It’s that time of year again; it’s time to prepare for new classes, it’s time to find new housing and new room mates, it’s time to start the music, it’s time to light the lights—yes, it’s time for all of it, that is if you’re a student, or if you work at a university and live in a six-person house. The lifestyles are remarkably similar.
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Students have to prepare to learn in class; I have to prepare to teach them, or at least put up with them, which is a teaching moment in itself. Students have to cram into crappy campus/ slumlord housing because they have no money; I have a little bit more than no money, but only enough to cram into a slightly uncrappier house, not that I would want it any other way. Both me and the students are forced to relinquish the peace and ease of summer in exchange for a chaotic four month sprint to Christmas break. And both of us are only here to try to spot something better on the horizon.
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| What do you do with a BA in English? Not grad school... |
And that leads to the biggest difference between me and Schooly McBackpack, which is that Schooly still has all kinds of crazy potential and opportunities going on for him while mine are dwindling. I’ll never graduate as a valedictorian, or get an awesome internship that launches my career. I’ll never sit in the quad, and think ‘oh my God’, I’m totally gonna to go far— is there a better musical than Avenue Q for encapsulating post college life? Maybe the Wizard of Oz? Anyway, that’s probably why I resent those dream crappers so much: infinitely more possibilities and hope, same life style. Fairness police, please?
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| Video proof that at one time, someone throught we were great |
Last May I helped staff the department’s Awards Ceremony for graduating seniors. Your typical veggie trays on top of crepe paper, parent taking a zillion pictures event. As Excellence in Achievement and Achieving Excellence Awards were passed out one after another, I thought about all of my undergrad awards that I had proudly slapped on resumes and applications after graduating, and just how worthless I discovered they really were. And though most of these bright-eyed, bushy tailers have probably found that same harsh reality by now, what really gets me is that just a few of them, just a few, have grabbed amazing jobs and gotten into grad school on their first tries. They remain blissfully ignorant as their lives continue to swim along under the faulty notion of, Hard Work = Success, all the time. Fools, I hate them all!
Hey JB Killa! (bet you haven't heard that nickname in a while, haha)
ReplyDeleteWhile I did get into grad school on my first try, I recently experienced a karmic bitch-slap revealing to me how hard it can be to get a job you feel you deserve. In Texas, getting a job like cheese-making or phone bank tech support wasn't hard for me, but when I got to Boston, I was definitely the lo man on the totem pole. I has taken me 9 months to find something I am really excited about with an employer who finds ME worthy of the job, and even then, I've had to endure 4 rounds of interviews to land it! Your hard work will pay off. When the right opportunity presents itself, I know you'll do great!
low*
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ad ups Brynn, and yes, it's been a while since JB Killer, but it's always welcomed. Congrats on the new gig--in Boston, I can only imagine how hard it can be, but hey, you're going to make it after all, bum bum bum
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