Filed under: Commentary
While hunting for a job, I happened across this essay, which reminded me why I want to teach. A brief excerpt (I chose this one essentially at random–there were several others equally worthy of highlighting):
They work with kids who are a mixture of self-absorption, insecurity, raging hormones, and ambition. They may have to face parents who want their offspring to get into the Ivy League and have jobs they can boast about, but the teachers’ job is to help their students build a self, create the entity that will be their company throughout their lives. That’s why the best teachers listen to students and draw out their thinking, but don’t try to solve every problem. That’s why the best teachers empathize and care deeply about the individual, but never lower standards or expectations.
I didn’t really make New Year’s resolutions this year, but I guess an unofficial one might be to utilize this thing a bit more. I went strong with it for about a year or so (I think it was about a year), but in the last six months or so, the old blog has taken a backseat to more pressing concerns. Nevertheless, I still find myself hundreds–or in some cases, thousands–of miles from many of my closest friends, and so I need to be more diligent in posting.
Anyway, I have no idea where I’m going to be in six months and it’s starting to freak me out a little bit. A while back I posted about where I thought I’d be in five years, but five years is really pretty abstract. But six months? That ain’t nothin’. I think it hit me yesterday as I was looking around the apartment thinking, “Man, I’ll be glad to be out of this place in six months.” And then I stopped. SIX MONTHS?!
Six months ago was the beginning of August, and it almost feels like yesterday. Which means that August of ‘08 is essentially tomorrow. And I don’t know where I’ll be living. Right now, the options are as follows:
a) Richmond
b) Nashville
c) Northern Virginia
d) Savannah
e) None of the above
I’ve been pounding the pavement (figuratively speaking, of course), searching every nook and cranny of the internet for teaching jobs. I’m also working with a major national placement agency that is based out of Boston, and I have had a few pretty good leads. I sent letters to about fifteen schools that I am interested in, and most of them sent me form letters telling me that they’d keep my resume on file. A couple of them followed up with personal notes, which is somewhat encouraging, but really… who knows if they’ll even have an opening?
Emily and I would love to get back to Virginia, but I’m starting to get to the point that I’m open to just about anything. I don’t want to be too desperate, but the agency sent my file to schools in New Orleans and Miami, and where a couple of months ago I would have said, “Yeah, I’m really not interested in those,” I’m suddenly thinking, “Miami might be cool for a couple of years.” (Similarly, we drove to New Orleans this past weekend for Mardi Gras thinking we had no interest in living there and we left thinking “That could be fun.”)
I’ve also had a couple of pretty good phone interviews, and I even had an on-campus interview with a school in Richmond that I think pretty well. Of course, that was about a month and a half ago and I haven’t heard from them yet, so who knows what will come of that?
The thing is, it’s actually pretty early in the hiring season for independent schools. Many of them won’t even know whether or not their current teachers will be returning for next year until March 1st, and from what I can gather, most hiring is done in March and sometimes into April and beyond. But I’ve been at this game for a couple of months now, and I still don’t really have a clue about my fate. Quite frustrating, really.
It would be great to know where I’ll be next year, because that would allow Emily and I to figure out several things: what exactly we’re going to be doing, where we’re going to live, when we need to move, and how we need to move.
I’m registered to attend a job conference in Atlanta next Friday and Saturday, so hopefully I’ll be able to interview with a number of schools over a couple of days and walk away with some more substantial leads. I’ll keep you posted.
My semester is shaping up to be a very busy one. Between job hunting and trying to figure out wedding things (Emily will laugh when she reads this, given the disparity in time she and I have put into wedding planning) as well as studying for my comps, interning 10 hours/week at a history magazine, and TAing for a professor who assigns two papers, three exams, and weekly web postings, my plate is pretty full.
That said, there is light at the end of the graduate school tunnel (three months to go!) and I’m starting to realize that as much as I’ve complained about grad school, there are definitely things I’ll miss when I have to get a real job. Like getting off at noon on Fridays, for example. Of course, that alone isn’t quite enough to make me consider staying, but you get the idea.
In any event, I think that’s enough rambling and venting for now. Hopefully that gives you some indication of my life of now, and I hope that this finds you all doing well.
So yesterday I got a chance to watch VH1’s “100 Greatest Songs of the ’90s.” It’s five hours long, and although I missed songs 80-51 (grocery shopping and dinner), I must say: it was absolutely fantastic.
If ever you have five hours to sit around watching television, I highly recommend it. With almost every song, my reaction was something like, “Oh God! I love that song!” I mean, we’re talking high-quality shiz here. Everything from Spin Doctors to Sir Mixalot, Nirvana to NSync, Notorious B.I.G. to Billy Ray Cyrus. And watching music videos–a dying art–was refreshing in a very nostalgic way.
So good, I hope they put it out on DVD. I would buy it.
Yeah, so now I’m just as bad as Caitlin and Liz used to be. I’ve fallen off the face of the blogging earth. I have good excuses, I swear, but I know you don’t want to hear them. (I warn you in advance, this has turned out to be quite long. Don’t write for a couple months and then get going, and you just can’t stop. But if you care about me as a friend, you’ll read it all. And I’ll know if you don’t.)
Things here are going well, although the month of November was as crazy as I expected it to be. Believe it or not, I was actually ahead on my work for most of the semester, the result of my misreading the syllabus. Twice. I won’t go into details, because frankly, I started writing them out, and I realized they were boring as hell. Even to me. And I lived them.
Anyway, suffice it to say, I was ahead on my work for a while. Then, my mother y brother came to visit for a weekend, then Emily and I went out of town for a weekend, then we went out of town for another weekend for The Marriage Rites of Mr. Bedard (sounds like a book, right? right?), then back here for lazy weekend at home, then back home for several days of thanks-giving.
I have learned a few things. One: weddings are really fun. Especially when they have a seven-hour open bar. Two: Do not provide a seven-hour open bar for your friends. If your friends include my friends, this might prevent you from ever owning your own home. (Sorry, John!) Three: The 12-hour drive between Virginia and Alabama is really not too bad, but I do not recommend it 4 times in a span of 13 days. Of course, I will be making it again in about a week, when I return home for Christmas. Or, if you prefer, the holidays.
Speaking as a student, my semester is over. It was actually a fairly easy one. I was (ostensibly) taking 6 credits, which broke down as follows: Black History Since 1877 (4 credits), Independent Readings (1 credit), Teaching History (1 credit). For all intents and purposes, I was taking only one class. Three guesses which one it was. Yes, you’re correct. It was black history.
(Quick recap: Sort of mediocre, not because of the material, but because of the professor. He’s a nice guy, but a real oddball. If you notice anything out there on the web that says “Academics for Ron Paul” or “Historians for Ron Paul,” that would be my guy. He’s leading that charge, if that tells you anything.)
I finished up the independent readings class in mid-October (probably around the same time I posted last) because I read the books over the summer. Of course, I went to see the professor about a month later because I wanted to ask her a question and she said, “You still owe me a paper, right?” To which I responded, “Yeah, no. I turned that in about a month ago. But that answers my question.”
The teaching history class was basically a joke, but a for-credit joke. Which, when you’re trying to get a degree, is really the best kind. It’s only right, considering the German language exam I also had to pass a couple of months ago. That’s what I call a sick joke. (Speaking of sick jokes, Emily and I also watched The Aristocrats the other night. Wow. Just wow. I did laugh though.)
So, speaking as a student, my semester is over. As a graduate teaching assistant, however, it is not. We give the final on Thursday, but I’ve already calculated my grades to this point, so I just have to plug in the final exam grade. Hopefully I can crank those out in about 24 hours. Everyone tells me grading the final is really easy because 99% of students won’t care enough to ask for them back, so you just read it, make a couple of check marks, and throw a grade on there. And if they come back in January like, “I wanna see my grade, you toad!” then I’ll re-read it and throw some erudition on it real quick.
Sounds good to me.
What that means is that for the next week or so (a little less now), I’m basically just chillin’ and finally getting to do some reading that I’ve been wanting to do for a while.
I found a copy of Eric Foner’s book Who Owns History? at the library bookstore for $1, so I bought it. I then realized I put it on my Christmas list this year, so I e-mailed my mom to tell her. Her response? “Well, I guess you can take it to Border’s for store credit. Merry Christmas.” It was pretty good, but not quite as good as I had hoped, so I’m kind of glad I got it for one junior bacon cheeseburger instead of unwrapping it on Christmas Eve, giddy with anticipation.
Now, I’ve moved on to a Grisham novel, one of the few I haven’t yet gotten to (The Testament). It’s pretty good so far, but it’s a Grisham novel, so what more can I really say here?
I’m also reading another history book (I’m a masochist), but this one I got for free in exchange for writing a review for the UA-published grad student journal of southern history. It’s called The Spirit and the Shotgun, and it’s about armed self-defense v. philosophical non-violence during the civil rights movement. It’s very good (much better than I expected), although I suspect that none of you are particularly interested in reading it.
Pause. Emily just woke up, so it’s time for me to make some french toast. Back in a few.
OK, back. Where was I? Oh, yes–books. Right.
So, next on my list is a (relatively) new book I picked up the other day called 1 Dead in Attic. Written by a journalist, it is a collection of observations in New Orleans, post-Katrina. I have a feeling it’s going to be a powerful read, and after reading the acknowledgments–always my first stop, the author (Chris Rose) seems to have an engaging writing style. It’s labeled as a history book (indeed, I found it in the history section), but it just doesn’t seem like history yet. Which brings me to a philosophical question on the nature of history: when does the past become “history?” Is the recent shooting in Omaha a part of “history?” Or is it simply the very recent past? What about Katrina? I think we’re starting to see 9/11 dealt with in a way that it’s considered “history,” so maybe the threshold is somewhere around 5 years or so.
Anyway, the book seems to have a history of its own. Rose self-published the book in early 2006, not terribly long after the storm. It apparently sold very well and Rose was working on a follow-up book when Simon & Schuster approached him about buying the rights to republish, so both books have been combined as the new 1 Dead in Attic. I’m looking forward to it.
In other news, I have a more formal interview at a (for now) unnamed school in R_____, V______ coming up very soon (I’m not sure why I did that with the name of the city. Seemed appropriate at the time. Probably wasn’t. Oh well). As some of you are probably aware, I had an informal meeting there about a month ago, which seemed to go pretty well. In any event, I’m really trying to not get my hopes up here, but it’s tough. I really like the school (at least from what I’ve seen so far). I’d love to get back closer to home, and in terms of logistics for this summer, what with the finishing school, getting married, not starving while waiting for the new job to start, and moving, it would be really nice to know in the next month or two what I’ll be doing next fall. Then we could start making the less important but much more nagging arrangements in terms of moving trucks, subleasing, etc., etc., etc.
Of course, it all seems too easy. That’s what I’m telling myself. How could I possibly get a job in December or January at the first place I really looked? It just doesn’t work that way usually. But deep down, my hopes are up. Alas.
Sorry for the delay in posting. I hope this small book has given you an insight into my life of late, and I hope this finds you all doing well. Merry holidays!
Filed under: Commentary
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics–they will only grow louder and more dissonant. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
We will remember that there is something happening in America, that we are not as divided as our politics suggests, that we are one people. We are one nation, and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea:
Yes. We. Can.