...Now What?
A new year dawns sleepily for me, as I try to work out the kinks in my dinged-up resume and psyche. I'm trying to find work again - in the same field I've been in for years now, and I have had to do some work to deal with the trauma of the past 5 years. I have a miniscule form of PTSD, I think, because whenever I think of work or graduate school, I mentally and sometimes actually wince at the pain it still brings. I know I need to get past this, so I try to remind myself that this place is going to be as different from the old place as the old place was different from Boston.
This has helped a bit, and I have polished up the ol' resume and even bought a fancy new laser printer to make me look spiffy, even if I feel like a failing phony. Here I am, 35 years old, with years of teaching and doctoral study under my belt, and yet I feel worthless and idiotic most of the time.
Graduate school really knocked me around, especially the way I was treated by the faculty. I had the misfortune of joining a program that was wholly wrong for my personality type and my goals. I became frustrated at the slow-moving, mind-numbing and repetitive pace of the coursework, aggravated by the outright condescension of the faculty, and infuriated by the utterly mindless drones of students by whom I was surrounded on a daily basis. No one spoke in class; no one provided any in-depth analysis, few faculty members had any new or interesting things to add to discussions, nor did they seem to offer any real education as to what it is to do the actual work of linguistic research. It was all an endless loop of repeating what "so-and-so said in X paper from 1972"! -Utterly uninspiring at best, and entirely exasperating at worst.
As a teacher, I found myself succumbing to the psychosis the environment foists upon those who do the work I did. "I can't disagree with this ridiculous program because if I do, I won't be offered a job for the next term!" "I can't do anything to mess up this endless cycle of working as a casual contract employee, living 10 weeks at a time, and worrying about being asked back again all throughout." "This rule-heavy, paperwork-overloaded system is crushing my very desire to teach, but I have no way to change it, lest I make myself persona non grata with those who can deny me a contract next term!" Stultified, I kept hoeing my pathetic little row.
Now I sit in an entirely new place, with opportunity all around. I am presented with so much potential, but all I am able to do is dejectedly remind myself that I can do nothing else except what I've done for the past 15 years. "Who would hire me for anything but a job in the nanoniche I've jammed myself into?" - this thought tortures me.
The plan is to get work in my long-standing field, whilst seeking opportunities to do something -anything- new and exciting. The only problem is one that I recently re-saw in an ever-aging movie: (See if you can guess what it is!)
"...Go to college?"
"But to study what?"
"What do you want to do?"
"Nothing."
"Me too."
Ugh....
This has helped a bit, and I have polished up the ol' resume and even bought a fancy new laser printer to make me look spiffy, even if I feel like a failing phony. Here I am, 35 years old, with years of teaching and doctoral study under my belt, and yet I feel worthless and idiotic most of the time.
Graduate school really knocked me around, especially the way I was treated by the faculty. I had the misfortune of joining a program that was wholly wrong for my personality type and my goals. I became frustrated at the slow-moving, mind-numbing and repetitive pace of the coursework, aggravated by the outright condescension of the faculty, and infuriated by the utterly mindless drones of students by whom I was surrounded on a daily basis. No one spoke in class; no one provided any in-depth analysis, few faculty members had any new or interesting things to add to discussions, nor did they seem to offer any real education as to what it is to do the actual work of linguistic research. It was all an endless loop of repeating what "so-and-so said in X paper from 1972"! -Utterly uninspiring at best, and entirely exasperating at worst.
As a teacher, I found myself succumbing to the psychosis the environment foists upon those who do the work I did. "I can't disagree with this ridiculous program because if I do, I won't be offered a job for the next term!" "I can't do anything to mess up this endless cycle of working as a casual contract employee, living 10 weeks at a time, and worrying about being asked back again all throughout." "This rule-heavy, paperwork-overloaded system is crushing my very desire to teach, but I have no way to change it, lest I make myself persona non grata with those who can deny me a contract next term!" Stultified, I kept hoeing my pathetic little row.
Now I sit in an entirely new place, with opportunity all around. I am presented with so much potential, but all I am able to do is dejectedly remind myself that I can do nothing else except what I've done for the past 15 years. "Who would hire me for anything but a job in the nanoniche I've jammed myself into?" - this thought tortures me.
The plan is to get work in my long-standing field, whilst seeking opportunities to do something -anything- new and exciting. The only problem is one that I recently re-saw in an ever-aging movie: (See if you can guess what it is!)
"...Go to college?"
"But to study what?"
"What do you want to do?"
"Nothing."
"Me too."
Ugh....
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