…so I went to school and went to class and everything is fine. It is just: I am so scarred by teaching recalcitrant freshmen and having old-fashioned supervisors on my case about THEIR ideas of how freshmen should be served. I am so tired of being so far away from everything. I am so seriously … More Hmm…
“Don’t spend too much time on teaching or you will end up as an adjunct” is code for: “The kinds of courses [women and] adjuncts teach, take up inordinate amounts of time and if you engage in that, you will never get ahead.” I was always willing to conduct literary research and teach so as … More On spending too much time on teaching
It is that one is not required to be one’s own enemy. In Reeducation this was required, and a great deal of academic advice is structured in the same way: one is to suspect and mistrust oneself. One could even harbor friendly feelings toward oneself. I have done this sometimes — especially, as I remember, … More I see
I really am not cut out to teach in a foreign language department, and perhaps not in a foreign literature department, either. I did not have these problems in graduate school but they surfaced as soon as I left that institution and they have not left me. 1. Bad foreign language teacher. Too much speaking … More Postscript on teaching
Historiann says this and I am glad to hear not only I have this problem. My unhappiness inadequacy as a professor would be greatly mitigated by a lower teaching load. Here is that journal on syllabi, and we should all publish in it, for many reasons including that it will get us research credit for teaching … More On teaching, the upshot
“She opens the world of words and makes you think you have created it yourself.” That is what a good student said about me but these characteristics are not appreciated by all. In any case, I think I should write an essay about the last two days I have spent thinking about the introduction to … More I will write another meta-academic essay, or two
The students have never read any fiction before, of any kind, in any language. What I should be doing is having story hour. In my elementary schools, after lunch, the teacher would read high quality, age appropriate books for a whole hour. I should conceive of this course the way I do of the extracurricular … More How I should be teaching the introduction to the study of literature
It is possible to live yet better, in my case largely by not staying up so late and going running more regularly. Yesterday, though, I planted trees along the Bayou Teche and went swimming. The ride along the levee was beautiful. Then I looked I at my citation statistics for annual review and realized that … More Sunday meditation…
It was the evenness that they did not like, that seemed like an affront. They believed in suffering and relief. (I always feel I must go somewhere I feel I cannot be found if I want to enact that apparently criminal evenness.) (If I am visible then I must be seen to suffer because if … More 12 Pluviôse
…to request a resolution about on campus interviews. We need to be able to invite more than one person at a time. Now, we are allowed one, and if we do not like them enough to hire we have to go through a long process to request the visit of a second candidate. That is … More Remind me
