Uggggggggggghh. I don't wanna send out goddamn job applications! I don't wanna! I don't wanna! I don't wanna!
Also: re-tooling these apps from last year is a pain. As is tailoring them in a bunch of weird directions.
I have quite a few things with rolling deadlines (ie send it in immediately) and a few more that are due by the end of the month, but I just haven't been able to buckle down and do them. I have started working up one letter for a weird thing, but haven't completed it yet. And I mostly updated my CVs but need to go find my list of activities for tenure and make sure everything I did gets properly highlighted in my service. And I need to pester people about letters. It's all very annoying and draining. This is why I haven't been working on them ---- I go out and do annoying social things with family members first thing in the morning and then don't have the energy or ability to do anything unpleasant in the afternoon. So today I did a bit of letter-revamping and now am in my post-lunch slump, but because the deadlines are right now, I need to go back in and do more hard work. I think I have already done all the easy nonthinking bits.
And once I have these all worked up and sent along I get to create a couple new classes practically from scratch! My break is no fun this year.
That reminds me: visiting with all the family this year was really hard. It's tough not telling them things (see my last post). I kept noncommittal for the most part but my uncle proceeded to ask me and my cousins about our new year's resolutions or plans. Totally normal and fun, right? But it was very awkward talking about possibly traveling over the summer or whether I should buy a car and how the housing market looks over in my town (my cuz especially likes hearing about this and trading house renovation stories) without telling them I wasn't going to be sticking around. I'm not technically lying to them, but...
It is also hard to hear stories about how my nephew has crashed and burned and been asked to leave his state school (and honestly, is not doing too hot at the local community college this semester, either) when I'd like to give him advice as well as a strong tongue-lashing (him and his parents need to hear the what-for, since their worst habits are strongly enabling his unproductive behavior), but I don't feel like I can hold myself up as any sort of model behavior or success, considering. And who knows: maybe I am terrible at this and my standards/expectations are all off and therefore any advice I would give him is bad! Anyway, one of the things I have learned at this school is that giving advice and warnings only makes students mad instead of making them heedful, so it is probably for the best that I sit on my hands and clamp my mouth shut over my tongue in the case of my nephew.
If only I didn't have to send out all these damn applications. Then I could be complaining about my course planning instead...
7 comments:
Sending good thoughts your way for an easy prep for the new year and a magic application spell that could whip those things out in short order!
You age been successful - you earned a Ph.D, and then have been gainfully employed for five years. That's a lot more successful than a kid flaming out of a cc. (My cousins daughter yesterday admitted that her first semester at the local cc had really whipped her butt....but she appears to have learned something from it!).
Good luck on the job apps. Will you have a letter from your current place?
I feel a strange affinity to you (with?) - I need to prep my final term's classes as well. And I just can't find the energy to even think about them. My give-a-shit factor is about -42. I'm leaving for (I hope) a different reason - but the feelings seem much the same.
I hope you find the energy (long before I do, anyway) and the inner peace you need. This has been a painful experience for you, with more pain and fear to come. But I'm rather glad you're getting out of there. It's not a good place for you to be now. May the New Year find you a better job in a Less Hot Place and the kind of angst that comes with a t-t job!
I'm so sorry, I know job apps are the WORST!
Ugh. I've had Christmas breaks like that (and probably will again -- second the comments that a low point in an overall upward trajectory is very different from a repeated pattern of screwing up. Also, losing a job because your standards, or at least your goals for/expectations of your students, are too high is, well, not exactly a failure.)
Don't spend more time than you absolutely have to on class prep (unless, of course, thinking about courses somehow helps with thinking through the application process, and/or helps you feel professionally alive/successful in a useful way. Otherwise, this sounds like the moment for stealing someone else's syllabus and running with it).
What everyone else said, can't think of anything original but wanted to weigh in with 'a-hiccup-is-not-a-failure' and some positive vibes!
Dear Sisyphus, This is a crap time. I'm so sorry. And I know you're feeling all low and everything and want to go and hide and take care of yourself, which is what you should be able to do. But it's pretty clear that you are going to have to break out a can of whoop-ass and go all fabulous and shimmery with awesomeitude. The energy to do all this is no doubt already volleying through space to you, ready to keep you up at night. You're going to be awesome, Sis, but it is probably going to feel pretty crappy. I'm sending you a big hug and waves of good vibes.
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