A New Kind of (Awareness of) "In-Between-ness"

Five days ago, Laura (at 11D) wrote a post with a great title, "White Collar Blues," that compared adjuncts to freelance writers and lots of people joined in the discussion about these "white collar jobs" that lead to a life of poverty.

I wrote a long comment last Friday, but WordPress "ate" it, so I wrote a shorter one yesterday. What I wanted to add to the discussion was that my current job is a third, in-between position between tenure-track faculty and mere adjuncts (the "desperate adjuncts" about whom Laura said there's a story in the news every week). My position is pretty much permanent, but it doesn't have most "perks" of a tenure-track position.

I agree that it's not a really "bad" situation to be in, but it's still demoralizing, especially for those of us whose primary work is to teach, I imagine that for researchers it's may not feel that bad. They have a permanent research job, still have funding (I guess grant money) to go to conferences, they publish, present, etc. They just don't have to teach and don't have to go up for tenure. We, on the other hand, in spite of our training, are only expected to teach, and do a little bit of service (10% in my case). I personally feel demoralized because I was trained to do research and I would really love to do it, but I have no support whatsoever -- and, of course, with ADHD, I can't muster all it takes to get it done on my own, without being required/expected to do it. (in addition to the lack of support).

Then I looked at my blog's mast description and, to my horror, what 15 years ago when I started blogging was the "in-betweeness" of being an immigrant and of having an academic and a home life, has now transformed itself into my work situation!! I'm stuck in this "in-between" space for life! (unless I quit, which is very unlikely)

I often feel despondent about this, almost daily, but I'm STUCK!! I need to help support my family and if I can have a stable, if partially unfulfilling, job that pays a reasonable amount (more than 50k), that helps. You may or may not remember, but this is the very first full time I've had in my life, and I got it when I was 41. Sigh...

Look at the (very unfiltered) note I wrote on my phone one of these days (1/18/19):

There is hardly a day in which I don't leave work at [the university] despondent. I love my colleagues, but they teach a different language. They also have meetings and other activities which I don't have, so I feel that I don't belong, and feel horribly isolated most of the time. The person who is supposed to be my colleague [the tenure track in charge of the program -- just awarded tenure, BTW] never meets with me, only if s/he absolutely has to. My mega-commute is almost unbearable and makes for grumpy mornings and evenings. I don't feel valued and well regarded by the super-hierarchical department that treats tenured and tenure track faculty as the only deserving members.

Sigh... I feel stuck for life in this in-between space! There is no way out!

And... just like that, it feels easy to blog again. This is what most of the writing in this space has been for the past 15 years, the fruit of despair or stress or a profound need to work through stuff... it's very therapeutic, really! And, in spite of the utter lack of readers, even if just for myself (because it helps me process things), I will probably blog more often for a while.

I guess I've reached "the end of my rope" right now and my last resort is blogging. I hope it helps somehow!

In 2019...

... we went (already!) on our very first cruise and I realized my lifelong dream of going to the Caribbean (I never wanted to do is in a cruise, though, and it was ok. I need to go back for sure.).

... we finally go back to visit Brasil after 2.5 years.

... we spend another week in Destin, FL with my husband's family

Sigh... I really wish we could afford to go every year. In any case, sometimes it's not an affordability problem as much as it is one of situational factors -- such as my parents coming for the graduation of one of the boys which makes it unnecessary to travel to go see them. They did come in 2016 for Kelvin's 8th grade graduation and we went there, but that was because of my husband's grandma's 90th birthday party/family reunion.

... I get to teach the class I've dreamed about for many years. I'm doing it now and it's been great so far (only two weeks)! 3 preps, two brand new classes, but hopefully more fun than work/stress.

... our oldest son will (finally) get his driver's license  at 17 years old (he could have had it as early as last July) and I think this will make our lives easier. When he leaves for college in 2020 his brother may still not have it, though, and this could be problematic. :-( I have enjoyed having a driver since September 2017. It's also great to be able to talk to him for a change. I won't make this a separate item, but in a month and a half the same son will have an "official" and pretty serious girlfriend. We are visiting her family in March and I think he will talk to her (Latino, old-school) dad in order to make it an official relationship. For now, they're just special "friends." ;-)

I don't know that else will happen, but I hope I will feel better about my work and about myself professionally. It's not easy. It's a constant struggle and a "low grade pain" all the time. It shouldn't be, I just need to let go and stop feeling so despondent. I need  to get a good therapist.

I also need to work more to get my ADHD under better control, so I can be more productive. Sigh... yeah, lots of complicated feelings and things, always. Sigh...

I hope it'll be a good year.

Employed until 2022 & I VOTED!!!!!

I signed my new contract this weekend.

With the new 3 year contract we are reviewed half-way through (in the beginning of this semester) and then the contract is renewed for 3 more years, so I have work guaranteed until May 2022 unless the program is closed or enrollment is too low or something bad like that.

Right now enrollment for the Fall is the lowest it's been in the past 6 years, but it's just because I have to wait to let the seniors in the class. I should have two full sections. Sigh...

My title was also changed, and I now have a "fake" real academic title, but it ends with two words that tell the tale that I'm not in the tenure track.

I will have an intense week of work next week designing a new course and redesigning another one. What makes it bad is the nearly 3h commute (round trip). I know I'll live and it will be fun, but there'll be lots of driving.

In typical out of sync fashion my husband is doing his course design thing this week at U#1 and I do mine next week. I think it's good for our 14 year old son, since it would be awful for him if both of us were doing it this week. The 16 year old is working in Florida helping to run a day-camp. He'll be back next week and he'll be traveling with my mother-in-law and a tour group for two weeks, lucky him!

Last, but not least, I voted yesterday! I was so happy and so excited! Much more excited than on the day I got the citizenship. I have a voice now!! And I finally feel like a citizen. I think it will really sink in when our passports arrive (we applied last week) and I go out of the country as an American. :-O

Glimpse of my Food Vocab Presentation

Edited to add another image that I hope will work.
This is the first page of the presentation that pulled an all nighter to prepare. It looks kinda nice, no? I used MS Word, so I inserted text boxes the size I wanted and pasted an image copied from the internet inside each text box. An insane amount of work. Adding text would have taken almost double the time because in order to place text exactly where I wanted I would have to add smaller text boxes within the bigger ones. I LOVE what I can do with their boxes on Word!

Só, since the students had a handout with all the words in their hands, theycoile follow along. Now, if I make a recording pronouncing the words with quick comments, they can take advantage of his resource on their own. How could I “make” them do it?

GAH... I do not like teaching language, it’s so boring! :-( Its not what signed up for to do for life. I started doing that back when I was 19-23 (I taught English as a foreign language), but didn’t even get a PhD in a language/literature and didn’t teach language in graduate school. I’m stuck with it because it’s he only thing available for me... I don’t really “stand out” in other crowded field such as teaching world lit which is what I was trained to do.

Sigh...

My apologies for whining. I am thankful I have a job (not just a lame job, but a full time one), I promise I am. I mostly enjoy it. But I definitely long for more. A year ago I cried before teaching one of my literature classes. I can’t think about it too much.

Ok, enough of this disheartening discussion. I just thought I’d let you take a peek at the results of my all-nighter! ;-)

Yoga!!!

Finally, after nearly two months, I made it to yoga this morning!! I was really sad that it didn't work out for me to go during the whole month of January. The teacher I love only teaches two days, Mondays and Thursdays and after classes started I can only go on Thursday.

I have a hard time, actually, it's impossible for me to work out by myself. After I purchase this ADHD course I've been implementing little things here and there to make me a more productive person, so I have been doing stretching exercises (basically yoga poses) to strengthen my lower back practically every night before bed, which is great. I know I can also work out and be more active in a consistent manner, but I'm not there yet, I'm trying little by little. In the meantime, I will continue to try to go to at least one yoga class a week.

My yoga teacher is AMAZING! There isn't one class in which she doesn't have us do at least one pose of a modification of a pose that is 100% new to me. I have been going to her classes for five years now, and even though I don't go as often as I'd like (I really cannot afford it, I wish I could!), I know for sure that she's always learning and adding more poses to her own practice and she plans her classes very carefully. It's truly a gift to do yoga under her guidance.

In any case, I enjoyed every minute of it and I'm going to try my best not to be so sedentary. I'm truly in horrible shape! (I'll try to share more about that later).

P.S. Thanks for your supportive comment to my previous post, What Now? I don't think it's a school thing at all, my colleague was just being "hirself." Sigh... I should have known better and not done the presentation. It's ok, and I defended myself from the very beginning of our talk, since this particular class is NOT representative of how most of my classes go, so I'm not really in the wrong. It was just annoying to have to sit there and be preached to by this person who is younger and more inexperienced than I am and who actually doesn't do anything for the program except chime in once in a while to say what I should do -- which I actually appreciate, even though it's much more work for me. In Spanish, everything, syllabi, exams, everything but individual classes/lessons is planned by "higher ups" so the graduate students and lecturers can teach uniformly. Thankfully, s/he says s/he's not required to share the evaluation with anyone, it's just between hir and me -- it's not part of the dossier they send to the dean for my renewal. That is good!

I really don't know...

... why I'm not blogging more or, I mean, much, or at all.

There's no good reason, perhaps the main one is that I have the (probably correct) impression nobody reads anymore, it's no longer a community. And I HATE that I spend so much time on stupid Facebook because I want to continue to have some relationship with people I met through blogging.

Sigh... such a lame reason to waste time on social media!

Everything is going ok. My title at work has changed. It's supposed to make us feel less bad, or to make us almost believe that we actually have some professional dignity. It's the same title of TT faculty, with "General Faculty" attached at the end.

It's a cosmetic change. No pay raise, no other benefits. More work because some service will be required -- they need more people to populate committees that will "promote" other faculty to the same "fake" rank.

I am sorry if I am horribly bitter about all this. I've hardly had the courage to blog about it... it is what it is. I will, after my review next year, have some actual stability, and that's good, but I want to be able to take a semester leave without losing my job so my husband can take a sabbatical and we can go live in Europe for about 6 months. Maybe it will be possible -- but by then the kids will be older and probably won't come with us. :-(

I am not very happy about my teaching, as usual... but everything is going ok.

I have a trip coming up, but I hope to blog about that in a separate post.

My mom turns 77 in 4 days and my dad will be 80 in two weeks -- that's the reason of my trip, BTW.

OK, more later!

P.S. (ETA 10/24, 10:50 am) What makes me more depressed is that for our "promotion" only research about pedagogy counts. We have ZERO intellectual freedom. I mean, we can do some research, publish, present (no funds to go to conferences, BTW, only with grants that only let us apply for pedagogical stuff again), but it won't count. And this "lower," second-class pseudo tenure is becoming the norm. I know I should be thankful that 1) I have a full-time job; 2) I have a multi-year contract and hence higher pay; 3) I will actually have stability.

Sigh... why can't we do research too if we were trained for it and are passionate about it. Are we really such a threat to the tenure system? Is it our fault that there aren't enough jobs to go around and too many of us?

As I'm getting older and more bitter I begin to regret having gotten a PhD. WHAT FOR???? Academia is the worst, it really is. 

And I guess it makes perfect sense I haven't been blogging. I don't want to be whiny and annoying, so why even write here? :-(

Freaking out

I was trying my best not to be negative, to be patient, and not to freak out, but now I'm in full blown freak out mode. :-(

Sigh...

Every semester for the past six years my two language classes have been PACKED in the Fall and there have been waiting lists of students trying to register. They enroll by permission only (except for one summer two years ago) so I can screen prospective students and give priority to freshmen to sophomore since seniors won't be able to take more classes after their last year and we need students to take several classes or our tiny program will die. Because of this, I spend all summer checking the student registration website periodically, granting permission and keeping track of  enrollment requests.

In order to document the interest in the class I have been copying and pasting every single permission request -- a tedious task -- and then marking the students who enroll, as well as those who enroll and later drop and those who never enroll. I also email the seniors and ask them to wait for late July when I can begin to let them register.

In past years, by late July the classes were nearly full already and I generally could only let a handful of seniors enroll, if any. Because there was a consistent number of students who could not enroll every Fall, my colleague decided to open a THIRD section this Fall.

Well... guess what?

I have never had so few permission requests come in since I started keeping track!! :-( I should probably have granted permission for the seniors earlier (there were quite a few of them), and by the time I finally did two weeks ago, very few enrolled. Their requests have since expired (and disappeared) and I will have to look for each of their emails and contact them because I am DESPERATE.

And the worst of the worst is that in the three sections of the class, right now, the number of students enrolled is enough to fill ONE SINGLE SECTION! [insert despair and dismay face here]

Please pray for me if you're the praying kind. I have been praying about this not only every time I login to the website and open the word document where I keep track, but also every time I think about the Fall classes (which is quite often).

All through July I have been telling myself to "calm down because everything will work out in the end," but now I'm not so sure. I am dreading the moment my colleague decides to check on enrollment and emails me. Please please please let more people enroll before s/he checks!!!!

A rare day

Edited on 4/4/17 3:17 am
 
Today is a rare day, [because] I get to teach about my dissertation subject. One of the three authors [I wrote about]. Who knows when I'm going to do that again?

That's why it's bittersweet. Nice, and at the same time heartbreaking.

Today I thought I want to write a book about this author, and I don't care whether I'm not supposed to, but I will try.

I don't want to be silenced by a system that prevents me from being a true scholar. {later rephrasing of same sentence}: I want to do it [write a book] to defy a system that prevents me from being a true scholar and sees me as less. I want to make mine the slogan nevertheless, against all odds, she persisted.


Note: I spoke this to my phone, sentence by sentence (that's why the first line of the fourth paragraph was accidentally the first line when I "published" this) on the first 10 minutes of my drive to work (before I got on the highway. I never do this on the highway).

Then I cried for about five minutes and I was really depressed for a few days afterwards. O 3/6, I started writing a post titled "Blame it on the STUPID USELESS PAIN INFLICTING PhD (again, and again, and again)" which began "I hate hate hate my life right now." And right then I did, for a few anguished moments. I even had a sad [to me] conversation with my husband about all this, and then, after a few days, the negative, dark feelings dissipated... for now at least. It's hard, but only unbearably painful for a few fleeting moments. I have lots of other things in my life. More later.

The Best Class Ever or...

... sheer torture? Because it could be "the last" for a long, long while... who knows how long. :-(

I'm teaching a lit class because "the person above me"* is on leave this semester. But that person just emailed me last Friday to take away the only 3000 level class I teach so we can offer three beginner level classes next semester and try to grow the program. It's good to grow the program, but... sigh... it feels like my losing ground here.

* the no-longer-that-new hire, who is younger than me, has less experience, and is not from my country (a white dude from California, a most typical American academic).

There is a flicker of hope after all the angst of last year (which I was never able to blog about in a straightforward manner for various reasons). [WHOA, there are 126 posts with the "Working in the Margins" label? Wow, I write a lot about this depressing subject, don't I? Only "Academic Life," "Job search" {mostly my  husband's various ones}, and "Family Travels" {yay! winner!} have more posts!] Maybe, just maybe, some of us lecturers will be granted non-tenure track academic ranking/titles. I'm not counting on it and, if my "demotion" to basic level classes is any indication, things aren't really going well for me in this department.

I will try to be hopeful, though, as best as I can. And in the mean time, enjoy every minute of my amazing class. Six bright and motivated girls, readings and films I feel very comfortable teaching. I think it'll be awesome. YAY!

Pay Day*

Yesterday I finally received the check with my payment from the "never-ending translation project" that took me a year and a half to finish. And, coincidentally, last week we had finished paying off the very last credit card debt we had from getting money to buy our Prius back in 2014. That means that this 8.5K is ours to do whatever we want and we are debating what to do.

One thing we decided (unrelated to this payment) is that we are buying a cheap/in good condition mini-van and selling it again after we use it with my parents this summer. I hope we'll be good with getting rid of it, but I have a feeling that maybe K's parents and brother may want to help us out and have us keep it so it will be a car that they can use when they visit. If it were an 8 seater it would be amazing because we could actually travel with brother-in-law's family! But I have a feeling it will be hard to find one of those, they are hard to come by. We'll see!

K's dad can't believe that we have two small old(er) cars and won't invest in a larger, more comfortable vehicle, but we don't mind his criticism -- it's what makes sense financially for us! (We have a Prius that I use for my mega-commute and last year we had a friend returning to Italy after 8 years in the U.S. and we bought her Hyundai Elantra that had very low mileage, less than 60K! And we sold our little uncomfortable Hyunday Accent that had NO air conditioning [Canadian car] and only two doors!).

This payment took so long (I sent the invoice in December and emailed them a few times after that, never hearing back) that it's almost anti-climatic, but it does feel good to be helping my family even more! I'll let you know more about the car purchase when we decide what to do!

* I MUST disclose that saying this would send Brazilian kids into fits of laughter, because it sounds just like the verb conjugation for "I farted" :-P

A Tale of Two Universities or... Why the Mixed Feelings

I need to write at least one more lengthy post about this before I can put it behind me and (try to) move on, so please indulge me (if there's anyone still out there reading, that is!). :-)

I am attempting not to give too many details and to discuss general issues pertaining to my work at both places. (if you're curious to know more, just email me and I won't mind sharing more details). I have already written lots in the past four to six years, so for old time readers, not much will be new. I also want to write this to help sort through my mixed feelings in this moment of transition from "bad" to "less bad!" ;-P

U#1 has its advantages, even though they are pretty "minimal." The department gives us contracts every semester, but the renewal is indefinite into the future (why would they want to change that? Cheap labor, abundant!). As you may know, I had a yearly full-time contract at U#2 for the past four years, but renewal was not a given and it was a veritable nightmare in 2014. No benefits on the first and benefits on the second.

At U#1 part-time faculty members (a really really messed up definition, since some "part-timers" in this dept. taught 6-8 language classes -- maybe not anymore, I know some recently turned "full timers" are teaching 6/6) are eligible for all kinds of professional development opportunities, many of which are compensated and provide amazing opportunities to network and grow professionally. I took advantages of many of those and did very well.

However... all this "development" just led me nowhere, really. I often was the only person, or one of a few, who was non-tenure track faculty at these things and that was hard to bear. Some of these felt like a waste (maybe of time, more a waste of my talent & a lack of recognition from THEM or waste of their money too...). 

U#1 also funded me 100% to go to one conference a year. A perk that I suspected existed because they saved so much $ on teaching, that the budget allowed for it, or maybe not enough people did go to conferences (?!)... I don't know. I never asked, I just gladly took the money and went! (Obviously first went, then got the refund).

So at U#1 I mostly pretended I had a real job and was allowed to act like a real academic (including going to "departmental meetings," designing & implementing new classes, organizing student panels in the annual conference, etc.), but it was all very not real when looking at the pay and ridiculous semester by semester contract.

At the other place, for one year I was "in charge" as the only person in my area, then they hired a young(er) person (I had applied too, but, nah...), and for a year I still felt mostly ok. Except that the other full time adjunct faculty and I were clearly not considered equals as compared to faculty. Of course it's because of the type of institution, but this week I understood better what the problem is. It's what I explained in my first disgruntled post this week, we are supposed to "know our place" and stay there. And now it's official.

In all fairness, the dept. is actually trying to provide us all with FUTURE funding to go to conferences, but we don't have any now. I could say more, but maybe I'd reveal too much. As for What Now?'s question, yes, I have friends who support me, all of us are in the same boat. All we can do is to commiserate together. 

But there is no hope, really. One my office mates was denied tenure at an Ivy League school years ago, and the dept. chair has no clue of that and keeps reminding office mate of the "advantages" of not being tenure track (sigh...). The system is what it is and what I described earlier this week. It's pretty much take it or leave it. Change is NOT forthcoming, the New Faculty Majority multiple initiatives notwithstanding. In certain situations, there is NOT "strength in numbers."

Let's hope I'm wrong! And do you see now why I've been responding very unenthusiastically to any congratulations I've received on my long-time in coming three-year contract?

Sigh... (and I still need to share some other things that upset me regarding these issues a few weeks ago, I don't know if I'll get to blog those)

I really don't see how the situation is ever going to get better. The worst part is that I have a feeling that once one gets a TT job, one moves to the "dark side" and can't help but defend one's own position. I often have a hard time talking to my husband about my situation. He understands, but he is still part of the system/ "dark side." And once more I end a post without finishing it properly, but it's just because there is no "end in sight" for this situation...

Salt in the Wound, Poison in the Veins/ Academia: Sciences vs. Humanities (Literature, Languages, Cultural Studies)

They've been building up momentum for over a month, my bitterness and discontent, informed by years and years of resentment (well documented here in this blog over the years), but after yesterday it all exploded in my head.

Conversations with colleagues that left me with a heavy weight of nervousness in the pit of my stomach. Official communications from the department, surreal conversation with colleague. All boiling up in my head like a cauldron with a bitter potion.

I know my system will slowly clear, but right now, it hurts, because too much salt was rubbed on the wound; there is poison cursing (pun intended) through my veins.

I think I'm most stunned by the (very late) full realization that in fact, in the humanities, academia is a war, unfair, brutal and soul-sucking.

In the sciences, collaboration is crucial -- most important for experimentalists, but even for theorists, who need the experiments to validate their theories. I have been closely following my husband's career for almost 20 years. You begin by working at someone's lab (sometimes as an undergrad, but more often as a grad student) and when you finish the degree, you also work as a Post-Doc in charge of projects at someone else's lab again. Until after getting a job, you can run your own lab. And even then you still collaborate with former colleagues, current and former students. It's a web of collaboration, a machine with many parts that moves slowly, but surely forward. And these relationships can actually be quantified and visualized in number of citations, who cites who, etc.

In the humanities, however (particularly in languages, literatures, cultural studies, and related fields). Each of us works ALONE. Of course it's not in complete isolation because we still need to read the works of others and "interact" with them, but the greatest likelihood is that the "big names" we cite won't ever read us or ever even hear of our work.

There are too many areas, it's impossible to really be visible (take the MLA for example, it's a jungle, it's ridiculous), so we "speak" to nobody really, and try to make our mark uselessly.

It's a field heavily populated by white males and even though they need to hire the "token women" or "token minorities," I believe that white males still call the shots. This may change, but I don't know how, really.

And yesterday I realized one more layer in the conflict and the bloody war -- people in the humanities are even MORE isolated because they are afraid of each other, they are threatened by each other.

Sigh...

and fortunately, I ran out of steam and will publish this half-finished. Maybe it's good that my motivation to write about this is waning. I guess the poison is getting diluted, the salt is slowly washing away. I'm sure I will have more to say soon.

Damned are the Lecturers and Adjuncts...

... because there is no room for them to be recognized as legitimate faculty in many universities.

We are damned* because we represent (through no fault of our own) two irreconcilable sides of the same problem: we are a cost-saving solution for university administrators who don't allow more needed tenure-track positions to be created and a threat to the very existence of tenure and thus, a threat to our colleagues.

Therefore, we cannot be allowed to do research, get involved in meaningful curriculum development, advise students and, otherwise "shine" in any way that can cast a shadow on our tenure track colleagues, because then the administration may turn to departments and point out that there is no need for tenure. They tell us cheerfully to come, teach, and go home and be happy that we are not required to do all the other "boring work."

It's the most awful kind of victimization -- we are victims of a system that is keen to both have us in the first place and to make sure we are nobody and nothing. Those of us with PhDs were trained to do research and have extensive teaching experience (which at times surpasses that of a few new tt hires), and yet, we are treated as "second class" academics with no need for intellectually stimulating work.

We exist because the universities want to admit more and more undergraduates without hiring more tenure track faculty and, mercifully, without growing their graduate programs even more (because, as it is, many of these degree recipients will have an extremely hard time getting jobs and may end up as lecturers too, creating a never-ending vicious cycle of misery).

It doesn't feel good to be "damned"/doomed/cursed and being in such a disagreeable position where there is not much, if anything, that can be done. Even with a three year contract. Sigh...


* I don't like to use this word, but I was at a loss for which one to use. I know words matter a lot and I never use such language, but in this case I still felt it was the one that had the best ring to it. "Doomed" or "Cursed" are too specific and while damned seems to have lost a lot of its original religious meaning and it has become a lame insult and emphasis word, I decided to use it. It's not even considered a verb [a past participle, in this case] in the few online dictionaries I checked, and only an adjective & an adverb, that disappointed me. In any case, I wanted to make a parallel with the biblical beatitudes "blessed are those that... because..." and so I went ahead and chose to use this word. What do you think?

The classroom I hate

You can see the "retired" Vera laptop backpack in Baroque that I got for myself after Xmas & my cute rainbow keyboard cover.

Can't wait to not teach in this room again! Sigh...

17 Classes + 2 exams

I'm officially counting the days now until I am done teaching in a teleconference room if not forever, for a long time.

I cannot write an exclamation point there. It's a relief tinged with sadness. I can't wait to be done, I can't wait to have more time to become a better teacher to my better students at U#2 (which I guess will continue to be U#2 because U#1 will refer to where my husband teaches). At the same time, I feel sad.

That's why I want to keep emphasizing the things I don't like and that I can't wait to be over, but I don't know if that helps or not.

It's a constant challenge to teach this way, not to mention torture, when students aren't learning much (often because of a series of reasons, mostly not my fault) and students have so many levels of skill and ability to learn a foreign language. I've had some dark moments in these past four years. I'd say that the Fall of 2014 with its crazy challenging beginner class was the lowest point.

Few things were crazier than that first semester, though, when I taught in an empty room for students in two other universities.

And even fewer things were crazier and more awful than the Fall of 2013 when I was teaching almost seven 50 minute class periods two days a week with a one hour drive in between. I taught one 75 minutes long and two 50 minutes long classes, from 9:30 am to 12:50 pm then drove for an hour (while trying to eat something -- when I had it) to teach two more 75 minute long classes from 3-5:45!!! Thursday nights were the worst because I still had to drive 76 miles to teach two classes on Friday morning -- thankfully starting at 11 am. (I blogged a bit about that at the time calling those my über-packed days).

Edited to add: The hardest thing to believe is that in September 2013 I blogged about how I felt energized and did lots of stuff and how I was still productive a week later. I blogged a lot too, on purpose to reach my goal of more posts than the year before -- I wrote 26 posts in September, 25 in October and 30 in November (I always blog daily that month anyway). This goes on to prove my husband's theory that the busier we are, the most productive we get. In retrospect, it's interesting to see that I sound SUPER cheerful describing my Tuesdays and saying that I liked them because I went to the Farmer's market (until the end of Nov.) and yoga.

Towards the end of October my husband left for a conference and I was utterly exhausted, so I think the semester ended up taking its toll on me and by November the exhaustion was really taking its toll on me -- so in the December I wrote that the torture [was] over -- and it was, the following Fall wasn't as terrible

In the Fall 2014 it was easier because I only had two 50 minute classes in the morning and two longer ones in the afternoon and Fridays free!

Those two Falls were bad... OK, I want to write a few more posts about this transitional phase, but now I began to read old posts from 2013, so I'll come back later to write more!

It's Official: I'm leaving U#1

No exclamation point.

Relief, that's for sure. Counting the days to never again (I know! Never say never!) teach a shared class with another university using a teleconference room, even this special one that I use.

And a bit of apprehension because (as I mentioned here) I will be making a bit less money (and working way less!) and paying more than double for the oldest son's tuition. Sigh...

I also feel a little wistful and sad to leave the place where my husband works and was just granted tenure and where I taught for 6 years and made many good friends and had fabulous colleagues. 

I need to keep reminding myself how little they paid me, how unprofessional the department is, how ABSURDLY exploitative of adjunct labor and... last, but not least, the quality of students cannot compare to U#2 (and #3)'s students. That last one is sad, but very true.

(and the last thing that is stressing me out is that the lady who will replace me has such a hard time with technology that I am worried thinking of what will happen, but I don't want to worry about it, I'll just give her the info she needs -- which will take some time -- and leave).

So, I should be happy, but there is some other stuff related to adjunct labor ALSO happening at U#2, so it's complicated. Happy mixed with sad and outrageous and fair mixed with upsetting. I don't know how much I'll be able to blog about that without saying too much and being too upset, but I'll try. 

Anyway, just thought I needed to let you know about this!

P.S. blogger's block officially over!

First Day (2nd round)

Today was my first day at U#2 and it was ok. I have to get used again to driving over 150 miles each day. When I'm not used to it I just feel exhausted...

Oh, and if I want to do some shopping afterwards (of groceries or just walk around & relax) I need to be prepared for 11-hour days again... Sigh...

I will acclimate soon enough to my new routine, but now it's 9:40 pm and I'm ready to go to sleep in my cozy bed!

The day wasn't better only because I was unable to leave earlier and thus got there kind of late. If my work computer's keyboard's batteries weren't dead I would have been able to print and copy the syllabus and handout before class, but I needed to get new batteries and then was a few minutes late for my first class. :-(

And then I wanted to leave right after my last class so I didn't have lunch and went to meet with my colleague instead. It was a good conversation and I hope we can make positive changes to the language program. With the new contract I finally few like I am truly part of the program, what a relief.

Because of the scarcity of time in my office before class and between classes and meetings I was barely able to talk to my friends/office mates. :-( We need to plan to get together soon, I've missed them!

Most important, I DO NOT have to teach at 8 am tomorrow morning!! I know that this will make ALL the difference in my life this semester. I'm so happy!

Can't wait for next school year, though, when I will actually have TWO DAYS completely free  (Tu/Th). I can hardly believe that this will happen and I'm looking forward to being a much better teacher (not to mention a happier more rested person) because of that.

Last Little Thing Finished!

Written on Friday 1/8, late at night.

I can't sleep, I can't stop coughing. :-( This is the story of my life in the past week.

And yet, I won't take cough suppressants (I don't ever take those or decongestants or any of the multi-symptom cold medications that are so ubiquitous in every store in this country), I feel that the after-effects of those medications aren't good and since I have asthma, they generally just make everything tight in my airways.

Today I went and bought a couple of homeopathic medications for cold and cough and I'm taking those, but I'm still coughing. particularly when lying down.

Ending written today:
But the purpose of this post is to say that last Friday I took some time to finally upload the very last document that was missing of the translation (which I finished translating on Thursday night when I was feeling a bit better) and in the process found another little document that needed to be translated too and did that one.

So... I'm officially DONE with the translation and now I wait for the payment... sigh...

I can't believe it took this long!

Last Day... (and Memories of First Days Past)

... technically I have one more free day, Thursday, but today is the last day before I enter the classroom and begin teaching again for 15 weeks.

So many mixed feelings. It's hard to deal with all that goes through my head as I walk through campus...

... first, a strong recollection of those pretty magical, once in a lifetime days of March 1990, my first days in college. Huge university in Brazil (over 50K students, extremely large campus). Taking a super crowded bus by myself to the other side of the city, trying to find elective classes to fill up my partly empty schedule. Navigating a strange building, classroom locations, how to order course packets and buy copies of texts (long boring lines at the copy center in the basement of the building).

Meeting new people, outside of my own little private school, religious college campus (where my parents worked), marveling at how nice everyone was (topic of the very first conversation I had with my future husband a few weeks later).

Now I'm much older and I'm in another country at a completely different university, but the excitement I see in the incoming students is the same I felt. The energy is the same and I know I'm in the right place, I belong here. Sort of.

... I have much dimmer recollections of my first weeks each Fall in graduate school. Nothing really magical anymore, and it didn't cross my mind yesterday, but my first few weeks back in that campus in 2012 were pretty magical, but all that magic has gone away.

... Now I wonder -- will I have a contract for next year again? Will they ever give me a three year contract? I go to the welcome reception and see those fresh faced incoming graduate students and I feel despondent. Do they know they're destined to adjunct life? Have they really drank the Koolaid and thing they'll get a "real job" someday?

It's more bitter than sweet now. My colleague, that I have learned not to dread anymore, full of hir empty rhetoric, so not really integrated with the other faculty, at least apparently not with lecturers. Talking of the need s/he has to publish not to be outdated (spoken by someone who finished the degree in 2012. How am I, from 2008, but hopelessly out of the game, out of everything?)

Yeah, it's tough. So I try to enjoy my last day. I printed and copied the syllabi (though not the calendar for two of the sections) and I'm preparing the name tags that I use every semester. I'm thinking of what to say and hoping that the drive goes well.

I am SO DONE with U#2!

I wrote this on April 23 and then finished it yesterday, May 1st. However, it was published "in the past" (on April 23), but now I'm "bringing it to the present" (May 2).

Written on about a week ago after I'd had an annoying meeting with my colleague/boss. I no longer feel as contemptuous (as my just published post can attest - I love that post and that photo, BTW). But I want to publish it "for the record." Sometimes feeling righteous indignation over how we are treated is useful. 

I am steeling myself. If needed, I'll be ready for one more year of this, but I am incredibly ready to move on. I am hoping that the time has come, and that maybe now I can have a real job.

Because, seriously! I had to write the depressing previous post (this one about my salary) before I wrote this one just to show how outrageous the situation really is for me! As my dear friend emailed me today apropos of that link I sent her, I deserve better!

And I'm ready to move on from this job on every level. It will be a relief to drive only 36 miles a day instead of 152! It will be awesome to be able to drive to work with my husband on certain days, and to go out for lunch with him on a regular basis. 

In spite of the even worse and more exploitative pay, I have always been treated well at U#1. They have paid my expenses to go to conferences every single year, I have been able to buy books with department money, I get included in departmental meetings and events, and other things. And I get paid to participate of professional development opportunities and fellowships.

I'm also ready to tackle harder, more involved teaching and work. Teaching language is just too easy and not intellectually stimulating. I am ready to start seriously doing research and publishing, I think I can make it now. Not that I couldn't before, but now I feel better prepared. 

That is where I stopped writing last week. I have much more to say about all these issues, but I will have to revisit this topic at another time. Of course there are things I will miss from this university, but I don't think I'll miss much. 

And if nothing comes of my application, I'm sure I can handle next year, especially because I'll be working less hours, finally! 

Most importantly, I'm glad to be more at peace again. I don't know until when! The roller coaster that is my life is always moving, up and down! And I'll keep taking you along for the ride.