No, I wasn't talking about my job applications there in the title. I've kind of given up on that entirely for the time being. Not only because with the cyber schooling I don't have the time and the mental/emotional energy for it, but because I'm entirely convinced of the fact that I do not want a tenure track job. I want to have a life, and my work is not my life right now, it's just on hold for a little while.
I think often of my dissertation and of various articles I want to write as well as research that I'd love to do. I even got accepted to present at a conference in Montreal (but just missed the deadline for the most important conference in specific area that will take place in NYC -- so close!). I miss my academic life, I do, and writing this makes me all sad and weepy all of a sudden, at least at this very moment, when I think of it.
Why do I have to feel so ambivalent about academia? Why all this angst? In the little poor earnest idealistic heart of mine I wish things were not the way they are... so involved in politics, in fashionable topics that come and go, in the rigidity of a system that you can only enter if you've been well prepared during your whole "training" (from college to grad school) -- and I am anything but prepared. Even though I can write pretty good cover letters that can almost or actually land me interviews...*
Even after years of being "slightly in," presenting at various conferences, trying to interact with peers, I continue to feel like an outsider. My unorthodox research and methodology coupled with my interest in a country/literature that very few care about in the United States are major deterrents.
Well, I don't like this defeatist (or, should I say overly realistic and not ambitious at all?) attitude of mine. Truth is, I'm saving all my bets for K and his job search, as usual. Then, after he accepts a job offer, I'll send out those letters offering my "services" as an adjunct something. Please BITE ME if I don't send them under those circumstances, OK? Thanks. So, yeah. I'm done. I'll have a full list of places of application soon. I want to keep tabs on those, just for my reference (and yours, if you care to follow one more job search in the Casa in Translation).
* I got one interview at the MLA, mind you, which is not really a big deal, of course -- and, OH, I had forgotten! This stupid MLA interviewing is one of the main reasons why I'm just not sending out any applications -- I will be in Brazil then and I know they will just pick their candidates at the "meat market" over there -- great! I can stop crying now... (sarcastic laugh).
As I've seen the job ads whisk by my computer screen, I've contemplated applying. I had an interview for a t-t job last year (they don't interview at MLA for which I was grateful), but I completely bombed. I froze during the interview and I think I almost did it on purpose. Right now, I'm writing, writing, writing (non-academic stuff) and I might look for part-time teaching after I'm done. Money has been tight off and on since I quit; my having a job would be a good buffer. But I hear ya on the t-t job. We know how much work it is and if you know what's going to be lost when you throw yourself into it, then it doesn't seem worth it.
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