Bummer: So busy.

Right when the conclave that elected Benedict was happening, I was figuring out doctoral programs, and couldn't pay attention to the horserace.

Now, I'm super busy teaching, and trying to finish up my 3rd chapter to keep my advisor happy and get to my dissertation mid-point review...

If Benedict had retired even 2 months later, I would have time to follow the conclave more, but oh well, I guess I'll have to wait for the next conclave after this one, to really follow the coverage.

I really do feel though that I should know most of the contenders anyhow before the coverage really starts.  That would be the sign of true expertise on modern international Catholicism.

Tutoring is falling apart.

I think tutoring as a way for me to make money is falling apart.

I was able to get enough students to make a go of it for like 1.5 years, but -

- my one homeschooler dropped me.
- my one Latin lawyer got too busy (though he may return).
- my one Greek lawyer meets with me once every 3-4 weeks.
- my one Latin student who's an administrative assistant at school has had to cut down how much he pays me b/c an ongoing family emergency is draining his time and money.
- my one Latin teacher who is re-learning her Greek meets with me every 2-3 weeks, but frequently postpones since she's so busy with work.
- a couple other people (one lawyer, one travel agency guy) only did it for a few months then stopped.

Next year I think I'm going to have to suck it up and teach at school every quarter for income, which really blows.

To this point, I've been eating tuition (they waive tuition for that quarter if you teach, which I don't), which has added on like $4500 to my loans but given me a lot more time to work on my diss and do professionalization stuff.

Teaching is time-consuming, but so would be another job search...

I'm really being incentivized in to a position that leaves me less time for work/professionalization.

What shitty policies this school has.

Addendum.

My student likes the lesson plan...

We're also going to read Benedict's resignation announcement - which was originally delivered in Latin!

Overall, he's also enthused to try reading some Gregory the Great, and some Thomas Aquinas.  In addition to the classical poetry that he likes best. 

He really does have catholic tastes (catholic in the sense of 'broad').

Fun Latin lesson plan!

A Latin lesson plan for my one Latin student who is an administrative assistant on campus:

We're going to read sections of "universi dominici gregis" (the most recent authoritative Vatican doc outlining how you elect a pope), probably the bits on where they finally elect someone, they ask him what name he's going to have, etc.

Odd Library Behavior.

Last week I was working at a computer terminal in the main library on campus, and there was this short (Chinese) girl in her late teens at a terminal next to me, playing some sort of online game (like Farmland?).

After a while, she turned and spit on the floor, and did that several times.

She also laughed to herself quietly, when she didn't seem to be doing much of anything.

I went to the circ desk and notified the workers, and asked them if it was possible to get her name and try to plug her into some systems for mental health, and the (black) (female) circ desk manager I know went and got a (white) (male) circ desk manager who came up to the floor I was on after me, but the girl was gone from the terminal by that point, though she had left her online game up.

One other (younger) (black) (male) circ desk manger, though, came, and read a book at a table near the terminal for a while.

After like fifteen minutes, the girl spit on the floor again, and rubbed the spit into the carpet with her foot, and at that the (younger) (black) (male) circ desk manager got this "what the heck is that?" look on his face and came to talk to her.

"Excuse me," he was like, and he identified himself as a staff member at the library.

"You're excused, you're excused," she said, and just kept looking at the screen as she held her hand up to his face.

He couldn't get her name, and later I saw the first (white) (male) circ desk manager back on the floor looking around for her (she also had a laptop at a nearby table, and would get up and walk away from it and leave it sitting there unattended a lot).

I went to this one study area and found a colleague who's an RA, and he told me that I should remind the circ desk managers that they could contact this one supervisory dean who would be able to look into the student's wellbeing.

The poor thing, I really do think she's mentally ill.  I hope nothing bad happens to her.

Trying not to stress out.

I've really been trying not to stress out about the academic job market lately.

Two strategies I've had:

1) I tell myself that at the end of the day, I enjoy what I do, so to remind myself not to think of upcoming deadlines or the impossible professionalization expectations that I face from faculty, but rather focus on what I'm doing, and relish it.

The other day I had to read through 3-4 hours worth of material on Mormon fundamentalist polygamists, so I told myself, "Smile, you are lucky to do this."

And it was fun!

2) Every once in a while I remind myself of what a friend from home had told me, how it's so cool that I'm at school studying what I love. 

"It's tough, but you're living the dream," she was like.  "The rest of us are already in a grind and envy you."

She meant it, too - and she has a bad-ass job working for a progressive Native American tribe to help them develop alternative energy as part of their tribal ethos to 'plan ahead for the next 7 generations'.

Party talk: Dogs.

I was at a party with my one (light-skinned black) friend from Arkansas like a month ago, and she got me to go introduce me to a boyfriend of her coworkers who she had met before who went to school at my university in the biology department.

As we were starting to talk, the host's dogs started running around the guy's legs for some reason and making a nuisance, so he hopped up on the couch while talking with us, and as he towered over us, he joked, "This is to establish dominance!".

"That's nice," I was like.  "And when do we get to sniff each other's asses?"

He was visibly confused and said nothing beyond a few uhs and a few nervous laughs.