Well, I’m still here. Twice a week I go into the classroom and spend an entertaining eighty minutes flopping around outside my element, like a freshwater fish dumped in a tub of vinegar.
This year’s job list recently went up on the MLA site. Out of about 400 advertised jobs for new faculty in English literature, I came up with ten that are a) remotely within my area of study and b) in places I might possibly want to live, and that includes Arizona. Presumably I won’t be participating in that nonsense for two or three years yet, but I have been reading the Philosophy Job Market Blog with its various links to the Chronicle of Higher Education, and I keep being reminded of Steve Albini’s trench of shit.
I had a thought this afternoon about technical writing—pleasant, remunerative technical writing. Halcyon days at a gunmetal desk, writing instruction manuals for backyard grills and sump pumps. Of course I can rewrite the intake valve section! Glory be, world without end.
and you're at a GOOD school!
Yes. A good, good school.
I am trying to muster up some sympathy for you, but as an executive assistant fetching coffee for financial consultants, it's pretty fucking hard. What can one do besides teach?
One can be one of the financial consultants? There are not so many winners under this system.
