Working in the Margins Sucks, OR Tired, Frustrated, Worried (Rinse and Repeat)

I shouldn't be complaining, I know -- that's my initial "disclaimer," but I will anyhow, 'cause this is my blog, and it's all I have in life that brings me any visibility, worth, and a measure of external validation and appreciation -- something that I don't get with my line of marginal and "invisible" work. Oh, and this is a disgruntled post. I won't go back and edit, I'll just go with the flow, OK? You've been warned.

And to go back to the kind of symbolism that I really enjoy and have used many times in the blog (this is a prime example, I also mention it here) -- I'm still mystified that blogging materialized in my life in the shape of the now "legendary" (no longer available, only living in the memory of the readers, and I guess nobody's talking about it anymore) Invisible Adjunct blog.** Little did I know (although I've suspected it all along) that I was destined to become "her," but in an even more literal invisible way -- that of the online instructor or facilitator for a big for-profit educational enterprise (blah).

I've been crying a lot lately (sobbing at times, loudly if alone, in the car, or, silently, on the desktop, while the boys play in the laptop with their backs turned to me). I've been feeling really sensitive, I feel hurt with so many issues regarding my life's "fragmentation" that I've blogged about before in a veiled way. The impossibility of not having to face opposing views and intolerant people in the religious community I've grown up in (here in this country, it's sooo different in Brazil where my friends and family are, where belonging to this group is not so strange and much more mainstream) and the feeling that I don't really belong, I don't fit in.

I feel like sitting down and "crying a river" when I think that when I made that new year's resolution I was going to have to just go around offering myself to do jobs that don't even exist (!!!), that are not open and that may not even materialize. I have to go to Anastasia's archives and dig the sample letter that prospective adjuncts need to send around. Something like this:

Hello there, I'll say, this is me and here I am, I have this nice phd, in such and such, have taught for almost seven years such and such courses. i'm fluent in such and such languages -- I know that's not the language that you teach at your institution, but perhaps you'd like to give it a shot? You see, Brazilian culture is cool... it's a nice "emerging" nation with so much to offer, blah blah blah. Maybe you want to hire me to teach such and such a course. Do you need someone with my expertise and abilities? I'm really nice and friendly and I love the students and teaching
(HA! partly true -- undergrads in this country are such an unfeeling bunch, I feel like a fish out of the water still... I feel that I'm just so unamerican, how can I teach these kids? How can I even interact with them? I only have a handful of American friends (not counting online ok, folks)... blah blah blah.

How humiliating it is having to offer oneself to do a job that you don't even know people want? Or, more often, that you know that they don't want or need? I truly don't know how I'll do it, but I WILL YES I WILL Heaven help me!

So... working in the margins, this term that I coined for the blog and which is so "hip" and so depressing to have to live through. So, one of my current marginal works: Not that they didn't need me, 'cause they did, but I don't have a degree in education, am not certified to teach, yadda yadda yadda... but that's how I got my current "half job" (three days a week at my son's school because they cannot afford to have me more days since they cannot hire a full time person) -- I kind of offered and they said OK (although the offer from them came first, but some other people I talked to had probably mentioned my desire to help) and I started. I love it, obviously, but I am "nothing" -- I have to follow the directions given by the principal and although I've been learning fast and I think I do a great job, and I have a certain autonomy, I cannot really call the shots (like, decide that my own son, whom I pay to teach -- i.e. I still pay his tuition, which takes about 1/5 of what I make anyway -- can move up to the 2nd grad math and phonics book -- after all, last year in January, in the middle of Kindergarten, he started doing the 1st grade book -- not the principal's decision, s/he claims). And thus frustration. Tiredness because I'm paid a measly hourly wage to be there from 8-3, but then I stay until 5 because I have to prepare the materials, clean the classroom, etc, etc. and then I come home and have to try to do things around the house and work on the online gig.

The online gig was over last night, except for the final project grading. I was failing for some three weeks which totally freaked me out. It looks like I'll make it. And it got easier in the end, but for one main reason: half of the students dropped, so grading became manageable. What a profit these guys make if the rates of withdrawals and drop-outs is this high in most classes! Anyway. I hated it, but it was not that bad, seriously. Working at home IS NOT FOR ME. Because it's totally completely absolutely overwhelming. When teaching we bring a lot of work home to do, OK, ALL the work, but we generally don't have 48h turn-around deadlines for grading or 7 days for bigger projects. Of course we have to try and bring the graded stuff by the next class (which might as well be 48h away), but at least these are generally assignments that you designed and you know the usefulness and the purpose. Not some class that you just can't change even a dot! So, yeah...

So, worries abound. I don't know when I get to teach again online since I'll be in a roster awaiting future placements for 9 week-long (hellish) classes. At the end of May I'm going to be out of the school job. How are we going to pay the mortgage in the summer?

Delirious thoughts abound too... such as getting work to teach world lit at a prep school or academy that has K-12 and where my kids can get to go to school too!! But dream jobs like that are not just out there. There are no jobs out there for me, within a 30 mile radius of my zip-code, says the chronicle of higher education. And I checked the K-12 box and the non-profit, museum, what have you box but they may not advertise with the chronicle anyway. There may be some things... I'll look diligently, I promise.

Oh, and I haven't mentioned one small detail (hahaha... I'm just being sarcastic, ironic, cinical): the fact that I'm deathly afraid of getting in touch with strangers. Writing an email or letter, not so bad, but quite ennerving and heart-stopping, but, calling someone I don't know? Nearly impossible. I just can't. [edited to add: so -- you know now how hard it will be for me to go look for a job in these crazy terms].
I'm a weird type of shy who's not really shy but who is... around strangers. I'm really outgoing and friendly and talkative and ... a blabbermouth, really, but that's just after I know people. And even then.... I've changed a lot and I've learned to give people space. And not just talk about me. That's why I've developed these crying habits (not really, but still), and why I am so dependent on blogging. It's my lifeline. Any little comment just makes my day. So... there you go. If you braved it to this point. Thank you. I will never know how to thank you enough. Because there aren't words. Just tears of gratitude. Really. Because there are some folks out there. Who understand. Who care, who just listen. Because I have this opportunity of merely writing here. Thanks.


**I'll explain to those of you who don't know what this was all about and or are curious: It's a blog by a woman with a newly minted Ph.D. in history who had a young son (around 12 months old), was married to a lawyer, lived in Manhattan, and who was an adjunct at one of the local universities for a year -- 2003-2004. She blogged during that year, recounting her experiences as an "invisible adjunct" -- e.g. every week she had to explain who she was to one of the dept.'s secretaries so they could open the room where she held office hours, nobody knew who she was or what she was doing there. For a whole year. She decided to quit, both adjuncting and bloggin, at the end of that year. And it was only when she quit (July/August 04) that I first heard about her... And I started my own blog in November 04, and the rest (hahahaha) is history ;-)