Update! Finally!

Ok...ok... The three of you that check blogs frequently have been after me for months to stop slacking and get it together. Well, I'm sorry, but I am a bit busy. I'm trying to graduate on time and get a decent job for next year.

I totally love working PT at a community college, but the lack of benefits, low pay, and little future progress does have some drawbacks. So, I have about two dozen places that i am planning on applying. The problem with this is that each and every school has their own little way of doing this. Some want no letters. Some want 5 letters. Some do not want writing samples, while others have very specific instructions on the kinds of writing samples that will be acceptable.

Of course it does not help that i am interdisciplinary in nature and thus applying to film, communications, and English programs among others. It takes up a lot of time. At first, i liked dreaming up possible upper-level undergraduate courses that I might like to teach, but at this point I just want to write, "I will assign a list of fantastic and life-changing works of fiction and criticism. The students will read about 30% of it and refuse to discuss in class. Their papers will, in general, be weak but acceptable in the contemporary climate of grade inflation, and I will fight constantly to find time to write my research, publish, and present. Students will simultaneously find me pompous and overly casual based on their tastes and expectations. About five in a class of twenty-five will absolutely adore the class."

Does that come across as too cynical? Probably. I will have to paste on my happy face and talk about engaging students as co-learners and creating a discourse between practice and theory where the classroom becomes a space for playing with ideas. It isn't that i do not believe these things. I do. I was in classes where this happened, and it was magical. I would leave class talking to some cute girl about how Jane Austen must have had a lot of closeted fans from the manly-man class during her time. There are too many little hints...etc.

However, for the most part, I teach and just get blank responses to questions like, "Now how does globalization of culture affect your life? Anything? It could be that you can go to the same McDonalds everywhere or see brand new movies around the world that are all from the US. Does anyone have a single example of how this cultural and economic process enters daily life?...No....right then."