(no subject)
Sep. 9th, 2001 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupReturn from a generally depressing excursion up to Maine, dominated by thoughts of the house up there being sold due to the demands of Mrs. Sanpaku's relatives... again, depressing. It seems as though many bad things are starting to happen at once for us and everyone around us.
I feel generally gloomy anyway, the inevitable product of days of looking at job ads and thinking, "yep, I'm not qualified for that either." Every job remotely interesting requires experience. Publishing, probably the best place for me to go right now, always requires 3 years experience at least, 2 more than I have, and it's a bit late for me to be making copies at an entry level position-- for salary issues, if nothing else. There's always teaching, which pays virtually nothing at the adjunct level, or go off to do private high school again-- rewarding, perhaps, but certainly the graveyard of the academic career. And also a lot of work. I romanticize my time teaching high school a few years ago, but every so often I remember what a hard, terrifying, more than occasionally humiliating experience it was.
It is a difficult position to be in because no one who hasn't gone through this really knows what it is like to be here. Job ads don't ask for a Ph.D., they ask for 3 years experience managing a C++ database or whatever. The number of jobs I am qualified for is actually extremely small. And then behind it all is the awareness that this is just another stopgap until the wringer of the academic job market, where I will be competing with 1000 other people for a few dozen jobs, with nothing to distinguish me from anyone else.
Oh yes, did I mention my journal article got rejected. Academic career going nowhere fast.
I mean, the idea that I'm almost 30 years old, have actually finished the degree, and still have no idea how in hell to make a living... it is almost too much to contemplate.
I had a dream on Saturday after getting up at 6 am to let out the dog and then going back to sleep. I was in a mall or something and I was passing by this huge cavernlike area behind plexiglass, with a bunch of frisbeelike heavy disks on a console in front of the glass. I sort of idly pressed down on one of the disks. A disk the size of a hockey puck sailed out behind the plexiglass, high into the air, then hit a small target (like a golf putt hole) down below. Now I started pressing all of these console disks and realized I could steer the pucks in midair. I didn't try too hard, but I kept hitting the target. I gradually realized that a bunch of people were watching me. Then a guy came up to me and told me I was really good and should sign up for the league.
I woke up and realized that it was a pretty simple dream designed to just make me feel better. I just want to feel like I'm good at something again. Kind of pathetic.
I feel generally gloomy anyway, the inevitable product of days of looking at job ads and thinking, "yep, I'm not qualified for that either." Every job remotely interesting requires experience. Publishing, probably the best place for me to go right now, always requires 3 years experience at least, 2 more than I have, and it's a bit late for me to be making copies at an entry level position-- for salary issues, if nothing else. There's always teaching, which pays virtually nothing at the adjunct level, or go off to do private high school again-- rewarding, perhaps, but certainly the graveyard of the academic career. And also a lot of work. I romanticize my time teaching high school a few years ago, but every so often I remember what a hard, terrifying, more than occasionally humiliating experience it was.
It is a difficult position to be in because no one who hasn't gone through this really knows what it is like to be here. Job ads don't ask for a Ph.D., they ask for 3 years experience managing a C++ database or whatever. The number of jobs I am qualified for is actually extremely small. And then behind it all is the awareness that this is just another stopgap until the wringer of the academic job market, where I will be competing with 1000 other people for a few dozen jobs, with nothing to distinguish me from anyone else.
Oh yes, did I mention my journal article got rejected. Academic career going nowhere fast.
I mean, the idea that I'm almost 30 years old, have actually finished the degree, and still have no idea how in hell to make a living... it is almost too much to contemplate.
I had a dream on Saturday after getting up at 6 am to let out the dog and then going back to sleep. I was in a mall or something and I was passing by this huge cavernlike area behind plexiglass, with a bunch of frisbeelike heavy disks on a console in front of the glass. I sort of idly pressed down on one of the disks. A disk the size of a hockey puck sailed out behind the plexiglass, high into the air, then hit a small target (like a golf putt hole) down below. Now I started pressing all of these console disks and realized I could steer the pucks in midair. I didn't try too hard, but I kept hitting the target. I gradually realized that a bunch of people were watching me. Then a guy came up to me and told me I was really good and should sign up for the league.
I woke up and realized that it was a pretty simple dream designed to just make me feel better. I just want to feel like I'm good at something again. Kind of pathetic.
