small pond

Why is it I do what I do? Or, better perhaps, why is it I've done what I want to be given the chance to keep doing? The news trickles in, the first hoops or hurdles cleared as MLA approaches. With only three days left before I'm free from my current shite job and looking towards teaching high school come January, the question remains: why does it feel to me like failure to teach high school? It's only a one-semester position, a time filler until next fall when, if the plan succeeds, I'm given the opportunity to teach university somewhere - University of a Red State or Red College, Redsville, Red State. What is the lure, precisely, that has me drawn to leaving New York, looking askance at a possible future living in this fabulous metropolis teaching 15-18 year olds? The nature of the teaching? A difference, certainly, if the one day of classes upon which I sat in is indicative.

More than that, though, it's a question of my _work_. My research. Yes, teaching is important to me, something I dearly love doing, and am committed to doing damn well. And as such is the ultimate distraction from my research. But, as a friend of mine put it, a man who will be leaving academia for shiny green literary pastures, "We're fame whores." I don't know about whore, but I want the chance to be judged. To be judged for my work once inside - for my book(s), articles, conference talks. To demonstrate I have something to say, and to be respected for what I've said. Yet this whole application process is judgement. And to fail at it is to be found wanting, albeit from the mysterious in-between space - of the academy but not in the academy. And if I do fail to obtain a position this year, then even without the soapbox I feel I should have from which to be judged, well, what? High school - to be judged locally, known locally, succeed locally, live in an entirely local pond. Admittedly in one of the world's great cities, but a local and localised pond nonetheless.

Another friend of mine, another ex-academic, admitted whilst extremely intoxicated that he wants to be one of the best writers alive. And secondly to be known for it. Without blinking, an inebriated me replied that I'd swap the two. Fame-whore. And is that what's driven me all these years? I sincerely fucking hope not. People often ask me what drew me to my slightly odd sub-field. I have a potted answer, one that I've been repeating, in some form or another, since my junior year in college when this all began. It's a completely un-thought-through answer, one that explains in witty detail how it is I ended up doing what I do, not why. Finishing the degree, I finished to finish - to not not finish. Hardly a compelling reason, yet it sufficed, and something similar seems to continue to drive me onwards. I want the chance to be known for doing what I do, not just the chance to do it. The facade of having written everything in pencil, to fade away without trace. Yet craving the chance to inscribe my name across the smallest of corners of the smallest of ponds in indelible ink. Failure frightens me.

nevermind

fuck it, I want to whinge instead. I specialise in it; no need to try and order my thoughts and construct some sort of coherent argument and essay when I can let the fingers fly and the drama flow. Or lack thereof. Or whatever. Coming from a UK academic background I just look different, on paper, than my American-educated peers. Or competitors, in this charming industry of ours. And it's reasonably early days, yet, the waiting to hear about requests for further materials and MLA interviews. But in finding who had so far heard what from where, and a very small sampling at that, the despair came crashing in. For yet again, someone whom I know to be a lovely person is flying through the early stages. Her work simply isn't as good as mine. But her academic pedigree, as it were (what are we, fucking show dogs?) is comparable, without the foreignness. Yes, there's always the minor detail of subfield, which undoubtedly plays into it somewhere. But what she does? She doesn't do it so well that I can forgive being overlooked.

All of which, of course, leads the to the crushing self-doubt. (Don't forget the despair, or the rage, by the way. It just wouldn't be the same without them!) The doubt of this ever working out, the doubt in the quality of my work or teaching or anything, the doubt that is, uncensored, the gaping wound in the heart of job letters or interviews. Of facing maybe she does do it so well, that even the terms of my judgement, the spectrums of quality upon which I judge, are not just flawed, but fundamentally wrong, meaningless. So - keep up, now - despair, rage, crushing self-doubt, and utter uncertainty.

Then feed in the historical question - if I don't get X, what comes next? What ever shall I do, Miss Scarlett? Alternately, if I don't get X, what the FUCK have I been doing all this time? And surely someone might have pointed out, somewhere along the way, that this went beyond misguided, beyond quixotic, to just out and out dumb. No future, questionable past. Translation: despair, rage, crushing self-doubt, uncertainty, and the ominous shadow of regret.

Not bad in the 10 minutes it's taken to write this and the 3 minutes it took to learn what schools had called this woman for interviews. And haven't, obviously, called me. We could throw in some envy and/or jealousy, but they're secondary, really, to the question of desire. Despair, rage, self-doubt, uncertainty, regret, and desire thwarted. What a Tuesday.

ingenii

I'm actually shaking, having just finished reading the NY Times piece on gifted children here. And thinking about Malcolm Gladwell's recent bit on the discontinuities between children identified as gifted and 'mature' performance. Alas, I need to shower and get my sorry ass to my sorry job (to give notice, natch, but still), so cannot write it now. But there is a lengthy post whirling about in my head somewhere. I'm just hopeful I can get it written before the imperative fades, dulled by the banality of the job, or the celebration planned for after work today. Hmmm.

the end is nigh

Nigh, I tell you, nigh! But that's a good thing. The psychopathic, manipulative, senile, abusive old fuck for whom I've been working for 7 long months will be getting a polite two-week notice letter on Wednesday. Around which time the last of my tenure-track job applications should arrive at their various destinations. And should the old fuck fire me, oh happy day - unemployment! My exit plan has been moved up by two weeks courtesy some friends who need construction/repair work done around their house, bless 'em, and offered me more money per week than the current gig. And they're intentionally aiding and abetting my escape. Bless 'em.

Also, physical exhaustion doesn't stand in the way of getting (academic) work done in the same ways that the mentally and emotionally draining environment of my current office position does. I'd much rather think, and even write, while physically tired than think while 'turned off' and deep in survival mode. I need to be alert and alive to the world around me in order to, almost paradoxically, turn it off and focus on the work to be written. Starting out mentally stupefied, although similar, just doesn't have the same effect. Perhaps it hearkens back to my undergraduate habit of studying in cafes - the many distractions sharpened my ability to tune it all out and read. Since then I've lost that, and find libraries or home far more conducive to getting anything substantive done. But the remnant, perhaps, lingers on in the need to have something to exclude.