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May 31, 2005
Job Is Job
We hired a kid to work for us at Nutglade who used to work as a busboy in a Chinese restaurant in Yreka. Whenever he was assigned some gruesome task (of which Chinese restaurants seem to have more than their fair share) and he complained about it his boss would say "Don't complain! Job is job!"
I just applied online to a job in Albuquerque that is almost identical to the job I have now. Except that the hours would be longer. Because it is so similar to what I do now, the job appears to be more a sideways career move than an upward one. But it would get me into a part of the academic environment where I feel comfortable, while avoiding the academic work which fills me with inertia.
I hate to get my hopes up, but I feel I match the requirements for the position pretty closely.
Posted by Underblog at 6:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 27, 2005
Hugs
I said good-bye to two colleagues today. I used to wonder what a colleague was. Now I know: They are the folks with whom you share a common workplace but who do not quite qualify as your peers.
One is leaving academia for private enterprise. Another is going away to Africa for the summer. I wonder if I shall hear from either of them again; I hope I do.
Posted by Underblog at 9:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The Speech
I have explained my reasons for leaving the program so many times the explanation is becoming somewhat rote.
The response from faculty is oddly supportive. Like the grad students, they say they will miss me, but would they miss me any less if I were graduating? I suppose in their line of work they see many students who really ought not to be in the program, but who are either (a) worried that leaving the program = failure or (b) simply do not know that there are valid (and perhaps better for them) alternatives to academic life. They may also know the pain I feel about leaving, since the chances are pretty good they have known and liked other people who have suffered as I have.
A professor I spoke with the other day told me that being a professor is the greatest job in the world for him. He quickly followed the statement with the observation that any kind of work can be the greatest job in the world if you enjoy it. Academic life sounded good on paper to me: intellectual freedom and props (and a stable income) for investigating what you think is worthwhile. I envy professors and grad students for whom the decision to stay comes easily. I myself had underestimated the isolation I would feel.
The isolation problem can be somewhat ameliorated by the presence of a mentor. I made the mistake of entering the program without one, and on the promise that a constitutional expert would be quickly hired.* A new constitutional law person has been hired for the fall, but her arrival is too late for me to establish much of a relationship with her.
I do not know nor does it matter at this point whether it is my nature or in the environment in which I find myself that makes me such an unhappy camper. The facts on the ground speak for themself. There is certainly a part of me that thrives on academic life. But I simply cannot dedicate enough of myself to its real enterprise, that of research.
* Some of the people who made this promise amended it retroactively: "We never promised you a Professor A clone" meant that professors completely outside A's field could somehow count. Other professors simply (and to my mind rightly) apologized.
Posted by Underblog at 6:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 26, 2005
The Burden of Low Expectations
As a kid I enjoyed sports though I was not very good at them. I discovered in my thirties that adults have many more opportunities to play sports at an insignificant level and hence enjoy them for their own sake, rather than for glory. Glory certainly factors into the equation at even the lowest levels of competition, but it is the ephemeral sort of making one incredible play that the people present might remember the following week.
I have been worried the past week or so that I will be unable to find work in Albuquerque. I should not have to worry much, since I have never had to struggle much to find a job. And once in the job, I seem to stick around until (a) something better comes along or (b) I get promoted. But the very worst way to find a job, it seems, is to go out looking. And so I worry that I am underqualified for interesting jobs and overqualified (and will be bored out of my mind) with a menial job.
I was not expecting to play softball at all last night, for it had been raining lightly but steadily the entire day. But the field was playable, and the after the first inning or so we were able to remove our rainjackets and play some ball. It would not surprise me to learn that all softball teams are bunches of misfits, but we certainly seem to be so. No one on our team "wears the pants," meaning the sliding pants that "hardcore" American batting sports types wear. Many of us wear warm-up pants with giant tears from in them from the occasional sliding we do. Our opponents wore the pants, although they had weak center and right fielders and an 0-5 record.
Before the first at-bat (this year and for some reason unknown to me I have been moved from the bottom of the order to the top), I swung the bat loosely thinking of the admonition to follow the ball all the way to the bat rather than look away to where it is going. I hit the first pitch of the game up the left field line for a single. I was subsequently forced out at second. My second at-bat flied out to left field. The third at bat was a line drive over the glove of the shortstop, who had moved over to cover second). I advanced the runner to third. I was subsequently forced out at second again.
On my the fourth trip to the plate, runners were already at first and second. I hit a low pitch hard. It appeared to be going right to the left fielder. But she underestimated the speed of the ball, as I have done many many times. As I rounded first, I saw that it had sailed over her glove and she and the center fielder were running after it. In our league it almost always pays off to run the bases aggressively, since seldom are the most skilled players assigned to cover home plate. So I ran like hell around second and third, minding the slippery stretch that had already brought a teammate into the mud, forcing him to crawl up into a brief hotbox from which an errant throw released him home for a grand slam—probably the most highlight-reel event of the game. The throw arrived behind me and I was spared the necessity of sliding into home. Any season in which I hit one is a good one for me.
Every once in a while, your confidence gets a lift right when it needs one. In my case it appears to be about once every two years.
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May 20, 2005
The Veil Lifts
At softball the other night, a classmate asked what my plans were after grad school. I cannot answer this question to my own satisfaction, much less anyone else's. Then he asked the reasons for my great discomfort in the program. For the first time, I was able to answer that I resented the department for (not intentionally) deceiving me about whether they were going to hire a con law professor. The fuller explanation is that my trust was violated: the folks I turned to for guidance were the very ones who had given me the bad information.
Other folks appear to have been placed in a similar situation. Now they are scrambing to assemble committees out of the few remaining faculty with tenure in their field.
In happier news, I met last night last the willing and available members of my cohort for a drink. I think my other idea, a cohort listserv, went over slightly better: there were six of us present at Old Chicago, about a third of the original group. Others had family business to attend and Star Wars movies to see. Last night, I thought that would be the largest assembly of our group for some time, but I forgot that those who are staying will all be taking the professional development series together. They will see each other all next year, but last night was as big of a gathering of my cohort as I will see for some time.
I will miss them. But as I have said before, it is just a matter of time until we go our separate ways in any case. I hope that we manage to keep in touch with each other.
Malcolm Gladwell once did an article about the sociology of office space. In it, he described how different personality types play specific roles in the distribution of information. As anyone in our department will tell you, I am what is called in Siliconvalleyspeak a "prairie dog." Last night, one of my classmates mentioned that he did not know that I was leaving until he came across my blog. I suppose we know that others are talking about what they see in the blogosphere (that sometimes appears to be the whole idea), but I am vainly curious as to how this particular word got out.
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May 12, 2005
Fellow Denizen of Grad School Purgatory
I always knew that I am not the only unhappy camper in our program, even if it felt that way sometimes. But now I know that I am not the only person in the blogosphere griping about it. Full props to the heretofore anonymous Neurotic Grad Student. My day is totally made.
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Subbing Again: Another Weird Dream Fragment
5.12.04
Update, sort of: New Order of "Oddball Rodent" Discovered Being Sold as Food in Lao markets. And Stylish Savannah Cats may be banned in New York. Kitty porn for the rest of us.
So here is the dream du jour, fresh from the pillow at 5:41am. My sister, stepsister, and her son were all staying at my folks' house.* Except the house wasn't really their house, because there was a glassed-in porch, which held my step-sister's bed. Also, the house was much closer—right around the corner in fact—from the small set of stores near my folks' house. When I asked my step-sister if she was comfortable sleeping on the porch she said she slept better than ever. The three of us begin walking to the local ice cream store† (or so I thought), when I ask where my nephew is. I am reminded that he had already been put to bed.** I think that because it is ten minutes to eleven pm, it is unlikely that the local ice cream store would be open.†† Instead, we are walking to the local 7-11 store, which is not where the local 7-11 store really is. My sister and step-sister talk with the proprietors, who appear to me to be brothers and of middle-eastern heritage. They have an excellent ice cream selection, including unmarked hand-packed cartons. My sister orders a carton and chats with the owners. We discuss how "crack" has entered the lexicon as an ironic euphemism for anything that people desire strongly. I order my carton of ice cream, and I hand over a ten-dollar bill, the last currency in my wallet. I receive change for a five. I tell the dude, "Uh, that was a ten." "No it wasn't" he replies. We both insist on our rightness, and I seethe at the insinuation that I am either mistaken or lying when I know that I am right. I tell the dudes what idiots they are to insist on withholding my rightful change when I live just across the street (when in fact I am there only for a visit), and I threaten them with telling my friends, writing letters to the editor, etc. All to no avail. I leave the store fuming; my sister and step-sister remain behind.
I awake thinking about how difficult it is for people like me to break out of the molds made for us by the circumstances of our upbringing.
*I had been thinking about how ridiculous that I considered staying in graduate school based on how disappointed my parents will be that I did not finish.
†I am on something of an ice-cream kick, having twice made special trips for it in the past month. I may have also been inspired by the article below. Finally, Generation Bob and I have recently discussed our respective sweets intake.
**He is in fact in high school now and quite grown up. It is unlikely that he would not be accompanying us.
††We have been foiled by early ice cream store closings in the past.
Conclusion: House not where it is supposed to be? Store not where it really is? Me on the brink of pulling up stakes here on the prairie? Coincidence? Perhaps not.
Whew. Now something to cheer us back up: Our correspondents respond! Featured at right, "A litter of groundhogs emerges from the underside of a propane tank on a farm in Mason County, Ky." care of RT. Also from RT, Ice Cream Vendor Punches Complaining Little Boy. At least the friendly ice cream vendor in my dream wasn't like this guy. Also: What Do You Think? Texas Cheerleader Crackdown from the Onion.
Posted by Underblog at 5:59 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 11, 2005
Farewells
I learned today that another of my cohort is leaving the program. He came in to see me because of what he read in this blog, the contents of which he was heretofore unaware. He too, evidently, has been struggling with the decision to stay or go, to the point where my recollections of visiting the Boynton Mental Health Clinic seemed familiar to him. His reason to exit early (again, technically a leave of absence) is perhaps even more compelling than mine: He has a girlfriend in another country, and being apart from each other for so long is exerting some pressure for them to rejoin. Coming back for the 24 thesis credits does not appear to be any more of an option for him than it is for me.
Come to think of it, staying in graduate school was ruining my relationship too, though it did so by ruining the rest of my life first.
Posted by Underblog at 4:18 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 5, 2005
It's Over
The sense of relief I should and will feel is on hold for the time being. Instead, I have the post-exam "How I screwed that exam up" blues. The sourness was somewhat alleviated by lunch with beer with two of my classmates immediately afterwards.
At first I thought I did OK. Then I remembered how I struggled to find the standard error for the difference of two proportions. I think I just wrote "± SE." This might have been acceptable if the instructor had not placed the formula on the front page of the exam. So now I am thinking that a B is the very best I can do now in the course.
I remember professors telling me that grades do not matter as much in graduate school. They do matter as much or more, to the extent that they affect future funding possibilities. What I think the profs meant was that graduate students simply stop caring about grades, since they will be irrelevant once grads are on the job market.
Posted by Underblog at 6:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 4, 2005
Statistics Part 2
The overarching principle of statistics is simple. The same formula (observation less expected over a standard error) is repeated throughout the course with only minor variations, except for non-parametric tests. But to do statistics requires some heavy intellectual lifting. Figuring out which test to use will be the core of the final exam—which I am grateful lasts no more than an hour.
I have been vascillating between confidence in my knowing the material and abject terror that I will totally bomb. I am in the same boat as a classmate described to me: It is virtually impossible that I will get either a C or an A in the course. But I am delighted that for better or for worse, it will be behind me soon.
Posted by Underblog at 6:56 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 2, 2005
Please
As our final 5021 class assembled for the review and evaluation session, we observed the following dialogue between the professor of the calculus class before us and one of his students.
—I took the test!
—Do you have it? Without the test, I can't put anything down for the grade.
—Are you calling me a liar? That I didn't take the test?
—No, no. But without the test, I cannot see that you have a score on the midterm. Do you have it?
— I can't find it. But I have piles and piles of paper in my apartment.
—So you got it back then?
—Yes.
—And it was graded?
—There was a grade was on it. I don't remember what it was.
—First, you should see if you can find it.
I felt sorry for the kid. He might have been not lying. I imagine that if he did tell the truth, he will be looking for that test tonight. But really, kid: save everything, at least until the final grade gets recorded on the transcript.
Posted by Underblog at 12:20 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Last Lecture
This morning, I will sit through what is likely to be the last lecture of my graduate career. It is both a landmark event and a sad one. I enjoy lectures, as a general rule; it is the independent research that gets to me. It seems a bit outrageous to say it, but I think I shall miss showing up for class.
Still the mental block against finishing the incompletes remains. I can write a couple of really poor papers to finish them off, but if I cannot receive any joy from their completion it hardly seems worth the trouble. I would get some joy from being ABD and I might get some joy from teaching, but I think it would be false advertising to promote myself as the kind of researcher that a college should hire—especially when so many good candidates come on the market each year.
Shall we say goodbye then, or only "Auf wiedersehen"?
Posted by Underblog at 6:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack