1. We may well be getting a 2% raise next year. That will be the first in five years, although there have been 71 salary adjustments to retain people who got better offers and although some people have gotten the small amounts you get for promotion (if I were promoted I would get $600 more per year, last I looked). But this is the first raise, merit or cost of living, that has been available to the general public since then.
2. I am meeting with my new, 6 hour per week volunteer TA at noon, who is pleasantly, from Castellón and who is very modern. I had one in summer too, from Medellín (¡quitilín, quitilingo!), but otherwise had not had one in five years.
3. We are getting relief in the foreign language teaching situation. It will no longer be possible to get someone fired for being modern, which means I can keep the faculty I have left. This is especially good since we have a hiring freeze and the powers of reaction already fired one this year.
4. I get course release this spring, because they have realized how bad my administrative workload is! I did not ask for this — they came up with it spontaneously! It only leaves me with two courses … that I have not taught before at this institution, of course, so it will take some effort to figure them out, but there are only two of them! Two! Observe them:
SPANISH LITERATURE 1700-2012
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HISPANIC CULTURES
5. Language program coda: my whole problem, really, is not putting ENOUGH time into it, I think. Not the opposite. That is because we teach so many sections of everything, it is hard to find enough time, but my problem concentrating comes from the guilt and anxiety I have over it from all the constant exhortations I no longer hear, but that keep hitting me like blows and making me jumpy: “Cut corners there! If you put time into those courses you will never get a job! Never make tenure! Never be able to move!” and also: “Who do you think you are?” But I say that like it or not, these courses need a little time time time. Not too much, but some pleasure and time time time.
Tiempo Tiempo.
Mediodía estancado entre relentes.
Bomba aburrida del cuartel achica
tiempo tiempo tiempo tiempo.Era Era.
Gallos cancionan escarbando en vano.
Boca del claro día que conjuga
era era era era.Mañana Mañana.
El reposo caliente aún de ser.
Piensa el presente guárdame para
mañana mañana mañana mañanaNombre Nombre.
¿Qué se llama cuanto heriza nos?
Se llama Lomismo que padece
nombre nombre nombre nombrE.–C.V., T II
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 