

And with all of the above?  I am now in a mode in which I am all about extricating myself from obligations and I’m all about taking care of myself.  ‘Cause you know what?  Why should I take care of anybody else?  And I hate being so self-serving, and I hate being put in the position where I can’t do what’s best because doing the best means that I’m getting fucked over.  I hate that I can’t do my best work, but rather that I have to protect myself instead.

It’s worth noting that even this is a privilege – a privilege of tenure – that I can tell people to fuck off for fucking me over or putting me in a position that is compromising.  But I’m angry.  What kind of privilege is the privilege of saying “go to hell?”  What kind of privilege is the privilege of saying, “I hate you and I hate everything you stand for, or I hate everything about you because you refuse to stand for anything that matters?”  That’s not a privilege.  That’s garbage.

So I’m fed up.  And I’m not playing this game anymore.  And the only pleasure in that is that the people who want me to play this game will be in a bind when they realize that I refuse to play.  And it sucks.  Not only in my work-life, but also for students, who honestly deserve better.  Well, at least “my” students will get better.  But fuck the rest of them, and fuck my department.  Because while I hate it, I’m nobody’s martyr.  And no student would be best served by my being one.

 

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A Recap of Thanksgiving

The good news is that I’m typing without incident, as it turns out that fingers heal at an unbelievably fast pace, even when one slices the tips of them off.  Also, it might be true that I am a drama queen in the face of copious amounts of blood, which there were, but it is perhaps the case that my wound was not so tragic as I at first believed.  I do have a bandage on the wounded finger now, because I sadly made it bleed again through the exertion of knitting (only a tiny bit, but still)but whatever the case, I’m typing with all fingers, which was NOT the case when I posted of my grievous injury on Wednesday.

Thanksgiving was AWESOME.  In all ways.  1) My parents are awesome.  2) My guests were awesome.  3)  It was great introducing my guests (Colleague-Friend and her husband and Professional-Writing Colleague) to my parents, and everybody was animated and happy and had a fabulous time (I think).  4) The food, in spite of the early injury, was Very Very Good (though, to be fair, there were some things that I would have wanted to be more perfect, like my pumpkin pie which started out perfect but which then sadly got a mark in it from the tin foil that covered it) but whatever, we gobbled it all up regardless.  I love Thanksgiving.  It is the best of all holidays.

And so I am thankful for my lovely friends, and for my parents, and for the fact that I have learned how to cook a spectacular meal, and for the ingredients with which I was blessed to cook into that spectacular meal.  And I’m thankful for the fact that I did not bleed on the food when I was injured, and that I did not cook a piece of finger into the sweet potato gratin (because in spite of my grievous injury I was on top of things and avoided the contamination of body parts that were severed, and of human blood, which is really more Halloween than Thanksgiving).

In more consumerist thanks, I am thankful that my parents bought me dishes enough to have matching ones for themselves and all my guests, and most of all for George for picking out ones that I’d adore in spite of my mother’s lack of faith in his taste (hilariously, when she questioned him, he said, “but Crazy is Lebanese!” and when I saw them, and she expressed her doubt, I said, “but don’t you understand that I’m Lebanese?!?), as well as new glasses, and to CF and her husband for more glasses on top of that (CF understood that I was deficient in terms of glassware), and for the fact that on the day after Thanksgiving that my mom and I were able to find a lovely sideboard (to hold the new glasses and dishes and napkins and things) at a reasonable price, which will be delivered in time for my party in a couple of weeks.

And also I am thankful for friends from afar, like J., who sent me a Thanksgiving text thanking me for being her friend, and I’m thankful for A., who confirmed that I shouldn’t take myself to the emergency room for my sliced finger.  And, although I’m not sure this is something to be thankful for… I suppose I’m thankful for the fact that I received texts from some dudes, with whom relations are… fraught… at the present moment.  I suppose I’m thankful for that because it shows that they both know that this, of all holidays, is my holiday, and they really did think of me.  And that thoughtfulness, in spite of the fraughtness, is something for which to be thankful.

And finally, I’m thankful for the fact that a) I learned from the internet how to wind a center-pull ball of yarn by hand, which isn’t as “swift” as doing it with a swift and a ball-winder, but which is immensely satisfying, and 2) that I have progressed beyond merely knitting and purling in knitting and that I have had time over the past two days to do some knitting, both of which things feel like a huge luxury to do, and which are lovely and relaxing.

And then I’m thankful for the fact that 27 dresses, which I first saw on an Emirates Airlines flight en route to Beirut, after a horrible ordeal in which we missed our flight from Istanbul – and so yes it is a garbage movie but, whatever, it brings back fond memories – has been on this weekend, as even though it is garbage I can watch it over and over again.

So I will grade like a champion tomorrow and the next day, and order my books for the spring, and send out the invitation for my End of Semester Bash, and also do a defense for a grad student.  The point is, even in spite of all that?  Life is good. And I give thanks.

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An Inauspicious Start to Thanksgiving

While embarking on the very first of many dishes I will make in 24 hours, I sliced off the tip of my right index finger.  And I still have 7000 things to cook and clean.  Hope my mom is ready to be put to work on her arrival…

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On English Majors (and, tangentially, on MLA)

So one of the things that I realize now that I’ve taught our brand-spanking-new Intro to the Discipline course a couple of times now is how alienated my students feel from the idea that you can grow up to have a “real life” and actually major in English.  Now, some of this is them romanticizing.  I think that English majors, perhaps more than Engineering majors, say, kind of like to feel special and alienated and isolated.  And to feel like they are not part of some sort of capitalist regime, or whatever.  But I think part of this is not about that – I think in part I feel like they are thinking that they are just idiots for picking the major they’ve picked.

Now, that might be me projecting how I felt when I switched into being an English major.  I know that I felt like an idiot for switching from journalism major/ political science minor to english major/ minors in women’s studies and writing.  The former seemed “sensible” and “practical” and the latter seemed “insane.”  But I don’t think that this is only about my projecting my own experience onto my students.

Because both of the times that I’ve taught this course, what I’ve discovered is that students respond most when I connect the various fields to the real world.  Whether I’m telling them about how research works in the field, or what the point of theory is, or what jobs they might get when they get out based on what former students of mine have done.  I mean, sure, the readings that they do are important, and the assignments that they do are important.  But maybe even more important than those things are me telling them about what it’s like to meet a person in real life whom you’ve cited in a paper.  Or telling them about sitting at the hotel bar at MLA, eating one’s lunch, and having Judith Butler stroll up to order a club sandwich, and then how I was far too shy to speak to her but at the same time I felt like I needed to do a facebook status update from my phone about it.  Or telling them about how a former student of mine emailed me after his first year in law school to thank me for how I pushed him on his writing.  Yes, there is content in this course – in fact, students regularly tell me about how this class challenges them more than upper-level courses in the major – but what they need is a class with all other majors, and what they need is to show them why this discipline is motherfucking awesome and interesting and worth it.

So as important as the content of the course and the assignments is the fact that I am engaged in my discipline and that I remain connected to my former students and that I’m connected to the “world of ideas” outside my discipline, generally, or even outside my field of specialization within my discipline.  What matters so much more than the textbook readings is the conversations that we have and my ability to connect those things to what means something to my students.

 

So here is the tangential MLA thing: I think I’ll be there this year, and footloose and fancy free other than a business meeting I have to hold.  But this is part of what enables me to introduce my students to the discipline.  That I actually go to the major conference.  Anyhoodle, who shall be attending?  And shall we orchestrate a bloggy meet-up?

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Unspeakable Things

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Good News (Well, If One Looks on the Bright Side)

So I am very excited today because out of the blue a graduate seminar fell into my lap for next semester!  In place of a service course that I did not really want to teach anyway!

I know what you’re thinking.  Um, but that’s not really good news. That’s more work, and it’s last-minute work.  And why did this happen in the first place?

Well, my darlings, it happened in the first place because a colleague of mine got a course release to acknowledge all of the graduate students he has been advising, which I actually think is good – except for that I don’t think that it’s good that the only work that my chair seems to think is work is student-related.  But whatever.  I’m looking on the bright side.  And it was very generous of this colleague to give up his graduate class, as opposed to something else, and he very kindly suggested me to fill in for him.

But so anyway, instead of grading I have been scrambling around trying to figure out what I am going to put on this syllabus.  Which is so much more fun than grading!  Hooray!

Now, the problem is that although my colleague generously shared his syllabus, and that does help give me a place to start, I just don’t organize a class the way that my colleague does.  So basically, I am inventing an entirely new course.

Which is exciting!  And awesome!  And I’m assigning all of this cool shit that actually is stuff I’ve been reading for my book project!  Which is excellent!  And I’m going to organize the course very similarly to the way that I do my other grad class!  It rules!

The one thing that does not rule is that with this bit of news, it occurs to me that of the 8 courses that I teach this academic year, only 2 of those courses are literature courses.  One per semester.  And yet, the powers that oversee the schedule don’t understand why they feel like they can’t cover the literature requirements of the major with faculty.  Perhaps if a person (me) who can meet those literature needs weren’t being forced to teach comp every semester, and then pulled away from teaching literature to teach a range of other things instead of what she was actually hired to teach, in order to help out other people who are being released from teaching duties, this wouldn’t be a problem?

To be fair: I don’t want to be an ungrateful person here.  I’m actually really excited about this grad seminar, and getting into the rotation for this course might mean that I teach in the graduate program at least once a year if not once a semester.  And I like teaching theory, and I think I’m good at it, and I think it makes me a stronger literary critic.  But I miss literature courses.  I mean, literature is nice.  I love it.  And yet, somehow I only rarely see the inside of a literature classroom….

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What I Can’t Let Happen to Me

So Historiann featured a guest post by her frequent commenter Truffula today (it’s a great post – check it out!), but one line stood out to me, that is tangential to its actual topic, and I want to write about that.  Truffula writes:

Many of us down in the trenches at Provincial State U are going to counselors now. Our jobs are driving us crazy but we can’t afford to walk away.

This stood out to me in part because of a recent conversation I had with a colleague, in which that colleague asked whether he’d been horrible in a meeting and wanted to apologize if so…. I said, no, you were fine, and then the colleague revealed that he was concerned because he hadn’t remembered to take his anti-depressant that day, and apparently that is a Bad Thing when that happens.  I was taken aback, and I’m not even sure what I said in response.  And then the colleague continued that he needs meds “to handle this place.”

So here’s the thing.  I am not against seeking counseling when one needs help, and I even think that mood-adjusters are a good and necessary thing for people for a lot of reasons.  Look, if one needs help, one should get it, and that’s a good thing.  I am not pulling a Tom Cruise here – my problem is not with seeking help, or medication, to handle any number of things.

But if a day ever comes where I need to be drugged in order to go to work in the morning and be normal, or if I need counseling precisely because of my job – not because I am dealing with a wider-ranging depression or wider-ranging situational issues or another mental health condition, I really hope that I will be willing to take the risk to walk away from the job.

I know that’s easier said than done.  I know that it requires a certain financial cushion, and that it requires a certain kind of privilege in terms of other non-monetary resources in order to do that.  (Let’s note, I currently have neither.)  But also, I think that it takes a certain willingness to make that leap of faith because one’s sanity – one’s self – is more important than any job.

Look, I get ridiculously stressed out by some of the things in my job.  It’s stupid to think that one can be an academic and have that not be the case.  My things are surely different from the things of other people at different institutional types, but I think that in general it’s fair to say that this is a high-pressure career.  Stress comes with that.

And I probably should have sought counseling/drugs in the aftermath of my chair’s and father’s death/going up for tenure/revamping our gen ed curriculum/my grandmother’s death.  I didn’t: I ate my feelings instead.  This was not a “healthy” response by any means, but it’s what I did.  Thank God I had sabbatical after all of that, and (I think) I took back control over my life, not only in terms of the weight issue, but also in terms of my attitude to the job.  What I’ve been doing since return from sabbatical is that I try to be aware of how the job is affecting all the parts of my life, and when things reach “red alert” levels, which they have done at times over the past year, I strategize about ways to get out of whatever situation is putting me there.  And once I have a strategy, I follow through.  Because I am more important than any single part of my job.  Yes, that includes students.

In some ways, I think that this makes me less “good” at my job.  Or, well, it makes me less “outstanding in all areas.”  As I said to my dean earlier this semester, “I think I’m good at the work that I’m doing, and I think that the work that I’m doing is important, and I don’t know that there is anyone who can do [a particular job] as well as I do it.  But I’m not a martyr.”  Now, that’s the privilege of tenure: that you can, in the words of Bartleby the Scrivener, “prefer not to.”  And one of the tragedies of the proliferation of non-tenure-track faculty in universities (though not by any means the only one or even the most important one – clearly the biggest tragedy is the exploitation of people) is that the tenured don’t have the numbers to really make change happen through their resistance.

One of the things that I see, though, in many of my tenured colleagues – people whom I like and respect and value as colleagues, across my institution – is that for a variety of reasons, they will not put themselves before the job.  The reasons include personal inclination – they are workaholics – sure, but those reasons also include fear of retaliation from administrators, fear for their department’s futures, fear that in saying no they won’t have power or a voice in the conversation, fear that they won’t be able to advance and to achieve their career ambitions.

And what I don’t want to happen to me is I don’t want to be ruled by that sort of fear.  I don’t want to put myself into a mental health crisis because of a job.  I don’t want to stop liking my job because I’m not taking care of myself first.

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Crazy

 

 

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If you Invent a Time-Travel Machine….

Could you please send it over my way?  Because I would like to skip the next 6 hours during which I have 10 student conferences and a committee meeting that will likely take two hours. kthxbai

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