Dinner

I'm sure I have plenty of things to report and things I've been thinking about, but I am also sorta kinda caught up on grading assignments, and whenever I have had the energy to actually think about what I might write here, I have graded things instead, and whenever I have been too tired to grade things, I have been also too tired to think or do anything much except stare at random stuff on the internet and not even comment.

But tonight I ran into a student assignment that peeved me, and I cooked a big fancy dinner to blow off steam. And now I don't feel like grading! Or cleaning the kitchen!

So after I got back here in January, grumpy and annoyed by a pretty crappy Christmas,  I treated myself with this fancy All-Clad big saute pan. The kind with the carry handle and long handle and straight sides. It is perfect for frying up meat or searing and then pan-roasting it. Now, I am mostly vegetarian, but have definitely fallen off the wagon since Christmas. I blame the pan ---- you know the phrase where when you have a hammer, you think everything is a nail? Well, when you have a pan that all the snooty food blogs tell you is the absolute best way to sear and oven-roast meat to get the crispy outside and tender inside, you tend to see everything as something you can fry. I should note that my cats do not come in to this equation at all.

Anyway, I think I got a coupon for some free meats from my hippie grocery store, and another time I picked up a package of chicken breasts, so I have been working on my pan roasting and learning how to make a simple pan sauce. Unfortunately, most of my cookbooks are vegetarian, and the one my sis-in-law got me that has lots of chicken recipes is a "Fast dinners for weeknights" type and they want you to grill everything. Do I have a grill? Nooo! (Maybe that will be my next splurge? Stop it!) This means that I tried making a roast with pan sauce (all of this requires lots of wine too, by the way) once with an internet recipe and it turned out pretty good, and then I got cocky and tried making it from memory but couldn't and also couldn't find the same website with the oven time recommendations, and that went pretty badly, and this time it turned out ok, although I should go back and check on what goes in the reduction again, as it was not as lovely as other times.

It is my goal, then, to get pan-roasting and making a reduction sauce down to the point where I can work it and know all the times without looking anything up, the way I have gotten with broccoli, and asparagus, and green beans. Everything else I sorta know how to make, but have to look up measurements and times to be sure. By the way, the above picture looks muddy and horrible but it is actually delicious pan sauce with some white wine reducing. Mmm.

I also roasted up potatoes with garlic and it was very good --- especially when swished around in the excess sauce --- but getting the timing right for cooking multiple things at once was very difficult. And my food got cold pretty quick, which lessened the tastiness of the whole project, but that did not stop me from eating far too much. Yum.

My other problem was that I am an idiot! And do not remember the obvious fact that, once you take a pan like this out of the oven, the handle is still hot! Last time I burnt the side of my arm on it real good, and this time I kept taking the potholder off the handle before reaching for it, like the potholder was in the way or something, and stopping myself just in time. Sigh.

I actually like cooking fancy stuff for myself, despite the timing issues, but I don't feel like cleaning up the enormous mess in the kitchen right now. It is less of a mess than the last time, though --- man, if you get the olive oil a bit too hot it really spatters! Ideally I would get to the point where I could plan the flavors of a whole meal to go together, but I think that involves planning at the grocery-shopping stage, as well as being willing to look up different spices/recipes for the vegetables instead of just using the one recipe I have memorized.

And another problem? This is fun. You might wonder how that could possibly be a problem, but remember, I mostly have shoddy cooking stuff from my undergrad days and hand-me-downs --- I am soooo tempted to lay in an entire supply of swanky cooking equipment and gourmet spices and imported foodstuffs of all sorts --- and I don't really have the money for anything right now. Luckily, I still have one more chicken breast left. But no more wine. Hmm.

I just may have to use that lemon in the fridge and break out the butter for my next pan sauce. Aw, yeah.

Sisyphus VS The World

The other night I finally got around to watching the Scott Pilgrim movie — way cute! Now I’m wishing I still rocked the purple and green hair, despite the hassle of keeping the color up — though I never actually combined my wild hair with actual snazzy haircuts or my wild clothing phases; I’m not that brave or coordinated in my weirdness.

Anyway, I am way behind on everything — mainly because these damn cc applications take way longer and more energy than I anticipate, always — you think I would actually start anticipating longer times then, and I do! but it's never enough.

By the end of spring break I may have written more supplemental essays than what I received as comp assignments from my students last Friday. They include, in no particular order, what to do with an ELL student failing a developmental comp class, the best book I have used for a transfer-level comp class (and how I made it accessible to diverse populations), what I "carry with me, metaphorically" given the experience of teaching at a cc, a description of the mission and populations served by the cc system, a justification of one freshman-comp syllabus and one freshman introduction to lit syllabus (no more than 500 words each), what branch of composition/rhetoric theory best explains my teaching philosophy.

This does not include, because I already have written and saved these on the hard drive from previous rounds of application: my community-college teaching philosophy, cover letter, and statement of experience working with diverse populations, my description of an assignment that worked particularly well and why, the major differences between basic (or developmental) and transfer-level writing classes, and a reverse chronological list of all the grad classes taken with full titles and competency areas. Those are ready to go.

What I am saying here is: I really wish I could just fight my way to the top of the applicant list, Mortal Kombat-style, and with the cute visual effects and 8-bit soundtrack from Scott Pilgrim. It would be way more fun, and coins would shower to the ground every time I bashed someone in the head and they disappeared! It would also mean at some point I would get to level-up in experience, or that if I got sick of doing the same damn thing I could push up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A and get to skip to the final boss level. Hmm. Or, alternately, it could mean that if I actually finish this whole tenure-track/permanent job search I just have to go back and do the entire process over again, but this time all the HR people are replaced by hard-shelled black beetles.

Well, I'm not sure I'd like that alternative. But it would at least be something different.

Spring Break Extravablah

I don't know about you, but when I think spring break, I think, yeaaaaaaah let's do a bunch of job applications!!!!!*  I've already done one and have two more that are due today, then a bunch of the community college jobs which aren't due this week, but I might as well use this free time to get them off the plate before classes and assignments to grade come in.

Luckily CCs in the West seem much more robust than they have since I first tried to break in to the field and the stock market tanked. I have already applied to way more jobs post-MLA (so non-tt and community college jobs, with a smattering of admin type things) than I could reasonably have applied for pre-MLA (tt in my field).

Of course, that sequester thing is now going to kibosh all those positions, isn't it? Right after I apply and before I can actually get hired anywhere. Fucking sequester.



*For those of you who think this might be a euphemism, "doing a job application" looks like this,

Not like this:

Le sigh.

Overcorrecting Course

Last spring break was, to put it mildly, awful. I was feeling behind so when I scheduled all my course assignments, I had big projects all due the last day before spring break. Then I sat around alone in my apartment while it rained all week and I tackled piles and piles of grading and cried. It was not fun.

Spring break for this year is coming up soon and I have just looked at all my syllabi. This time around I have all of my big assignments, in all classes, due ---- yes, the Monday immediately after break.

What was I thinking? Couldn't I have gone for the happy medium and given myself half the assignments to grade over break and half afterwards?

No, because I am an idiot. And never let it be said that I do stupid things halfway.

No soliciting

Dear cat,

Please do not put your head between me and the laptop monitor, my butt and the chair, or my pen and the paper! Also, do not nip me and try to play "catch the pen from the Cog's hand"! I neeeeeeed to get this class lesson prepped and this shit graded! It is coming up on grade-posting time, and I would like to catch up and actually post things so I have time to start creating all my next round of assignment instructions! I do not have time to play!!!

You are just going to have to entertain yourself without me joining you on the couch.

Ok, a few quick ear scritches. Awwww. Now go!

I'm not supposed to be blogging right now, but whatevs

I am supposed to be cleaning out my email in-box and making sure I responded to/graded/otherwise dealt with all the student emails piling up in there. I don' wanna. I also have a big pile of homework I need to go through before tomorrow so I can hand it back. But I just ate a big lunch and do not feel like doing anything.

What I have been doing is my yoga --- I have been really on top of that so far this year! Yay, me. I hope I can keep it up once we hit the grading crunch time of the semester. --- and a couple job apps. I am in the midst of the crazy involved job app season, where everything is either a community college or half-time admin or just plain weird and wants all sorts of strange additional materials, highly tailored. It is a sad day when you think you'd rather do another couple apps, that aren't even due this week, rather than untangle the piles of student  excuses I need to save, student excuses I need to reject, requests, favors, reminders, and homework assignments sent as attachments (I just really don't like grading in this fashion).

It is highly boring here, as you can see, but it is sunny and bright out, which is putting me in a good mood. I am watching my cats sunbathe near the couch. Unfortunately it is tempting me to bad things, like take a nap.

We are having several job searches here, and I have been recruited to do some things. Meh. We also have some interesting internal candidates and departmental faction stuff going on, but I'm not really invested in that much either. It is unfortunate that they have put me on this search committee and asked me to do stuff, since they do not ask me to stick around or develop any sort of long-term relationship with the department or the area. So I look at that and say, hey, I don't need to come to any of these job talks or get involved if you expect me to stay on the market and not be here next fall! But if you have been asked to do stuff, then meeting only one of the candidates and doing stuff somehow seems unfair. OTOH, they didn't do a very good job scheduling talks and such around my schedule, and there's no way I'd cancel a class to see a job talk or go to a meal with the candidate, so maybe I shouldn't feel guilty. Meh. And every time I hear about our campus visit stuff,  I get antsy and want the apps I just sent out to materialize as campus visit requests already.

Anything exciting going on with you?? People need to post some better procrastinatory material for me here. Or else I'll be forced to clean out my in-box!

The Breaking of the Fellowship of the Postdoc

Well, perhaps I should have known that the first year of the postdoc was too good to be true, friendship-wise. I just assumed that everyone would be friendly and have free time for me and have similar interests and beliefs as me. I had a few bumps with the shit-stirrer (because he likes to be a shit-stirrer and that's not my style) and the person who could never accept that s/he left California went back to California, but by and large, we hung out a bunch. Including the newly-hired faculty to an extent.

(Yr humble blogger. Although my hair never looks as good. The hairy toes and love of Second Breakfast are a good match, though.)

Then we brought in a couple new postdocs --- one was never around, one I only sorta got along with but we'd both invite everyone to various social things, and one is just as nice and lovely as the first year people. Things started falling off a bit; the tt faculty especially, and as the tt faculty and a couple postdocs' wives got pregnant, first the wives dropped out of various social things, then the husbands. Things seemed not quite as nice and friendly as the second year.

At the end of the year, the one who was never around left, the prickly one left, deciding that adjuncting back at husband's PhD institution would be better than postdocing here, and Angry Anarchist Postdoc left the country for the equivalent of a tenure track job in a faraway land.

(Will he return? Probably not. But landing a tenure track job is a lot like being a wizard who returns from almost certain death, right? I mean, tenure track jobs are basically only legends these days, right?)

This year started out all right --- I was trying to get people to hang out with me and for everyone to come out for a meal and a few beers at least once a week. But then I started being witness to stories that would be great fodder for the blog, if only I could post them and still have them still be funny but not identifiable. Seriously, hilarious. And jail time is involved.

Then very quickly these stories I was witnessing became very unfunny. They were sad, awkward, and uncomfortable. Perhaps this was to be expected when the postdoc committee met and drew up a short list, and then only one person from the short and long list agreed to come, it pays so little here. So they went back to the pool and called every single applicant. They finally filled two of the remaining three spots. But I got the feeling that there were problems in both sociableness and academic socialization in these postdocs. I would not be surprised if these problems ended up derailing their academic chances.

(I hasten to add that one of our new postdocs is wonderful to get along with, funny and plucky and brave and if all of them had these qualities everything would be fine:

This postdoc is very sparkly and cheerful and especially since we do not work in the same scholarly areas I am rooting for Sparkle Postdoc to get some amazing job somewhere.)


The first problem --- no wait, this is the second problem. But it was a bigger blow-up.

The stress was getting to all of us. But my good friend and postdoc from my first year here, Local Kid Makes Good, has taken it hardest, I think. She dropped off the radar at one point, and said something about dealing with being depressed over the summer. But while we had office hours at the same time, it seemed like I saw her pretty regularly and we were for the most part getting along. (I hope? I am now paranoid and reading into everything we said to each other in the last few months...)

But her temper and ability to put up with bullshit have both suffered, resulting in a shouting match with another postdoc in the middle of one of our outings. This happened almost at the same time as the two other new postdocs got in a huge debacle of a fight with each other, and now everyone is keeping away from everyone else. Remember those logic problems where you need to sit people around a table but Bill won't sit next to Mary and Mary cannot sit next to Sue or John, but John only wants to sit next to Bill?

Now whenever I send out an email to invite people out for something, I either get a bunch of "Is ___ coming? I won't go if it's so."

Or silence.

Since the blowup at our local bar, I have barely heard from Local Kid Makes Good. I agree that this new person said stuff that was sexist and dumb. I feel like the argument was over the top and pointless, though, mainly because I am pessimistic about changing the minds of sexist people. But this new person was really rattled and has spent a lot of time with me talking through everything. I wouldn't choose this new person (who needs a name but I am strangely coming up short in the LOTR pantheon) over Local Kid Makes Good, but I am worried that she thinks so. I am also worried that I am just plain old annoying and have driven her --- and everyone else --- away by simple fact of my personality. I mean, if the only postdocs they could get were people who were beyond socially awkward, and I am a postdoc here, then QED...?

This semester I am all alone in my office, since everyone else teaches on the days I am not there, and I am all alone out at dinner and the bar, since the new postdocs have managed to displease and alienate either each other or the established people.

So when I send out the emails inviting people out for a burger and some beers...

This is the first problem. There is someone here who is just ... difficult to hang out with and impossible to have a conversation with. At first I could get around this with just the sheer numbers of people at the table, by reminding everyone that if we all talk, then Gollum won't be monopolizing the conversation. And if you don't want to watch him eat, you could always sit diagonally from him. And if we just set up a few code words, we can steer the conversation away from himself and his more pompous verbal tics.

Now, however, when I send out a call to hang out, this is the only person who shows up.

I don't like disinviting someone from a hangout; that's shitty. And I don't want to not hang out with people; it gets lonely here. And the problem is not that this person is unpleasant, but that now we have hung out alone a couple times and I have figured out how lonely this person is and how much this person suffers from the effects of having a personality that drives people away. I don't want to laugh at him; I feel sorry for Smeagol. That was kind of horrible and humbling to learn. And knowing that, I can't turn him away, and I'm not sure I can bring back more postdocs as a buffer effect, and I don't want to spend the rest of this year only socializing with him --- there's this creepy effect of watching one's own worst social fears embodied there across the table, covered in ketchup.

Is there any hope for a poor lone hobbit to escape to a more congenial place? Is there no hope of Fellowship? I'd take a fellowship, too, especially if it paid more than here.