“Working here is like working in a coffin or a tomb,” said my colleague. So part of my issue is, wanting to be somewhere more lively. Wanting to do this work but needing to be somewhere more lively to do it. Is that a crime? (My colleagues making six figures are in lively places often, … More And simplifying
The other reason I feel terrible working in my original field is the infantilization — I associate it working in it with shame and humiliation. And of course all the advice I rail about, the advice I tried to use to get myself to keep working on it, is infantilizing advice, so the entire atmosphere … More And now, postscripts to that letter
“Do you mean you are going to take more of a stand, rather than remain silent? . . . I pride myself for being able to glimpse in a person that elusive quality of heightened awareness. . . . YOU ARE TRULY BRILLIANT, GOD DAMNIT. Please just admit it. . . . “ That is … More Extraits d’une lettre
I woke up this morning in physical pain, not looking forward to the day, and had already started to yell at myself. “You should love yourself instead,” I said in my newfound skill, and I was therefore able to get up and make coffee. There is much I stopped doing for myself when psychotherapy told … More La pluie
I taught this novel last semester when I was falling apart. It was too difficult for the students in terms of language, and reading with them I noticed that on the one hand it was a more difficult modernist text than I remembered and on the other, it resembled a nineteenth century potboiler in a … More El señor presidente
…as I was deciding to go on partial leave this semester. 1. The situation, and my health situation, is and has been really bad. I do not recognize this enough but the only explanation for all that keeps happening is that it is bad. Recognizing that is different from joining the culture of complaint, or … More These were the notes I had made
Discipline will not do anything useful with [the problem of self-sabotage and self-hatred]. Just the opposite – it will aggravate the issue. Discipline is a form of masochism, a symptom of self-hate, and you can’t eradicate self-hate with more of the same. And, I suppose, it is because of this that I have such an … More An important comment from Clarissa
“Awards will range from $500-$1,000 with the highest award level going to graduate faculty who teach and/or research in a doctoral program.” If your discipline does not have a Ph.D. program, the university will not support your research as fully, yet it will surely require you produce as much or more than the faculty it … More It is clear
Well, if you are on partial leave such that you are only teaching two classes, actually two sections of the same class, and it is one you have given before, and the students in it are at a level appropriate for it; and after that you only have a very few independent study and graduate … More The greatest profession, and so on
I have become faculty advisor for the secular students’ alliance, an important organization because it creates a space in which secular students can be secular. It is not so easy here because they face ostracism from family and friends and some are not in a position to come out of the closet, so they need … More On teaching, and on how one is seen
coldhearted scientist وداد 