Lives of the tenured: Graduating and beyond.

This past month, I recently reconnected with a (Caribbean) (social science) person who I know from my doctoral institution, who got a position and then tenured in the college town that I now live in.

We were catching up, and he told me that he was set to graduate where he was cleared to file and everything and did so, and then this one prof who had passed him along and everything was good was telling him to wait for his comments, and then they didn't come and people told him to file, and then like a day before the last day you could file, the guy got back to him, and is like, "Now we get to work," and he wanted all of these positions reversed and everything completely rewritten, on a twelve chapter dissertation where he'd been decently involved all the way through.

And, the (Caribbean) guy was like, "And I had plans to move and everything and a position set up and [his girlfriend of the time] was depending on me, and it's like, he could have told me earlier."

But, somehow it got resolved, and that guy's stance didn't matter.

He also said that when he first got there, there were profs who would read and comment on the first page of a thirty-page paper and then put nothing on the rest, and then when you went to talk to them about a project, they would berate you for not taking into account what they said, and no, they couldn't help you.

It was very reminiscent of one external perspective that I had on my own Ph.D. experience, that it was "a farce of intelligence."

Even though he's a very calm and methodical and laid-back guy, too, he told me that when he hadn't gotten tenure yet, at one point he had to go to the hospital a lot, because of stomach problems that he developed.

"The lucky ones," my one Ph.D. colleague who's now gone into social work commented to me, when I texted him about all that.

It's interesting, too, the (Caribbean) guy was saying that his program had such a reputation, but when you break it down, their placement was crap and they in no way deserved the reputation that they had. He told me that he knew an MA several years ago who was considering staying here or going there for her Ph.D., and he advised her to look beyond the first layer and just stay where she was, and she graduated quickly and is now tenure-track somewhere else, and that just never would have happened there.

An explanation for noise.

The other week before work I was woken up on the day when the garbage trucks usually come by by loud noise, only it was later than usual and lasted longer, and when I was opening up my blinds that look out around front to the front street, I could see some big trucks like city work crews or something and they had lines out or something, but then when I got back from work, they were gone, so I never really knew what they were there for, though I just kind of assumed it was something with the sewer or electrical.

Then, like a week later, I'm walking around front to get my mail, and I notice that even though it's a sunny afternoon and all the leaves are off the trees, it's a lot sunnier than usual, and all of a sudden I realize that this simply gigantic tree that was across the street in front of the (wizened) (old) hippie's house is just gone, and there's a stump there.

And, I realize that that's what it must have been, the trucks were there to take that out, and I feel kind of regretful all of a sudden that I missed it, since it must have been a big job and quite something to see.

When I walk over to the stump, too, to see how big it is and to stand on top of it, there's all these small woodchips just scattered onto the brick street and over the curb-bed, too, where there's just this expanse of dirt and dusted snow and an occasional dead vinca, and now a stump.

False alarm.

The other afternoon I was getting ready to write, and all of a sudden I can hear music and just feel a bass beat inside my chest.

Like the past two months, the front upstairs neighbors have been occasionally doing stuff where I can hear their bass, even though they're forty to fifty feet away and the music is centered in the part of their apartment that's farthest away from me...  Like, I can't actually hear any music, even if I stand on my doorstep, but I can feel it when I'm inside my cottage, probably because there's this thing that can happen where low frequencies start to match up to the length of walls and floors and those actually become huge amplifiers like woofers, so maybe they moved their speakers to a new spot or got new ones or are just playing loud and different types of music all of a sudden, and that's what's happening.

So, I strolled outside to get my mail and maybe knock on their door like I have, except the music wasn't coming from there, oddly.

So, on the walk back to my back cottage, I loop around the other side of the house, and I notice there in the adjacent driveway this car running with lights (?) and music on, and this teeny-bop college-age girl with bleached blonde hair looking down at her hands and probably texting.

So, I walk into my cottage and put my mail down, figuring that she'll be gone soon, but it's already been like ten or fifteen minutes, so I'm like "F*ck it," and I turn right around and walk back out to go talk to her.

And, she she sees me coming and rolls her window down, and I tell her that I live next door and I can feel her bass and can she turn it down, and she's like, "Oh, I'm so sorry!", and she does.

So, it wasn't my front neighbors after all.

Cold in my bones.

When the weather gets super cold here, lately I've really started to feel it in my bones, for some reason.

Like, the insulation on my cottage isn't bad, and I always wear a nice long-sleeved shirt or sweatshirt or something, but even if the temperature is like mid-60s, I can just feel the cold inside my bones.  I've even checked nearby windows to see if I can feel a draft, but there's nothing there, so that's not it, it just must be the cold, or me.

It's also crazy how dry the air can get.  A number of times this winter, I've just woken up towards morning and my entire nasal cavity is parched, to the point where it's interfered with my sleep and woken me up.

Restaurant tidbits: Food acronyms.

The other week at the (Thai) restaurant where I work now, I went to go write the contents on the side of a styrofoam takeout cup, and I realized that I shouldn't use an acronym for Thai iced tea.

After I realized that, too, I started realizing how weird it is that we usually only sell one at a time, and that they only come in one size.

BOGO TIT!

A dream of something wrong.

Last week I dreamnt --

I'm sitting in a dim grey featureless space and I go to put on my sleek black wintertime boots, and as I pull one over my left foot, the material pulls away from all around the back heel on the right side and you can see my foot through it, and I suddenly feel tired and am just filled with this great sadness, since I know that the boot is ruined.

And then, I wake up.

. . .

Youth struggles.

My one new (Chinese-American) (college student) coworker is definitely having his struggles.

The other day, he was saying how tired he was from doubles, and he requests his only days off to be Tuesdays and Thursdays because that's when he has class, but he wanted to leave early since he has some big class project due.

He said if he works half a day, he can get stuff done, but if he pulls a double, he doesn't know if he'll be able to do anything afterwards.

From the way he talked, he made it sound like he never actually has a day when he plans to be fully off, and he just radiates tiredness and stress, even apart from him having referred once or twice a bit ago to his mental health.

He also said he wants to move out to maybe Colorado when he can since he's into rockclimbing, but what with rents being what they are, he doesn't know when or if that will happen.

He also said rockclimbing is very good for him, since it's something to focus on and you're outside and you're active and you're getting in touch with nature.

I can't imagine having even one student like that in a classroom, let alone many or a majority; the stress and anxiety is just palpable, and it bleeds over onto you. No wonder I've been hearing from a number of professor friends that students nowadays are just a mess.