On teaching.

It's interesting how questions about my teaching at the college level have reemerged this past half year.

Like, my one (Romanian) colleague was asking me why I wasn't seeking to teach at the local community college, and when I said that it was a lot of work to set up syllabi for not that much money and no guarantee of a steady job in return, he said that in practice people find steady people and they get reemployed and they're just there indefinitely.

(And, I've heard that one before, and that was what I was referring to when I had said that there was no guarantee of a steady job in return, that even if your department likes you, there can be a sudden budget retrenchment out of left field from the upper administrative level and you can still get jettisoned, but at that point you're repeating the conversation and what you both already really know, and so what's the point of talking any further on that subject.)

I've also gotten people asking me why I don't try pursuing teaching a dead language at the local university, and with that I'm not opposed if they handed me a syllabus and I didn't have to put that much work in, and maybe if I could secure a formal affiliation title that was good for a number of years, but it was almost like they were asking me what was wrong with me, where I didn't want that, like it was some good deal or some great honor or something.

But, I mean, why kill yourself to teach a beginning language when it takes away time from your own stuff, and sure, it'd be fun for students, but it's not like any of them'd probably be conversation partners without another 7-8 years of work, and that includes graduate students, since it's a limited pool and even then talent needs time and with a lot of projects people are interested in, it's not clear beforehand which ones have the ability to pan out, and even if they do, it's not like there's a future for them, though I guess if someone had the right attitude and a good idea and sought me out, I'd be open to helping them?

I mean, to even teach full-time right now in these areas and you're in "a good job," if you have a conscience you're running around putting out job placement fires and trying to overhaul a way of doing things that's dated and that's like pulling teeth, to try to steer things in healthier directions.

Better not to get involved.

Response to my recent presentation was also very interesting -- there wasn't any. Like, the keynote speaker was just like, "You know a lot of languages."

And, one lady who studied with this guy who wrote a smart and solid textbook and who I found out from her had died tragically, told me that I had summarized just enough so she could get the big picture and didn't feel like anything was left out, and that she wished that he was alive to be able to see my presentation.

It's like I'm some rando swooping in and should easily be their all's peer, but instead I'm just some rando, and will be that way for the indefinite future. I just don't slot into any tracks, especially now that my Ph.D. is growing dated, and given the reqs that I see in job ads that cross my plate. 

One thing I'm very glad of, though, is that I never tried pursuing all the post-doc nonsense where you're pulling 70 hour weeks every year to get another yearlong job; I see people on social media who are doing that and they can't advance their own work, and then with some of them their employment has stopped, and they're just in very, very bad places, after being "in the running" for years.