The New Rules of Teaching

 1. If you're teaching online, do not make your students turn on their cameras during classes that are taught on Zoom. They may feel self-conscious about their living situation, so do not damage their self-esteem by requiring them to show their faces during class. Never mind the fact that they can use backgrounds provided by Zoom to hide their living situation. And yes, it's true that you don't know if they're actually paying attention in class or if they've logged on and then gone back to bed or are sending flirty emojis to their "bae" on Snapchat, but we should really not make their situation even more difficult than it already is.

2. If a student says they have the virus, do not require them to show proof, like a positive Covid test or a doctor's note. Why would they lie about why they have to miss class? Yes, students have falsely claimed that their grandparents/friends/hamster died in order to avoid attending class for years but we're in the middle of a PANDEMIC. So they would NEVER lie about this.

3. If students do miss class because they caught the virus, it's your responsibility to get them caught up by meeting with them outside of class. Yes, that takes extra time, and yes, you may need to drink your weight in coffee in order to stay awake for all those extra appointments. And no, you won't get paid extra. But the satisfaction of being there for your students should be payment enough.

4. All faculty should volunteer to help their students move into their dorms at the beginning of the semester. Yes, it's manual labor, and no, you won't get paid. But we'll all be showing the students and their parents that the faculty are there to make them feel welcome. And by "we", we are referring to the faculty, not ourselves, the administrators. You can't expect the administrators to do all that sweaty work in ninety degree weather! Do you know how much our designer clothes cost? Well, I guess not, since most faculty's salaries prevent you from shopping anywhere but places like Target or Walmart. But still!

5. Be lenient about late work. In fact, you should strongly consider eliminating the late work policy altogether. It is unfair to expect the students to turn in their work on time when they're already going through such a difficult time because of the pandemic. It's important to show compassion to them, even if it means that it will take them six weeks to complete a five-page paper. 

6. Be lenient about absences. The students are going through SO MUCH right now, so it may be too difficult for them to attend a class that they (or their parents) are paying thousands of dollars for. It isn't fair to penalize them for missing class when they may be suffering from depression, the virus, family problems, or maybe they just don't feel like coming to class. And THAT'S OK. They should not be required to do more than they can handle. 

I've neglected blogging (and writing in general, unless it's for work) for months now mainly because of the rules above (and no, I'm not exaggerating; they sent out emails pressuring us to help the students move into their dorms, which I refused to do). One of my students missed more than a month's worth of classes, and my program director and the dean says I have to let the student come back to class and not penalize them for their absences because they had a medical reason for missing class. They also said that I should meet with the student as many times as they need outside of class in order to get them caught up and extend a bunch of deadlines for them. The student said that they hope to get "at least an A- or B+" in my class. 

A few months ago, I told my program director that certain students kept turning in blank documents and then would email me several days after the deadline of an assignment, claiming that it was a "mistake" and wanting to turn in the correct assignment late without any penalty. The director told me to let them and when I balked at this, they accused me of being too harsh and lacking empathy for the students.

I understand that the students really are going through a hard time. The pandemic was difficult for everyone, but especially teenagers, who had to miss out on things like school dances, their senior trip, and in-person classes. But at the same time it's incredibly frustrating and stressful to be forced to bend over backwards and do all this extra work for students who aren't even doing the bare minimum, like show up to class or turn  in their work on time (or at all). The teachers are also going through a hard time, but we don't get any leniency. We're just basically told to suck it up and keep working.

I want to say, "I'm going through a hard time too! I've been to the hospital dozens of times in the past year! I've already paid hundreds of dollars for prescription meds and medical bills, and I owe hundreds more! In a few years, I will be hooked up to dialysis machines three times a week until I get a kidney, and if I don't get one, I will be hooked up to those machines for the rest of my life! But I don't get to skip any of my classes. I don't get to turn in my work whenever the hell I want."

I also think that it isn't harsh to require students to show up and meet deadlines. If they don't learn this now, they will become the bad employees that annoy everyone else in the workplace, the ones who constantly call out "sick", show up late, and don't do their work, thus forcing everyone else to do their work for them. 

I keep hearing stories of teachers who've grown fed up and left the profession altogether. I've thought about it too. When I taught in Small Town, it was frustrating sometimes, but not to the extent that the job in College Town is. Even before the pandemic, I was struck by the entitlement and unrealistic demands (e.g., "Professor, are you available to meet with me on Saturday?" or "I don't think I should be penalized for missing class because my boyfriend just broke up with me, so I think you should take that into consideration" or "I know that the paper is due tomorrow, but I forgot to work on it. Could you just email me what the paper is about and how to write it?") of so many of the students in College Town. Not all of them are like this, but too many of them are. 

"Are you feeling stressed?" the dermatologist asked me when he examined my face, which has been covered with a scaly, peeling rash for months now (this is why I'm actually grateful that I could wear a face mask to cover it up). "I think you have perioral dermatitis, and it's triggered by stress."

I became so stressed out that I sought out short-term counseling, which is provided to faculty for free by the college. I told the counselor that I considered leaving College Town for another teaching job. "Well, you have to think about whether you're running away or running towards something," the counselor said. "If you're running away, you're hiding or avoiding problems. And it's quite possible that you'll face the same problems with students and administrators at the next college. But if you're running towards something, it means you're moving towards something that you know will make your life better."

And what he said struck a chord with me. Now, I have to figure out what will make my life better. I also learned to silence my phone so that I wouldn't keep hearing the notifications every time I received an email from my students. One day I got up early to write, and my phone went off not once but more than twenty times in that one day because of emails from my students asking questions about things that they would know the answer to if they'd bothered to listen in class or read the syllabus. And this is something that literally happens on a regular basis. It got to the point that I wanted to smash the phone and shriek, "MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!"

What about you? How has the pandemic affected you or your work?

My Life Is Not a Lifetime Movie

A few years ago, when I was still teaching at a college in Small Town, one of my students asked me out. I was coming out of my office on campus and was on my way to the library, when one of my students approached me. "Hey, Professor, could I ask you something?" he asked. 

"Is it about the grades?" I asked. "I told everyone that I'll post the grades online later this month." 

"Uh no, actually, my friends are having a party, and I was wondering if you'd like to go with me." 

Startled, I said, "No, I can't do that. Sorry, but I have to go." And then I turned and hurried off to the library, moving so rapidly that I might have left a trail of dust behind me.

This happened on the last day of the semester, so I didn't see the student again after that. That's probably why he waited until then to ask. 

If this were a Lifetime movie, I would have said yes, and then, in typical Lifetime movie fashion, either he would have turned out to be a menacing stalker, or I would have.

But my life is not a Lifetime movie. Was I tempted to say yes? NO, not even a little bit. I don't view the guys in my class as people I could date. I just think of them as students, who, along with my female students, are the reason that my hair is turning white. (I have to get it dyed every few months.)

Even though I instantly knew that I had no interest in dating the student who asked me out (or ANY of the students at the colleges that have employed me, for that matter), I tried to picture myself at the college party he invited me to. What if some of my other students were there? What would I even say to them? "Oh, yes, I'm here with your classmate. We're dating now. And by the way, let me know if you have any questions about your final grades. Okay, everybody DRINK!"

There have been other instances. RateYourProfessors.com used to have a chili pepper rating, where students could "award" their professors with a chili pepper if they thought the professors were hot. I was one of the faculty who was rated in that way. The chili pepper rating was eventually removed after a female professor (not me) complained that it was offensive and degrading. 

Another student at one of the other colleges where I used to teach had a crush on me. He never asked me out, but I could tell because he often lingered after class. He'd say things like, "Do you want me to erase the chalkboard for you, Professor? Do you need any other help with anything?" I always said no, but one time, I turned around after packing up my bag and he was literally right there behind me, which freaked me out. He said, "I just wanted to tell you that you did a really good job teaching today." 

I said, "Um, thanks, gotta go." And then I took off, leaving a trail of dust behind me.

I did tell my program director about the student who made me uncomfortable, but there wasn't anything the director could do at that point because technically, nothing he had done was against the rules, even though it was weird and seriously creeped me out. But the director did tell me to let her know if the student tried to go any further than that.

And I've never been inappropriate with any of my students. I never flirted with them or anything like that, so I don't know why they thought it was okay to make advances towards me, because it WASN'T. I thought maybe it was partly because I am a woman; it's often harder for women in academia to get respect from students than it is from men. For example, now that I have my doctorate, I use the title of "Doctor" in class. But every year, there are always a few students who disregard the title I earned and call me Miss ____, and I correct them every time. Almost every time, the students who disregard my title are guys. My male colleagues have not reported having this problem, but several of my female colleagues have.

Most colleges, including the one I currently work for, have strict rules against faculty dating students. A lot of colleges don't allow faculty to date students at all, at least not until after the students graduate. Others do allow it, but only if the student is not currently enrolled in the professor's class. 

Some schools won't even allow graduate students who work as teaching assistants to date the undergrads, even though technically, the T.A.s are still students. They say that it's a conflict of interest. For example, what if you were dating someone who is doing poorly in your class? Would you be able to remain objective and still give that student the grade he or she earned? 

Despite the strict rules that prohibit faculty from dating students, that obviously hasn't stopped some professors at colleges everywhere from dating them anyway, and I personally know a few of the ones who have. Most of them are middle-aged men pursuing students young enough to be their granddaughters. They typically get away with it because they either keep it a secret, or they are A-list scholars who bring in tons of money and recognition to their departments, so they get away with a lot of stuff that the rest of us academic plebeians would get fired for.

But I also know a female professor in Small Town who was several years younger than me who dated one of her students; she said that they didn't start dating until he was no longer in her class, but he was still enrolled in the college as a senior. They eventually broke up after a few months, and she started dating someone (not a student) who was significantly older than her.

Those young people often think that the professors are so smart, sensitive and romantic because they can do things like quote Shakespeare and poetry, but hello, all English professors can do that. It's like Puck said in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Lord, what fools these mortals be."

Some people might argue that as long as the student is of a legal age to consent, then both the student and the professor are consenting adults. Others might say that there are professors and students who ended up getting married after the students graduated, and the relationships lasted. And ultimately, it's true that it's their choice whether or not to date, not mine.

But in my opinion, professors who date students while the latter is still enrolled at the college, even if the students are no longer in the professors' classes, are taking a huge risk. I heard about a professor (not in College Town) who hooked up with one of his students, and then he moved on to another student. The first student reported him to the university, and he was fired. (The playwright William Congreve wrote, "Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.") He successfully sued his department and was reinstated in his job, but even the judge admonished him for his behavior. 

As a workaholic who has sacrificed almost everything else in my life that mattered for my work, I can't imagine risking everything I've worked for and everything I'm still working for. I may never get tenure, but there are still a lot of things that I want to do. At the very least, I want my contract to be renewed at the college I am currently teaching at, and a relationship with a student might negatively affect my chances of renewal. There are also opportunities for promotion at this school, or if I eventually have enough publications and awards, I could possibly move on to a more prestigious school in the future. I'm also interested in teaching at a military college (they occasionally hire civilians to teach the core subjects like English, math, and science) because the pay and benefits are typically better than at civilian schools. I want to publish scholarly books that are related to the research I did for my dissertation and master's thesis. I want to do so many things that would be very difficult (or in some cases, impossible) to do if I were to do just one thing, which is date a student.

One's professional reputation is very important in any workplace, but it's especially important in academia where almost any time a full-time college teaching job becomes available, even if it's not on the tenure track, there are literally hundreds of people applying for it. I want to have a reputation where I'm known for being a good scholar, teacher, and writer. I don't want to be known as the professor who hooks up with her students, which is why I have never done it and will never do it.

There's also the fact that I am a lot older than my students. Many people have told me that I look young for my age, but that doesn't change the fact that at 39, I am an entire drinking age older than most of my students, which makes ME want to drink. That's why even if those guys weren't my students, I still wouldn't want to date any of them. Legally, they may be adults, but in every other sense of the word, most of them still have a lot of growing up to do. I don't mean that as an insult. I still had a lot of growing up to do when I was that age. When I was eighteen, I scheduled my college classes around episodes of All My Children, and I wanted to marry Ricky Martin (insert facepalm here).

When I first started teaching, I was still in my twenties, and several of my students were older than me. One of them invited me to go out for drinks, but I said no back then, too. If one of my older students were to ask me out today, I would still say no. 

The men I know who date younger women claim that they want women who can have kids more easily than middle-aged women can. That may be true, but I think they also want women whose bodies have not yet been affected by giving birth. 

I'm not totally opposed to May-December relationships. I think there are some instances where it can work, and it can lead to lasting, loving connections. But I think that when one person is a student and the other person is a teacher, it blurs the lines that are supposed to be in place between the faculty and the students. The teacher is in a position of authority, and in my opinion, he or she should remain professional and adhere to ethical standards.

What about you? What do you think of teachers who date their students? What is your opinion of May-December relationships?

Throwaway Teacher

A couple months ago, Small Town Guy proposed a Zoom meetup for everyone in our social circle since we were all still living under the shelter in place order. I'd kept in touch with Small Town Guy and my other friends in Small Town through Facebook and texting, but I hadn't actually seen any of them since I moved to College Town three years ago.

The first time we all talked on Zoom, we ended up talking for more than three hours. It was wonderful to see all of them again and hear about their lives, as well as tell them about my life here in College Town. Small Town Guy is now living with his girlfriend. When I saw him on screen, I thought of how just a few years ago I thought I was head over heels for him, but whatever I felt for him paled in comparison to what I felt for the Model. Nevertheless, I couldn't help feeling a small pang when I saw him with his girlfriend in the house they share. I thought that if he had felt the same way about me back then, I might have suffered a lot less heartache than what I went through with the Model, especially because even though Small Town Guy has his flaws, he's not a narcissistic sociopath like the Model is. On paper, Small Town Guy was almost perfect for me (whereas the Model was wrong for me in pretty much every way), but he just wasn't that into me.

We all had such a good time talking to each other on Zoom that we arranged more Zoom meetups. But the most recent one ended badly, at least for me. I want to preface this by saying that I actually liked Small Town Guy's girlfriend because she was a nice person and I'd never had a conflict with her before. The Girlfriend, who is a tenured professor at the college where I used to teach in Small Town (though unlike me, she does not teach English classes because she works for a different department), kept talking about an award she'd won for her research.

Then we started talking about the classes we were teaching. I mentioned how a few of my students were not doing their assignments in the freshman composition classes I was teaching, and the Girlfriend said, "Well, that's because it's a throwaway class that no one cares about."

And that's was the moment that I wished that I was with her in person, so that I could do THIS:



via GIPHY

I didn't say anything right away, but through the webcam I could see my facial expression change from a cheerful smile to something more like this:



via GIPHY

I didn't say anything for a long time, until someone else commented that I was being really quiet. Finally, I spoke up: "You know, I don't think that the General Education classes that I teach are 'throwaway classes'. I think that they're important too."

The Girlfriend quickly said, "Oh, I wasn't talking about your classes." But she knows that as an untenured faculty member, the only classes that I am literally allowed to teach are General Education classes, like freshman composition and lower-level literature classes, whereas as a tenured professor, she gets to teach advanced classes and graduate seminars.

Small Town Guy did not say much either. He stayed out of the conversation and got down on the floor to play with their dog, maybe so he wouldn't have to look me in the eye or witness the smoke coming out of my ears.

I told them that I had to go and I logged out of the conversation. But here's what I wanted to say to the Girlfriend and to the others, many of whom were also tenured professors: "I'm not like you. I'm not on the tenure track. I most likely never will be. I admit that I envy you. But I don't resent your success because you earned it. But I work hard too, and I'm a good teacher. Yet no one will ever recognize the value of my work like they do yours just because I'm not a tenured professor. I'm not even eligible for more than half the awards that you've won because I'm untenured. Untenured faculty like me teach bigger classes and have heavier courseloads so that tenured professors like you can teach fewer, smaller classes that are related to your pet projects.

"Yes, it's true that most of the students don't want to take GenEd classes. But there's a reason that the classes I teach, unlike the classes YOU teach, are required for almost every college student in the country. The skills and knowledge I teach, like writing, are essential in college AND the workplace. I'm not saying that your classes aren't important too, but I AM saying that my classes are not 'throwaways' either.

"The reason some students ask for extensions isn't always because they view my classes as throwaways that they don't care about, as you so thoughtlessly put it. It's because they spend at least 6-7 hours a day on their phones and 1-2 hours a day on their homework. Then the deadlines start piling up and they panic and ask me for extensions. But not all of my students are like that. Some of them show me several pages of notes and outlines they wrote for a five-page paper. They want to do well and are willing to work hard.

"I know you didn't mean to insult me. But you did. And I need you to understand where I'm coming from, so that you'll understand why it's not okay to say crap like that."

But I didn't say that. I wish I had. It made me think of the pandemic and how although millions of people were furloughed or lost their jobs, others were classified as "essential" workers and were able to keep working. It made me wonder about the value people place on certain jobs and how it must have affected the people who weren't classified as "essential", even though their work was important too.

It also made me think of how that conversation, as well as the Girlfriend's attitude, was indicative of the hierarchical nature of academia. It's a world where there are way too many people with PhDs and not enough jobs, so we all have to do whatever we can to succeed. It's so competitive that it's cutthroat. And there's definitely a wide gap between the tenured faculty and untenured faculty because of the disparity in how we're treated and paid. But it's also a world that I chose to work and live in, so it's just something that I have to deal with.

But the next time they organize a Zoom meetup, I'm going to say that I can't join in. I'll just say something like, "Oh, I can't. I have to replenish my voodoo doll collection so that I can cast a curse on someone tonight, one that will hopefully cause them to have nightmares that make them wake up screaming or one that will cause their hair to turn into the snakes that adorned Medusa's head. But have fun on Zoom!"

I'm not saying I'll never talk to them again because I will. But I think it's best if I not participate in the next Zoom meetup because what the Girlfriend said still bothers me, and I don't want to lash out at her or any of the others.

What about you? Do you deal with competitive or condescending people in your line of work? Are you an essential worker, and if so, what has it been like for you?

Truth Be Told

Recently, a former friend of mine published a memoir that included recollections of the small town we grew up in. There were several aspects of it that made me bristle and say, "Hey! That's not how I remember it!"

For example, Former Friend claimed that at our Catholic high school, there was only one single-session sex ed class a year, and it was taught by our gym teacher. But although it is true that they didn't really teach us much about "safe sex," what I also remember is that our religion teachers taught sex ed. I remember that sex ed occurred a lot more often than once a year, probably because they were afraid that we hormonal teenagers would be "corrupted" by the sin of premarital sex. (Little did they know that a lot of the students' minds had already been corrupted. If they had known, I can totally imagine the religion teachers shaking their heads sorrowfully while saying that we were going to go to hell unless we repented and the priests throwing holy water at us or something.)

(Side note: Although I am still a practicing Catholic and believe in many of its core principles, such as the Golden Rule of treating other people with kindness and compassion, there are several other things about the Church that I strongly disagree with.)

I don't remember our gym teacher teaching us sex ed, although he may have taught it to Former Friend and their classmates (Former Friend was in a different grade). I do remember that when the gym teacher taught us how to lift weights, he stood over us and yelled, "You're WEAK! Is that all you can benchpress, WEAKLING?" I also remember wishing I could say, "Who are you calling a weakling? Take THAT!" And then I'd karate kick him in the face.

Former Friend's memoir made me think about what might happen if I ever publish my work-in-progress, a book-length memoir titled Obsessions of a Workaholic. Since it's not a novel, I can't say, "It's fiction, and it's not based on you, of course," if someone from my life were to read it and get upset by my depiction of him or her. Everything that I've described in this blog really did happen, but I've had to alter the descriptions of some of the situations and/or people in order to protect their identities and my own.

That makes me wonder how much "altering" I'll need to do in my book. Since teaching has been such an important part of my life, naturally there are several chapters about my work as a teacher. But I have to be very careful about what I write, especially when it comes to the students.

Many of my students are good students who work hard, are polite and respectful to me and their classmates, and are dedicated to earning good grades and learning as much as they can while they are in college. Some of them have truly inspired me because of the writing they produced in my class or because of what they confided in me about their dreams for the future, which made me hope that all of their dreams would come true.

But as any teacher can relate, every year there is always a small, select group of students who are the complete opposite: the ones who are hostile and disrespectful, or the ones who believe they "deserve" A's just for showing up to class. These students are why my hair started turning white the first year I started teaching, and they are also why I always keep a bottle of Tylenol in my office at school.

Since I'm still working on the first draft, I've been writing down all the details that I can remember, everything from the student who confided in me about what it was like to be a transgender teenager in a community that believes people like them are mentally ill, to the student whose verbal attacks almost drove me to tears in front of one of the first classes I ever taught, causing several of the other students to feel sorry for me and apologize to me for that student's behavior after class was over.

I recently read a book titled Waiter's Rant, written by Steve Dublanica, who wrote about his experiences as a waiter at a fancy restaurant that the rich and famous dined at. His book was based on his blog, where he initially wrote under the pseudonym the Waiter. Once he revealed his true identity, he admitted that he'd never be able to get another restaurant job because of what he wrote. Fortunately for him, his book became a New York Times best-seller and he didn't have to wait tables anymore after it was published.

But the difference between him and me is that he didn't want to be a waiter until he retired, whereas I know that I want to spend my life as a writer AND a teacher. The problem is, if I write the whole truth and nothing but the truth about my former students, especially the ones who gave me the most problems, I could lose my job. Teachers are held to a different standard. Academia is a small world, and it's not just competitive, it's cutthroat because there are way too many people with PhDs and not enough jobs. I am a college professor, but I am untenured, which means that I don't have the job security that tenured professors have. If I lost my job, there would literally be hundreds of people lined up who would be more than happy to take my place.

This generation of students in particular is the one known for their "microaggressions" and demands for "trigger warnings" in their curriculum. Most of the students I've come across over the years are not like them, but there are nevertheless a few others I've read about in the news (as well as ones I've encountered in my own classes) who claimed that they were "offended" by things that their teachers said or wrote and then launched campaigns to destroy those teachers' careers and reputations, driving them out of their schools, and in some cases, out of education altogether. Sometimes, the teachers really did say offensive things, but in other cases, they didn't, but were nevertheless interpreted as such. Either way, I don't think that any of them deserved to be the target of hateful harassment campaigns.

Although I've achieved several of my academic and professional goals, I still have other goals. And I'm afraid that if this memoir did get published, I could lose everything I've worked for and everything I'm still working for if I revealed too many details about certain students.

I thought that if this book does get published, I could use my pseudonym: Neurotic Workaholic. But if and when I do become a published writer, I'd like to see my real name printed on my story, and if and when that happens, I'll reveal it on this blog. That's the thing about this blog: I can be more candid here because almost no one in my offline life knows that I'm the one writing this blog. It's different when it's a published book or short story.

For now, I've decided to follow Anne Lamott's advice about writing the "bad" first draft by including everything that I can remember, and I'll go back and edit it once I finish the first draft. I also try to remember what I've learned from other creative nonfiction writers I've read and heard speak: that what you write in creative nonfiction doesn't necessarily have to be 100% factual, as long as the core of what you're saying is true. David Sedaris, after all, is a creative nonfiction writer, but even he "embellishes" the truth about what happened. Dave Barry's hilarious columns are funny partly because he exaggerates a lot of things.

I think that one possible solution is that rather than describe the problem behavior of specific students, I could describe the problem behavior of a range of students, like the ones who sit in the back of the classroom, listen to music on their phones (even after I tell them to take off their headphones, they'll protest by saying, "But the music isn't even that loud!" And then I make a mental note to take some Tylenol right after class), and tune me out for weeks until they get their grades back. Then they blame ME when they don't get A's, and I also make a mental note to get my hair dyed to cover the white hair that is literally sprouting from my head at that moment. That might be less controversial than describing specific students.

What about you? Do you write creative nonfiction? If you do, how do you write about the "problematic" people you've encountered in your life? What do you think of memoirists who "embroider" the truth, as the writer Ruth Reichl admitted doing in her memoirs? (I love her books, regardless.)

#amwriting

Ever since I got back from New York, I've been writing almost every day. Although I know that a lot of people prefer to work on one story at a time (and I can totally understand why since they can get it done faster), my workaholic nature has caused me to "multi-task" when it comes to my writing. That is, I'm currently working on three different stories: a novel that I drafted years ago but never revised, a creative nonfiction piece about teaching that I plan to submit to literary magazines that publish creative nonfiction, and a book-length creative nonfiction story: Obsessions of a Workaholic. I thought about just focusing on one of the stories, but I've been so excited about getting the words down on paper that I'm afraid I'll lose or forget them somehow if I put it off.

I've found that it's easier to write regularly when I incorporate it into my regular routine, like I did with exercise. Most days, I'd rather listen to Kylie Jenner talk about her lip fillers for an hour than spend that same hour working out, but because I'm now so used to working out at least 4-5 times a week, I feel worse if I don't go. And it's paid off, too, because I lost twenty pounds this summer. Although I still have more weight that I want to lose, the fact that I exceeded my weight-loss goal this summer has me dancing like this:
 
via GIPHY
By a similar token, by making a point of working on my writing at least 4-5 days a week, even just for half an hour a day, it's gotten much easier to motivate myself to sit at my desk or go to a coffee shop and write, instead of lie on my bed and watch YouTube videos on my phone.

It's easier for me to write out my first drafts in longhand in notebooks at coffee shops (the baristas like me because I always tip them, and I do that so that they won't mind if I occupy one of their tables for an hour or two) or in my office at school.

Then when I write the second draft, I type it out onto my laptop at home and start making changes at that point. But if I try to write out the first draft on my laptop, my mind wanders and I start Googling random things, like "what does it mean when Millennials say 'That's so lit'? Is that a drug reference?" Or I start watching YouTube music videos of bands from the '90s, like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and then of course I start Googling "whatever happened to the OTHER members of Nirvana?" which leads to too much wasted time on Wikipedia.

I've also joined writing groups: one for my creative writing, which is a Meetup group that meets at a coffee shop near my apartment every week, and one for my scholarly writing (in academia, the prevailing attitude towards scholarly writing is "publish or perish"), which has monthly meetings on campus at the college where I teach.

Since Creative Nonfiction is one of the literary magazines I plan to submit to (actually, I already submitted a story about my life in Small Town to them earlier this summer, which probably won't get published, but it felt good just to put my writing out there), I paid $22 for a package that included an issue of their magazine, several issues of their "mini-magazine", True Story, and an anthology of stories that have been published in their magazines. They say that you should read the magazines that you want to write for, so that you get a better sense of what they're looking for. The package also included cool writer's swag, like a tote bag, a pen, and a small notebook.

Thus, I've managed to be very productive in the last weeks of summer, and after all the emotional turmoil I went through earlier this summer, it feels good to have a renewed sense of energy and focus on my work again. I've especially enjoyed working on my memoir, Obsessions of a Workaholic. All these years that I spent blogging about my life as a workaholic, I didn't realize that I was in a sense writing the first draft of this book. When I originally started blogging, I was just doing it for fun and so I could take a break from the scholarly writing that I'd been immersed in during grad school. But I've realized that there is a lot of stuff from this blog that I could use for the book, and I've also been fleshing it out and reorganizing it into a more linear narrative. It will take months to finish that book, but once I finally do, I will go back to work on another memoir: one about my experiences as a member of seven different online dating sites over the course of a decade. Even though it will be tough to make time for writing during the school year, I try to remember what I heard a successful writer say once: that even if you only write one page a day, in a year's time you'll have more than enough pages for a book.

What about you? How's your writing going, and what are you working on? What's your writing process like?

Rap Lyrics, Internet Curses, and a Heart Made of Stone

I deleted my Bumble account last weekend. As I predicted, I didn't get to go on any dates with any of the guys on Bumble this time around. I imagined several guys going through the online dating profiles, seeing mine, and possibly thinking, "Hmm, she's attractive, maybe...oh, wait, she's 37? Swipe LEFT! Swipe LEFT!" (I think that the guys in their thirties in particular did this a lot.)

On Bumble, if you and the other person both "swipe right" on each other's profiles, then you're "matched". I actually got dozens of matches, but when I wrote to the guys, they either didn't write back at all or wrote a couple messages and then pulled disappearing acts. I think the ones who answered might have thought they were being polite, but I think it's rude because it gives people like me false hope.

My heart wasn't really in online dating this time around. I didn't really want to date anyone, but I thought I should since I have the summer off from teaching and thus have more time to date. But after the Model took my heart and stomped all over it with the girlfriend he never told me about, I no longer want to even try to date anyone.

Like I wrote last week, something froze up inside of me when I realized that he used me to cheat on his girlfriend, and it's like my heart has turned to stone. I find myself turning back into the full-fledged workaholic I was back in my twenties, before I screwed up my life by dating, the kind of person who was solely focused on her work. Back then, I occasionally noticed if a guy was attractive, but I felt no emotion for him. I didn't really feel any kind of romantic emotions for anyone for years. For now, it's the person that I need to be because despite all the anger, bitterness, and resentment I feel towards the Model for what he did to me, there is still a part of me that has lingering feelings for him. I hate that weak, stupid part of myself, and I want to destroy it and make it disappear forever. And I hate him a thousand times more.

I've been keeping busy, in order to keep my mind off of him and the pictures his girlfriend posted on her Instagram page from their trip to Mexico, where she gushed about her love for him and referred to him as "my boo" and bragged about their "baecation" (She could be the nicest person in the world, but because she gets to be with the person I wanted to be with for the past year, I'll always be biased against her. Also, I think that anyone who uses the word "baecation" deserves to be slapped in the face with a thesaurus.)

Despite my love for pop music and singers like Taylor Swift and Britney Spears, I've been listening to a lot of rap music lately. There is a lot of anger, sadness, and passion in these rappers' lyrics, and listening to them makes me feel a little better because I can relate to what they wrote. For example, Cardi B's song, "Be Careful," totally captures what I'm feeling right now, though I should warn you there are a lot of four-letter words in her song, which is really good nevertheless:



I've been rereading the 300-page dissertation I wrote when I was a Ph.D. candidate, mining it for ideas for articles. In order to advance in academia, it's not enough to be a good teacher; you have to establish your reputation as a scholar by publishing articles in scholarly journals, presenting your research at academic conferences, and writing scholarly books. I've also been reading other resources, like The Professor Is In, which gives really detailed advice on the academic job market, and How to Write Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. I've been spending a lot of time at the library on the campus of the school where I teach, poring over the books written by scholars in my field. Being around all those books, immersing myself in other people's ideas and dreams, is also comforting.

I've been working out five days a week this summer, and I cut way down on my junk food intake. I've lost ten pounds in the past two months, and I feel really good about that. In the back of my mind, though, I keep thinking of cake and people laughing at me while they eat cake.

I've been revising another story I've been working on, and I plan on sending it to another creative nonfiction magazine soon. I've cleaned almost every inch of my apartment and reorganized my closet. I read somewhere that cleaning can be therapeutic because you're bringing order out of chaos. I'm still doing work for my website job, and I picked up a lot of extra hours.

I've been planning my upcoming trip to New York City (I'm leaving in two weeks!) and making a list of all the things I want to do: visit Central Park, eat ice cream at Serendipity Cafe, and yell at rude people on the street, which is apparently something you can only do in big cities without people thinking that you're weird.

I've been trying to keep as busy as possible because if I stop to think about how the Model slept with me just two weeks before he took his girlfriend to Mexico, how he ignored my texts where I tried to confront him about her, and how I realized that he never cared about me, I know I'll start crying again. The first time I saw those pictures of them together in Mexico, I was at the movies by myself, watching The Incredibles 2. Everyone around me was laughing at the movie, while I sat there in the dark, clutching my phone and crying quietly.

If I let myself think about him (or her) too much, then I'll start Googling curses on the Internet, using search terms like "how to make him impotent for life" or "how to make him have nightmares that cause him to wake up screaming every day". I find myself wanting to track him down and go all Chicago on his lying face and smack that smug look right off him. If I let myself slow down, even just for a moment, I'll look at her Instagram page again and see the pictures of them together, and then I'll feel miserable all over again.

Sometimes I think that feelings, especially romantic ones, are overrated, and that maybe a heart made of stone and a life devoted to my work are just what I need right now.

What about you? Have you ever gotten your heart broken? If you have, how did you cope with it?

The Sky Is Falling...Or At Least, My Ceiling Did

Last week was a rough week. On Monday, I went to the dentist for the first time in over a year, and to my dismay, I was informed that I have three cavities. The dentist said it was partly because I grind my teeth a lot, which means I also need a new bite guard that I have to wear at night. The fillings and the bite guard are only partly covered by my insurance and will cost me hundreds of dollars. I got the fillings yesterday. I was tempted to start thrashing around in the dentist's office or grab one of the drills and start shrieking at the staff, "Get back! Get back! I'd rather let all my teeth fall out!" As it was, they gave me so much general anesthesia that my mouth literally looked lopsided for hours afterwards (is that normal? I looked like the Joker, and it freaked me out!)

On Tuesday, I was at my desk in my living room, doing work for my website job, when I heard a loud thud in my bedroom. I went in there and saw that a large chunk of the ceiling had literally caved in. There was a huge hole in my ceiling, and insulation was all over the floor. A few weeks ago, I noticed a water stain on the edge of the ceiling (the same area where the ceiling caved in) and told the maintenance crew at my building about it. Their "solution" was to just paint over it.

I didn't react well when the ceiling caved in. I literally started crying in front of the maintenance crew and my landlord. I was freaking out. What if the ceiling had caved in on my head while I was sleeping? What if the ceiling in my living room caved in too? I was angry that this was even an issue in the first place, and I yelled at all of them. I wish I hadn't, but at the same time, I think I had the right to be upset. They were nice about it, though, and my landlord offered me a partial rent credit for next month.

That's why last week, I had drywall guys, roofers, and painters going in and out of my apartment to try and fix my ceiling, while I struggled to do my work, despite the constant noise. They initially told me, "We'll be there late tomorrow morning to start working on it." What they meant was, "We'll show up before 8 AM, while you're still in your pajamas." That meant that I had to take a shower while several men I'd never seen before were in the next room.

They moved my mattress to my living room, and I tried to sleep there the first night. But I think I inhaled some of the drywall dust or something because I kept coughing all night and woke up with a headache. The cough didn't go away, and I battled a cold for the rest of the week. The landlord gave me the key to their fully furnished model apartment that they use to show prospective tenants, and said I could sleep there at night. I did sleep there several nights in a row (and I kept thinking to myself how tastefully decorated it was, that this was what it was like to live in a "grownup apartment" and not one with posters taped to the wall and a collection that included a One Direction DVD and a Backstreet Boys VHS tape). The bed in the model apartment was very uncomfortable, but it was better than nothing.

Just when I thought my week couldn't get any worse, on Friday, I made the mistake of looking at the Model's Instagram page. He often responds to his thousands of followers with flirty emojis, but one of them in particular stood out to me. I checked out her page, and I saw several recent pictures of them together, at her birthday party and at Navy Pier in Chicago. In all of the pictures, their arms were around each other.

It's been months since I even spoke to the Model because he moved to Chicago, which is very far away from College Town. But to see him not only with a new girlfriend (I have nicknamed her Anne Coulter's Evil Twin) but also to see him spend the day with her in Chicago, the city that I love and will always think of as home, made me burst into tears.

The whole thing made me realize that there are just some things I can't control or change. I can't control the fact that my ceiling caved in, or the fact that the Model will never want me again. But I can move on with my life. I can join Bumble or Tinder again (or both) and try to find someone special, at least one more time. I can stop looking at the damn Model's Instagram page. And if dating doesn't work out for me the next time around, I can embrace my life as a single person. After all, single life has its perks, like being able to live and travel wherever I want. And I don't have to have arguments with someone where I say stuff like, "Where is this relationship going?" or "Why did you post that on her Instagram page? You never talk to ME like that anymore," or "I seriously think your mother's trying to poison me" (that last one is from an actual Dear Prudence letter, and the mother-in-law really WAS trying to poison her!).

I can't change my "family", but I can spend less time with them. That's why I'm not going to my parents' house this summer for my biannual trip (I visit them for a week or so during Christmas and summer, which are two trips that I always dread).

I can't look like a Victoria's Secret model (and I don't even want to dress like them, either, seeing as how I dress like a spinster librarian from the 1930s), but I can lose weight by exercising more, cooking healthier meals, and eating less junk food.

I may never become a tenured professor. But I can continue teaching and become a respected scholar as well, by working on my research regularly, sending it out to scholarly journals, and presenting my work at academic conferences.

I can't change the fact that as long as I am a teacher, I will never be rich. But I can continue to work hard at teaching, pick up extra hours at my website job, and pay down my debt. Once I pay off my debts (which admittedly will take years, but even so), I can finally travel around the world, just like I've always wanted to.

What about you? What are things that you wish you could change, and what are things about your life or yourself that you can and want to change?

Office Space

In academia, one of the most noticeable distinctions between untenured faculty and tenured professors is that the latter get their own individual offices, whereas untenured faculty have to share offices or don't get any space at all.

At one of the schools where I used to teach, the English Department would often take over my office for various reasons, such as "because we CAN", which is why I often had to meet with students in the cafeteria during my office hours (which all faculty are required to keep every week in order to be available to help students outside of class, regardless of whether or not they actually have an office). Nothing says, "I have arrived" like telling your students to meet you at the table next to the place where they make cheese sticks.

At another school where I used to teach, there was one office with about half a dozen cubicles that dozens of instructors had to share. There was one computer that we were all expected to share as well. One particularly greedy, self-centered instructor hogged the computer all the time, leaving his books and papers there even when he wasn't using it. When I sat down in front of the computer once, he asked, "Are you even doing work for school right now?" I wanted to say, "Why don't you come a little closer and ask me that again?" I was ready to throw down and go all WWE on him, but I might have gotten in trouble for wrestling one of my colleagues, even though he was a jerk. (I wish him a lifetime of broken computers, limited office space, and colleagues who are exactly like him.)

In Small Town, I shared an office with one other teacher, who was rarely there for students outside of class, so I mainly had the office and the computer to myself. It was nice to be able to work in peace and meet with students without hearing people say stuff like, "HEY! Get your OWN French fries!" I also liked that the department laminated my name, along with my title of "Dr." and hung it on the door, which was a nice change from all the other offices where my name was simply written on an index card and taped to the door. When I left Small Town, I took my laminated name plate with me.

In College Town, my "office" is actually a cubicle in a large room full of other cubicles, though at least I get my own desk this time. I texted a picture of it to one of my friends, who remarked that it was an "officle". I decorated it with pictures of my friends, postcards, and colorful office supplies.

One of the things I like best about working in academia is that I don't have to work in an office from 9-5. I like that I can do a lot of my work from home or in coffee shops, where I tell baristas, "Hit me with your best shot...of espresso that is!" and they all look at me blankly, not getting the Pat Benatar reference because they were born when Britney first came on the scene.

But since I am required to have office hours every week, I do have to spend several hours a week in my officle. I like the faculty; they've all been very nice and welcoming to me. But here is a small glimpse of what it's like to share office space with them:

Coworker #1: It is too cold in here. I'm turning off the A/C, okay?
Me: (sweat dripping down my face) Um, could we leave it on, please?
Coworker: OK, but I have to raise it to at least 75 because it is just so darn cold.
Me: (what I'd like to say: But if you're cold, you can put on a sweater. When I'm hot, I can't take off my shirt because then I'd just end up flashing all the undergrads and this is a college campus, not a Girls Gone Wild video.)

Coworker #2: Mm, this sandwich tastes so good.
Me: I bet all those onions make it taste like that. It's very, um, appetizing.

Coworker #3: How are your classes going? Did I tell you what happened in my class? (Launches into 15-minute story)
Me: (knows it would be unethical and illegal to slip a sedative into coworker's coffee, and yet...)

Also, it's not just my fellow faculty members; it's their students (as well as mine) coming in and out of the office to talk about their papers and their classes. There's constant chatter, and it can be a wee bit distracting.

But on the other hand, I keep reminding myself that officle aside, the point is that I have a better job than I did before, with a better salary too, as well as students who don't ask for a one-week extension to write a five page essay (after already being given three weeks to work on it). Sometimes, I walk around campus and feel lucky and glad to be there, especially after the stress I went through this past summer, where I was worried about not finding a job.

I will, however, be buying more coffee and a desk fan. And possibly sedatives.

What about you? What does your office space look like, either at work or at home?

Singing My Way Out of the South

Before I left Small Town for good, Small Town Guy organized a going-away dinner for me. Nine of my friends showed up for the dinner, which meant a lot to me. When I first moved to Tennessee, I didn't know a single person there. I'd come from a life in Chicago that revolved around work, eating alone in school cafeterias, and kicking/and or swearing at guys who tried to grope me on the El. My life in Small Town also revolved around work, but it also included shared meals and parties with friends. When I look back on the two years I spent in the South, I'll miss the friendships I made there the most.

I remember looking at everyone as we ate together and spent hours talking, and thinking to myself, It'll never be like this with them ever again. Sure, I might come back to visit, but that is a long time from now (I have to pay off at least some of the enormous debt I incurred from all my moving expenses first), and by the time I come back, some people will have moved on to other places too and new people will have shown up, and it won't be the same. It made me feel sad when I thought of how this was yet another important part of my life that I had to give up in order to pursue a career in academia.

Although many things bothered me about my life in Small Town, such as the fact that I wasn't treated fairly at work, drivers who drove fifteen miles an hour in the left lane, and neighbors who yelled "WHOOOO" approximately five hundred times a night while tossing beer cans in the parking lot, there are some things I'll miss, other than my friends.

I'll miss the mild weather (it felt like spring lasted a lot longer there), even though Small Town basically shut down during the winter. There were usually no more than a couple inches, but it was enough to make most of the restaurants, stores, and schools shut down. People frantically stocked up at Walmart for the "blizzard," and I'd say, "You mean the snow that is melting as we speak?" In the Midwest, we get several feet of snow, wear multiple layers of clothing for more than two-thirds of the year, and keep ourselves warm by complaining about how cold it is.

I'll miss the mountains. As I drove out of the South, I went from driving past the green mountains of Tennessee to the flat farmland of the Midwest. Sometimes when I got claustrophobic in Small Town, I'd drive to bigger cities and towns, but what I enjoyed most was looking at the mountains. I never failed to marvel at how beautiful they all were.

I'll miss the interesting cities in Tennessee, including Nashville, which was my favorite. It was several hours away from Small Town, but I liked going there because of its thriving literary scene, including the open mic nights and poetry readings that were held there every week, hosted by hipsters who would no doubt have tossed their man buns at me in disgust if they saw all the pop songs on my playlist (I heart you, Taylor Swift. You too, Ariana Grande.) I even took a one-day writing workshop at The Porch, which is a writer's collective.

Nashville also has a really good music scene. A few months ago, I watched Vanessa Carlton perform (she sounds just as good live as she does on her albums) at 3rd and Lindsley, a bar that has a Sunday night concert series.

I also went to a concert at the Grand Ole Opry (there were a variety of musicians that I didn't recognize, but they were all very good), where several people attended wearing cowboy hats and boots. I also walked down Broadway in Nashville, which is full of honky tonk bars where aspiring country musicians perform. I bought a soda in a couple of those bars and listened to the musicians sing, and I thought it was so cool that I basically had access to all these "concerts" for the price of a couple bucks.

I told the English Department secretary at my former school about my new job in College Town, and I remarked about how I had spent almost my entire life in the Midwest. She said, "Well, maybe it's where you need to be." Maybe she's right, at least for now. But I think it was good for me to get out of my comfort zone, live in a state that I had never been to before, work at a rural college, teach students whose mindset was very different from my Chicago students (in Small Town, several students wore Make America Great Again hats. If they did that in Chicago, people would probably snatch the hats right off their heads, yell, "What's the matter with you, FOOL?" and throw the hats into oncoming traffic), and make new friends.

Before I left, I made a "Southern Songs" playlist made up of country music. Even though I felt sad to leave my friends behind, I sang practically the whole time I drove out of the South.

What about you? If you were to leave your town/city behind, what would you miss most?

Not Gay, Just a Workaholic

Recently, I went to visit my parents for a few days. My mother told me about some guy that she wants to set me up with, who has a white-collar job with a large salary. I suspect that since she couldn't convince me to give up my underpaid teaching jobs in academia, she thinks that I might as well marry someone who's overpaid. I was tempted to tell her that if I cared that much about being rich, I wouldn't have become an English teacher. But I didn't, though I did reject her attempt to set me up with that guy.

Later, she asked me if I was gay. She doesn't like or understand why I'm in my thirties and unmarried, while her friends and relatives' daughters, many of whom are younger than I am, are already married with children or are engaged. I told her, "No, I'm not gay. Just a workaholic."

I will admit that it's been more than a year since I went on a date. I went on a date with someone in Small Town last year (no comment on that one). And towards the end of grad school, I did have what Millennials call a "situationship" with a guy that I met, not on an online dating site, but through casual acquaintances. By "situationship" I mean it was not quite a serious relationship but it was definitely more serious than a friendship.

I didn't blog much about him, although I think I referred to him as He Who Shall Not Be Named. Although we did care about each other, we were very different and ended up disappointing each other again and again. I haven't talked to him since I moved to Small Town, although I'm sometimes curious about how he's doing (but definitely not curious enough to friend him on Facebook or call him on the phone).

In Small Town, most of the men I've met are married or have girlfriends. Not to mention I knew that my time here had an expiration date, and part of me thought that there wasn't much point in trying to start something with anyone around here when I would be leaving sooner rather than later.

My contract at my new school is for one year, but it's renewable, which is pretty typical for untenured jobs. My new employer said that some of the untenured faculty in their department have been there for many years, which gives me hope that I might get to stick around longer this time.

That's why, now that I'm moving to College Town, I've started thinking that maybe I should try dating again. Some of you have suggested Meetup, which I'm interested in trying. I might also try online dating again, despite my previous experiences that weren't so great, like the guy who made up an excuse to leave our date early (and left me with the bill for dinner), or the guy who waited a month to call me after our one date and then insulted me for turning him down for a second date, or the online dating profiles from guys who ranted about being "nice guys" who couldn't get dates from superficial women whose standards were too high (I think that their definition of "nice" and my definition of "nice" are very different, but I digress.)

I kept putting off dating again because of my stressful work schedule and because I wanted to wait until I got back down to a size 8 (unfortunately, I gained weight after moving to Small Town, but I've since lost half the weight that I gained). I also reasoned that in academia, you can't be too picky about where you live; you have to go where the work is. And if you're single and get a good job opportunity halfway across the country like I did, you have the freedom to just pack up and go, without worrying about how it'll affect your significant other or your relationship with that person. But there's always going to be an excuse not to date, and I'm tired of making excuses.

After I move to College Town, get settled, and get used to the daily grind of life at my new school, I'm going to try dating again. I've thought about trying Tinder, since that's the big dating app these days. I thought it was just for hookups (which I'm NOT interested in), but more than one of my friends have met their significant others through Tinder.

What about you? If you are/were single, what are possible reasons you have/had about being reluctant to date again? Have you heard anything about Tinder?

Maybe When Hell Freezes Over

I haven't blogged in almost a month because ever since I found out that I was not rehired for the 2017-2018 school year at the school that's employed me for the last two years, I've been frantically applying to all the schools that are still posting job openings. I've applied to about twenty schools in the past few weeks (and I applied to many more schools before that).

And I've been doing fine, really. I mean the fact that other than my part-time website job, I have no job leads and will end up on the street if I don't find a full-time job has me as cool, calm, and collected as this:


via GIPHY

My mother keeps calling to ask me if I've found a job yet. She keeps saying stuff like, "Well, you chose to work in that field." (When I was eighteen, I stood up to her for the first time in my life and chose to major in English, rather than choose the major and the career that she wanted. To this day, she still hasn't forgiven me.) She also said that if I can't pay my rent, she and my father can't give me any money (I didn't ask her for money, BTW, and I have no intention of doing so), but I can move back in with them. My reaction to that was basically this:


via GIPHY
First of all, there is no way in HELL that I will ever move back in with my parents. I haven't lived with them in eighteen years, and I'd rather move in with Sean Spicer AND Sean Hannity than do that.

One thing's for sure: I have to leave Small Town. My lease ends in the middle of August, so I have to be out of here by then.

I still have hope, though. When I was hired for my most recent teaching job two years ago, they didn't even offer me a job until July. So there's still a little bit of time, but I find myself growing more anxious (and more likely to start climbing the walls) as the days go by.

What didn't help, though, was that two members of the committee that decided not to rehire me at my old job invited me out for lunch about a week after I was rejected. They acted like nothing had happened and mentioned wanting to try a new restaurant that opened in town.

I politely declined, and I resisted the urge to say, "I'm not available now, but maybe when hell freezes over? Or maybe when Trump starts Tweeting things that don't make him sound like a narcissistic freak show? So basically, NEVER."

Maybe they wanted to explain why they voted against me (and I know for a fact that they did). But I'm not interested in listening to their rationalizations. I wasn't really friends with those two members, though they taught in my department and I had lunch with them a couple times to be polite. But now that I am no longer working there, I have zero incentive to be friends with them, and I don't want to take the risk that if I were to have lunch with them, I might "accidentally" hurl something at them. But I digress.

Like I said before, it's complicated to be friends with people at work, especially when those people have authority over your job. And I was never friends with either of them to begin with. But they kept inviting me out to lunch, kind of like the girl who continues to believe that the guy who stopped returning her calls three months ago will eventually marry her. And the trouble is, since this is a small town, there's always the risk that I will run into them, in which case I will have no choice but to do this:


via GIPHY

I also can't help feeling angry at them for voting against me. The person they chose instead of me is also someone that I know, and although that person is perfectly nice, they are not better at their job than I am (and I have evidence of this, too). Maybe they had other valid reasons, but still, I can't help feeling that they're either totally naive or arrogant to think that I would still be up for a lunch with them where things did not get thrown.

In the meantime, I'm continuing to apply for jobs, and keeping my fingers crossed. Hopefully I'll find a full-time teaching job soon. And if not, well...

What about you? Have you ever been in a state of uncertainty (and also, in my case, just a little bit of PANIC) over where you were going to end up when it came to your work?

Good at My Job

"You're my favorite teacher. I really enjoyed your class."

"I didn't even like reading before I took your class, but I read another book by that author we studied, and I really liked it."

"I told all my friends to take your class."

"You're not like the other professors. You always seem like you're happy to be here, and you always make time to help us."

At the end of every term, many students approach me to tell me that they like the way I teach. Others say that they signed up for another class with me. Over the past several years, more than ninety-five percent of my student evaluations have been positive.

But I recently had to reapply and interview a second time for the same job I have had for the last two years. I was rejected, which means that it is now May and with the exception of my part-time website job, I have no job leads. The lease on my apartment ends in mid-August, and I only have enough money to get me through the summer. After that, if I don't find a job before the next school year starts, I'm screwed.

My department chair said that there were more than a hundred applicants for the job. He said that they were looking for someone with a different specialization (all Ph.D. candidates choose a specialization that they focus on in their dissertations, and it typically determines what kind of job they get). But the person they chose over me has the same specialization that I have (and less teaching experience, not to mention this person rarely holds office hours, whereas I set aside extra time every week in addition to my regular office hours to meet with students). Not to mention I've been teaching at the college level for more than ten years. I've taught at several colleges, in addition to high school. It may have taken me more than a month to figure out how to turn off my cell phone, and I might not understand half the things that Millennials say (I neither know nor care what "on fleek" means). But when it comes to teaching, I know what I'm doing.

On the one hand, I've been unhappy at this job for a long time. Everything they said I could do or have, they took back. For example, they said I could have my own office. Less than a day later, they said I had to share it with another instructor. They told me I wouldn't have to keep reapplying for my job, but changed that policy less than a year later. They told me that I could teach literature classes, but then changed the job description to just freshman composition. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how I've been treated.

If I had known that all of this was going to happen, I would not have come here. But I need a job to pay my bills and to cover the health insurance I need for my ongoing treatment. My health is unfortunately not good right now (in fact, it's gotten worse), and my doctors said I need ongoing treatment. That's why I can't just fill out an application at Starbucks or go back to working in retail. Jobs like those won't pay for my treatment.

It makes me angry that I worked so hard for two years and sacrificed the only two things I had left outside of work that mattered to me: a city that I loved and my writing, which I've barely worked on since I came here, only to end up like this. It's disheartening to know that although my students think I'm doing a good job, it's not enough to make my department rehire me. The academic term isn't over yet, and I still have to face my colleagues. It's all I can do not to scream and scream and scream or run to the restroom and cry.

But on the other hand, I thought of how my dissertation committee thought I would never finish my dissertation and how they kept criticizing my work. I kept writing, revising, and doing research, and I finished my dissertation. I earned my PhD and the title of "Doctor".

I thought of all those awful retail jobs I had where customers screamed at me and twenty-two year old managers on power trips bossed me around. I kept working, and I survived.

I've applied to dozens of other schools, although I've been rejected by several of them already. But I still have hope. Two years ago, when I applied for jobs, six schools were interested in hiring me. Five of them did not start contacting me until June of that year. So there's still time.

At the risk of sounding like a Diana Ross song, I will survive this. I didn't let all the other people who tried to drag me down stop me from achieving my goals, and I won't let anyone else do it now.

What about you? Have you ever lost a job? What was that like?

Us vs. Them

Something happened recently that made me think that it might be better not to befriend people that I work with. It also made me wish that I could get away with carrying a light saber to work, but I think that seeing me chase my colleagues across campus with it just might negatively affect my students' opinions of me.

Even though my department originally told me that I could stay in my position for up to three years, maybe even a fourth year, without having to reapply, they recently told me that due to a change in policy, I would have to reapply for my job, which included an interview with a search committee from my department.

When you're untenured like I am, you don't get a lot of say in what happens to you, but it's hard not to feel jealous (and a tad resentful) of tenured professors. They get teaching assistants to grade papers and hold office hours for them, so that the professors can focus on their research. They teach fewer, smaller classes that focus on their specializations. Untenured faculty members like me, on the other hand, end up drinking so much coffee that we end up understanding what squirrels are saying, just so we can stay awake long enough to grade a hundred papers (or more) at a time. We are expected just to squeeze in research whenever we can, and we don't get funding to go to conferences. And in academia, the best way to get ahead is to do (and publish) research.

Whenever the tenured professors shake their heads and say they're sorry about how I've been treated, I always shrug and say, "It's okay! I understand!" But my real reaction is more like this:



via GIPHY
When I found out that they were making my class sizes significantly bigger but not paying me more, my secret reaction was like this:
via GIPHY

But of course, I can't express how I truly feel to them. As an untenured faculty member, my status here is not secure and I can't say things like, "STOP THE MADNESS!" or "No, I don't want to bring anything to the office potluck because you don't pay me enough to bring anything other than peanut butter sandwiches. And those are all for ME."

In addition to re-applying for my current job, I also applied for a promotion, albeit for an untenured position, but still one with better pay than what I earn now. A friend of mine was on the search committee for that one.

Work Friend had been posting about the job search on Facebook recently, and they mentioned doing interviews for that promotion that I applied for. I was not called in for an interview, so that's how I knew without being told otherwise that I'd been rejected for that job.

I asked Work Friend if they were doing interviews for my current job soon, and I got an e-mail saying that they couldn't talk about it. I understood, yet I resented this person's tone, as if they assumed I was trying to get them to do something unethical. I didn't ask them why I'd been rejected for a promotion, who was being considered for the job, or how I could increase my chances of getting rehired for next year. I knew THAT would be unethical. I also wondered why, if Work Friend claimed they couldn't talk about it, it was okay for that person to post details about it on Facebook to people who weren't in our department and also make jokes about the people who were applying for the job.

I especially resented the jokes because I was one of those people. I think it's easy for tenured professors to forget about how difficult it is to be untenured and how you have to basically grovel and scrounge for work every year. It's easy to forget that not everyone has to move around from school to school every couple years. It's easy not to know what it's like to have to work two (or three) jobs. But that doesn't mean it's okay to be insensitive to what untenured teachers are going through. Not all tenured professors are like this, of course. But at that moment, it kind of felt like Work Friend was.

Although I understand that maybe I hadn't earned a promotion yet, I must admit that the whole situation did change my perspective of Work Friend a little bit. From now on, I'm not going to talk about work with this person at all; that way, I'm less likely to end up chasing them across campus with a light saber. (But if Work Friend makes fun of job applicants like me again, all bets are off.)

What about you? Do you think that making friends with colleagues who are in a position of authority over you is a good idea, or has it ever made things awkward for you?

A Liberal in a Town Full of Trump Supporters

Small Town Local #1: I think President Trump has the right idea! I want to shake hands with that man!

Me:




Small Town Local #2: If people are poor, it's because they don't work hard enough.

Me:



Almost two years ago, I went from living in a big city where drag queens read stories to children in public libraries to a small town where many people think that homosexuality is a "choice". It was definitely a culture shock.

Although I've become fond of several of my students, sometimes listening to some of them is like listening to a panel of Fox News correspondents. Every time I see one of them wearing a Make America Great Again hat or one of the other locals drive around town in a pickup truck with a giant Confederate flag flying from the back, I have to bite my tongue to keep from screaming.

Yes, it's America, and they're entitled to their beliefs. And I have to be very careful not to become one of those professors who use their classrooms as political soapboxes. But it isn't easy to live in a town where a lot of people think that Hillary Clinton should be "locked up," shake their heads over "fake news", and yell racial slurs at minorities from their truck windows.

I'll be the first to admit that not all of the people in Small Town are like this, and fortunately, I haven't heard any of my students say racial slurs (although one of my students, who is from another country, confided in me that other students from other classes ridiculed him and laughed at him because of his accent when he tried to talk to them).

I'll also admit that there are advantages to small town life, such as the fact that I'm far less likely to get body slammed for my wallet or for no reason at all (both of which did happen to me in the city I lived in previously), and people are generally friendlier here.

I'll also admit that I'm not completely liberal, partly due to certain liberals whose behavior is often as intolerant as some of the Trump supporters I've met, like the ones who try to prevent controversial people from speaking at colleges and have even gone so far as verbally (or physically) attacking them when they try to give their speeches.

Many colleges are in small towns like this one, so it is quite likely that I'll spend the rest of my career in a small town. I'd be okay with that, as long as I had more job security, a salary that enabled me to quit my second job and have at least one day off a week, and more classes that I want to teach, rather than the "required" classes that most of the tenured professors do not want to teach. That's not the case at the school where I'm teaching now, which is why I want to leave.

I've applied to almost forty schools, and I'm hopeful that I'll find something, although I've already received a few rejections. There's a strong possibility that I'll still be here next year, although it's not a guarantee.

I'm worried, though. If I don't find something better for next year, then who's to say the situation will be any different next year? I'll still have mostly the same qualifications. I do need to do more academic research, which is hard when I'm working about thirty-five to forty hours a week at my teaching job (due to my full teaching load, large number of students, department/committee meetings, etc.) and twenty hours (and sometimes more) a week at my website job.

It's ironic (and unfair) that in order to advance in my career I have to do more research, but because I'm not in an advanced status yet I don't have time to do that research. Tenured professors, on the other hand, have fewer classes to teach and assistants to grade papers and hold office hours for them. But I digress. Such is academia. I probably should have gone into something less stressful, like taste testing for the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un.

What about you? How do you react when people start praising a politician that makes you want to Google "one-way ticket to Canada" and "cheap flasks"?

Teachers Have Rights Too

Recently, students at the University of Missouri in Columbia forced the school's president to resign. Several of the football players refused to play until he resigned. One student, Jonathan Butler, went on a hunger strike. Several other students, as well as a professor, Melissa Click, were overly aggressive with a reporter and literally pushed him away, claiming their right to a "safe, private" space.

They were (and still are) protesting because of several racist incidents on campus, including black students being called racial slurs by white students and a swastika made out of feces (though I should think that's more offensive to Jewish students than black students).

Jonathan Butler received a lot of praise from people for going on a hunger strike. It made me think of all the people in the world who are literally starving right now and who don't get to choose to be hungry. I doubt that they would praise Butler for what he did. I certainly don't.

Now students at other universities are protesting, and at Columbia University some undergrads reported feeling intimidated and pressured into protesting. Students at other schools are demanding to be excused from classes so that they can participate in protests. It reminded me of a "movement" at  Oberlin College a while ago. Students who were skipping classes in order to go to protests against police brutality wanted to be exempt from failing grades and demanded nothing less than a C for their final grades, regardless of what they earned. (The school refused.)

All of it makes me angry. I can understand their anger at feeling discriminated against, excluded, and treated unfairly. But I do NOT agree with their actions. On the one hand, NO ONE should call anyone racial slurs or leave swastikas for them to find. But on the other hand, it's gotten to a point where everyone's "offended" by everything these days. For example, once a student accused me of being racist towards minorities because I didn't call on him every time during class. He disregarded the fact that I called on him MOST times he raised his hand, but I wanted to give other students a chance to talk in class.

It makes me feel like professors and university administrators have to tiptoe around students' feelings all the time, because if we don't we'll be forced out of our jobs. Yes, racism is a problem at many schools, but that doesn't mean that students should be able to force people to quit. It doesn't give them a right to prevent reporters from doing their jobs (it's ironic and hypocritical that those Mizzou students demanded the right to free speech but prevented that reporter from exercising HIS right to free speech). It also shouldn't mean that professors have to give them a free pass from doing their work and giving them grades they didn't earn. I have never done that, and I WILL never do that. I'd rather give up my entire career than do it.

Honestly, I don't think that making university presidents or professors resign is going to solve the problem. I think they'd make a much bigger difference by tutoring students at inner city schools, volunteering at soup kitchens, or building affordable housing for the homeless.

Yes, students have the right to speak out against racism and discrimination, and they should. But they don't have the right to tell me how to do my job, or to accuse me of being a racist if I do something they don't like or they disagree with. I have rights too, and I refuse to back down to anyone, just because he or she was "offended." I read more than one article where the authors also disagree with some of these students, because they claim that the students are restricting or prohibiting any free speech that they think is offensive. (I'm sure the ACLU would have a problem with that.)

If I and all the other professors gave in every time, we'd be sending the students the wrong message. Can you imagine what their future bosses will say if they demand promotions they haven't earned or blow off work so they can go "fight for the cause"? I think that if they want to "fight," they have to be prepared to take risks and make sacrifices, not expect everyone else to cater to them.

What about you? Did you ever participate in any protests when you were in college? What do you think of the protesters' belief that they have the right to make school officials quit and that they should be exempt from classes and failing grades?

Side note: By the way, I decided not to change my URL after all; sorry about the confusion! I just figured it would be too complicated to try to change it to a different URL, since then I'd have to contact everyone about it. 

Me Time

In Chicago, people sat next to each other on buses and trains for hours and barely looked at each other. I'd go to my favorite coffee shop or bookstore and see other regulars there, but we never talked to each other. City dwellers usually try to avoid looking at or speaking to strangers, because they never know if those strangers are just regular people or people who would whap them in the head and run off with their wallets.

In Small Town, Tennessee, although I can't go anywhere without being stared at and gossiped about, the townspeople are generally friendly and strike up conversations with me, which startled me when it first started happening (I was all, "Why are they talking to me? Are they going to rob me? Because that's what happened the last time I got robbed.") Several of my colleagues have invited me to lunch, parties, or to barbecues.

Here's the thing, though. While I appreciate their invitations and have said yes to a few of them, what I often feel tempted to say is, "Sorry, I can't! Maybe next time...or NEVER."

In my version of hell, I would have to go to parties every day and make conversation with a bunch of people. When I was a kid, I liked going to parties, because we got to play games, eat cupcakes, and bring home goody bags. Now that I'm an adult, all people usually do at parties is drink alcohol, talk about the new diet they're on, and go home feeling obligated to reciprocate the social invitation.

I have a heavy course load this term, and I'm teaching more students at one time than I've ever taught before. As an English teacher, that means a lot of papers to grade, which means I might get so stressed that I end up writing, "All work and no play makes me a neurotic workaholic" or "redrum" over and over again.

I still have my website job, which, due to the car I had to buy (there is no public transportation in Small Town), my credit card debt that I accumulated when I moved here, and my student loan debt, I can't afford to give up. So that means I'm working too many hours every week. It's still the beginning of the school year, and I've been so tired that I end up falling asleep by ten P.M. (though I have to slap myself awake to finish my work) almost every night.

That means that when I have time off, I'd like to spend it doing what I want to do, like exploring Tennessee. Once I save up enough money, I'd like to visit Graceland and Dollywood. There is no mall in Small Town, so I'd like to drive to one of the bigger cities and go shopping. I'd also like to stay in town and write in a coffee shop, and I want to read more books without footnotes in them.

I've always been an introvert, and while I don't want to be alone all the time, I don't enjoy socializing every weekend, or even every other weekend. I prefer to do things on my own, because then I can do things on my terms. On the rare occasions I do go to a party, I spend the whole time counting the minutes until I can make up an excuse and leave "fashionably" early.

I don't want to be rude to my colleagues, which is why I've said yes to a few of their invitations. And I know that it is a good opportunity to network as well. But if I say yes more often, I'll end up resenting them and blurting out things like how I disagree with several of their teaching methods, the English department's policies and how I think it's extremely unfair to give us low salaries, heavy course loads and also require us to make time for endless meetings and committees. Or I might just blurt out, "Why does everyone in Small Town keep staring at me? Is it because they think I'm an alien, or are all of YOU the aliens?"

What about you? Do you consider yourself an extrovert or an introvert, and how do you deal with social invitations that you feel pressured to accept (but don't actually want to say yes to)?

Politically Incorrect

Recently, an African American professor named Saida Grundy was hired to teach at Boston University. She got in trouble for writing the following things on Twitter about white people: "Why is white America so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?”

 “Every [Martin Luther King Jr.] week I commit myself to not spending a dime in white-owned businesses. And every year [I] find it nearly impossible.”

 “...in other words, deal with your white sh*t [sic], white people. Slavery is a *YALL* thing.”

On Twitter several people wrote #IStandwithSaida in support of her "message," claiming that she wasn't being racist; she was only "stating the truth."

I for one do NOT stand with Saida. I think what she said was incredibly racist. She's also misinformed, because even Africans owned slaves, though admittedly they did not all treat them in the same way that American slave owners treated their slaves.

Boston University criticized her comments, but they did not fire or discipline her in any way. Saida Grundy later "apologized" for her statements, though it sounded less like an apology and more like an attempt to rationalize her vitriol. This bothered me, especially because I know that if I said those things, they wouldn't even consider hiring me for a full-time lecturer position.

Later, a white male professor at Duke got in trouble for saying the following things: 

He said that Asians “didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard” after experiencing discrimination in this country.

He also said, “Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration. The amount of Asian-white dating is enormous and so surely will be the intermarriage. Black-white dating is almost non-existent because of the ostracism by blacks of anyone who dates a white."

Do I agree with what Professor Jerry Hough said? NO. But what bothers me is that the people who were so quick to defend Saida Grundy are now attacking Jerry Hough and calling for him to be fired.

Both professors made generalizations about race, implying/assuming that their statements applied to ALL the people from those groups. They're both wrong. I also think that the same people who were upholding the importance of freedom of speech in their defense of Saida Grundy are hypocrites for attacking Jerry Hough for exercising his right to freedom of speech.

The primary reason I never revealed my name or my face on this blog is because I don't want to get in trouble for what I write. I don't think I've ever written anything that controversial or offensive on this blog, but we are living in an era where everyone is hyper-alert about what's "politically correct" and what's not, and people get offended by almost everything. Teachers cannot even discipline their students anymore without getting verbally attacked by the students' parents or fired by their employers.

As a teacher, I have been falsely accused of racism. A student sent me several nasty e-mails, accusing me of racism, because I only included one book by an African American author on the syllabus for the literature class he was enrolled in. He tried to get me fired by badmouthing me all over the department, though the other professors took my side. I didn't include more African American authors because I also included books by other minorities; there wasn't time to include more. But that student was convinced I was a racist, and he said he felt "victimized" as a result. I refused to back down to him.

Another student informed me that I was racist for including one of Mark Twain's books on my curriculum, due to his use of the n-word. I don't condone the use of that word, but I think there is a lot more to his work than that. Not to mention that student failed to notice or understand Twain's critiques of racism and discrimination in his books. I refused to back down to that student, too.

I understand that it's important to be careful about what I say, especially because I am a teacher. Teachers are held to a different standard, and we can't say or do whatever we want without worrying about how it will affect our reputations or even our jobs.

It bothers me that some people have become so hyper-sensitive about what's politically correct and what's not that they will bully me, scream at me, threaten me, or try to get me fired if I say or do one thing that they don't like. I am NOT and have never been a racist. I do not have a problem with people from other races. I have a problem with people using race as an excuse to attack others.

What about you? What do you think about political correctness? Have you ever been falsely accused of being politically incorrect?