Amusing interlude

I'm in a good mood today, since I just went to my tutoring orientation, and I'm savoring the prospect (no evil eye!) of earning some money again in the near future.  Since little has happened with me otherwise, I thought I'd take the opportunity to tell a good story from my recent disciplinary conference.  Things like this are part of this blog's raison d'etre.

So.  At the time that I attended the conference, I had applied to some twenty-six positions (a grab-bag of postdocs and teaching jobs).  Usually, as we know, a whole bunch of the schools that are hiring professors will send interviewers to the conference and blast through a series of preliminary interviews to narrow their searches.  This year, though, of all the schools to which I had applied -- I'll guess it was around fifteen -- three of them had actually sent someone to interview candidates, and the rest of them apparently had no budget to do so.  And, of those three, one of them wanted to interview me, and the others apparently had already decided that I suck and bear no further investigation.

So you can imagine how nervous I was when I met with my sole interviewer, even though I already understood that this is my first year on the market, the odds are bad in any case, blah blah blah.  Zi was very polite and, while not exactly warm, then not the terrifying presence that such people can be.  For my part, I was doing my best to be on point, with a professional yet humble demeanor -- you know, that impossible ideal for interviews that communicates: "I am a motherfucking genius, and I shall help your university ascend to stardom, but at the same time I am humbler and meeker than a lamb, and will never, ever create ego-clash problems with other members of the department.  I am the alpha and the omega; I am all things to all wo/men."  You know how it goes.

I had done a good bit of research on all of my likeliest prospects, and I knew that this was one of a number of departments I'd applied to at which I would be a little different from most of the other profs.  Thinking of it in Harry Potter-esque terms*, I've been trained primarily as an Auror: I know a fuckton about tracking, subduing, and capturing wizard criminals.  Auror Training is my primary area of study within my department at DOU, although they train wizards of all kinds.  As a matter of disciplinary breadth and basic knowledge, I could fill in at need as, say, a Potions Master or even an Herbalist -- both of those fields of study have some meaningful and valuable connections to my specialties -- but Defense Against the Dark Arts is clearly where my heart lies, and where I would serve best in any good wizarding department.  As it happens, many departments I've applied to have never employed anyone trained as an Auror; they have traditionally focused on training, say, historians of magic, or seers, or future Ministry of Magic bureaucrats (ugh), and other such things that I consider relatively far removed from anything that I do.  They often give the impression of wanting to bring in an Auror as a way of rounding out their faculty, rather than as an index of the department's focus.

Anyway.  The interview was for a place at one such school of the latter kind, where Aurors had long (perhaps always) been scarce.  Thus, I wasn't surprised when the interviewer asked me, "How would you feel about being the only Auror in our department?"  This is the sort of interview question that I had anticipated, and I launched into a thorough explanation of why this didn't faze me: I like and respect the work of historians of magic and MoM employees, and I would certainly teach my students about the common roots of these fields and how each specialty has developed.  But, as an Auror, I would make clear that they would be learning DADA from me, and that those interested in the other stuff could and should take courses from the other profs, et cetera et cetera...  I went on like this for what felt like three minutes before the interviewer, with an ever-so-faint hint of a sarcastic smile on hir face, observed to me, "Actually, we're all Potions Masters."

Oh.  Ahem.  Oh my.  Gee, is it hot in here, or is it just me? 

I recovered the best that I could.  Luckily for me, I had phrased my comments in positive ways that applied as well, and even more, to Potions Studies, and I could even speak a bit about some of the excellent and innovative work that some of my friends do in Potions at DOU.  But I felt like a tool regardless.

*I know, the analogy isn't nearly as inspired as Sisyphus' Stockton-inspired lady-and-tiger motif, but I'm not a lit person, and I don't want to spend five hours brainstorming my own brilliant motif.

Soliciting advice

Okay, wise and worldly readers, help me out here.  Part of my job application process nowadays (no doubt for most of us on the academic market) is offering proposed syllabi for classes I could teach at one level or another, depending on the needs of the institution.  Since this is an anonymous blog, I'll be perfectly frank: I swiped a good idea for a course from a professor of mine from my undergrad days.  Approximately a quarter of the suggested readings are ones that I recall reading for hir course; the rest are ones I have selected anew.  Indeed, some of my more inspired selections hadn't even been published when I was an undergrad.  Most of the concepts that I intend to tackle are tolerably similar to those I encountered in that course; there is some different emphasis on geography, case studies, etc., due to my own research interests and the texts I know and like best.  And, in a final bit of thievery, I would like to use the same course title, since I am unable to think of anything better.  (The subject matter doesn't lend itself to a lot of creative titles, like some courses do.)

Here's the question: am I ethically obligated to contact this professor, who is still at my alma mater, and request hir permission to borrow/adapt the course as my own, before I send it out to anyone?  Alas, I must admit that this is now something of a moot point, since I have already sent it out to a few places to consider.  But pangs of conscience worry me, and I most certainly wouldn't want hir to hear about this somehow and decide that I was a thief of intellectual property.

What is the proper course of action, given that I

• was myself a student in hir course;
• am plainly using the same title, if one were to compare syllabi;
• have suggested some of the same materials, but also many others that zi did not; and
• am putting this syllabus forward as a form of intellectual creativity, in that it's not a humdrum "Introduction to Blahblah" or "Topics in Whatever" kind of course?

I'd be particularly interested to hear from those of you who are in a position to see things from my former professor's point of view.  I'm leaning toward sending hir an email about it, but I don't want to strike a wrong tone without realizing it.  What say you all?

Did someone say 'hire'?

I may have a job!  No, not one of the super-spiffy things we apply for through our professional association web sites and beg for at the annual conferences, but something to help see me through this semester.  (And, let me make clear, I'm not complaining about this!)  One of the local tutoring companies called me today -- six months after I submitted my application and CV -- and asked if I were still available.  Hell yes! 

I have to wait for a few days while they go through the available pool of potential hires, but I'm hoping to hear good news from them by the end of the week.  How nice it would be to earn money again!

Accept no substitutes

Since I knew Burns Night was approaching, I bought a frozen, US-produced haggis that represented the closest I could get to the original article.  I hadn't really thought about this beforehand, but the mushroom barley soup I made yesterday makes for a reasonable approximation of scotch broth, and I am fortunate enough to have some scotch whisky on hand.  So I heated up some soup, I carefully defrosted the haggis, I fired up my recording of "Is there for honest poverty," I poured myself a nice tot with a splash of water, and I had myself a one-man Burns Supper while reviewing job application materials.

Verdict on the haggis: BLECH.  Surely this is not the "warm-reekin', rich" flavor that Burns contrasted with other "skinking ware!"  It tastes like old liverwurst mixed with sawdust.  I know that several of the key traditional ingredients are unavailable in the US -- namely, the minced sheep heart and lungs, and the sheep stomach serving as sausage casing -- but I didn't imagine that they would be so sorely missed by one who has never tasted them.  As I gather, the sheep offal that the US has banned for twenty-one years is replaced in the US-made attempted haggis with beef liver.  This turns out to be an extremely bad idea.  I'm just aghast that homesick Scots expatriates here have had to make do with this trash.  I'm never buying this ersatz nonsense again.

At least, as I read today, the ban on these ingredients is to be lifted soon, and everyone on this side of the pond will be able to purchase the same stuff that (non-vegetarian) Scots have been enjoying for many years.  Money quote:

"It was a silly ban which meant a lot of people have never tasted the real thing," said Margaret Frost, of the Scottish American Society in Ohio. "We have had to put up with the US version, which is made from beef and is bloody awful."

NB: She's not fucking kidding.

Self-medicating with home cooking

Eating out is something of a vice for me.  It's not cost-effective for most kinds of food that I like to eat, and it frequently comes with more salt, cholesterol, additives, and so on than I generally like to put into my body.  But really, what's more luxurious than eating a meal you didn't have to cook yourself?  And, for the kinds of things I simply have no idea how to make or am unwilling to spend the time preparing -- Thai dishes, slow-cooked stews, just about anything involving couscous, mussels, etc. -- it's an awful lot easier to go out for dinner than fiddle with a cookbook.  (And that's not even taking into account my tiny kitchen!)  It's not that I enjoy parting with money; I'm pretty careful with it, as a rule.  But every now and then, it's wonderful to sit down and survey the menu, rather than root through my refrigerator for usable bits.

The problem, of course, is that I have to be very tight with money, unless circumstances change drastically.  An additional problem is that "every now and then" has a way of turning into "fucking constantly" when I'm in a bad mood and frustrated with work (or the lack thereof).  Vices always present the threat of turning into addictions, you know?

So I'm trying to kill two or three birds with one stone by increasing the home cooking I do.  A corollary to this effort is to expand my repertoire, since it's all too easy to dismiss the recipes I've already mastered as played out and boring.  My mouth and stomach are so much more frustratingly finicky than my mind!  (Would that I were ruled more by my brain, which knows very well that complete proteins and other essentials of a healthy diet are easily and cheapily obtained.)  My biggest resource for new and appetizing recipes, as I've mentioned, is Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern cookbook.  The drawback to this is that many of the enticing recipes require buying either things that I don't ordinarily need that then sit in my pantry, or relatively expensive things like cuts of meat.  There's always the internet, of course, but I don't always trust to the medium that spawned Wikipedia to give me good ideas.

Those are my two main founts of culinary knowledge nowadays, but I also have a few tried and true warhorses to learn for myself: recipes that I acquired from my grandmother.  For the foreseeable future, I have to leave the pastry recipes for a time when my cooking space supports such an endeavor.  But the soups and entree recipes are relatively easy to prepare in my little apartment, and they're so comforting!  I have been known to self-medicate with alcohol on various occasions, but as we have all discovered the hard way at some point, you can't really do most kinds of academic labor when you're trashed.  (Perhaps mileage varies for creative writers, but this is certainly my experience.)  How much better is it to self-medicate with a big pot of chicken soup?  Or, as I currently have simmering on the stove, mushroom barley soup?  Assuming this stuff turns out like I remember, I can enjoy a bowl or two, then freeze the rest of it for whenever I don't really feel like cooking.  Dropping a big frozen cube of homemade soup into a saucepan to heat up is almost as luxurious as going out.  More so, really, if it turns out as good as my grandmother's soup.  (Unfortunately, I have yet to find a luxurious solution to washing up.)

(Just to give you an idea of what I'm working with, some of these recipes are things that my grandmother jotted down for me, because she never needed to write them down for her own purposes.  I had to call her this afternoon to find out cooking times for the soup, since she specifies neither how long to cook the barley before adding the veggies, nor how long to cook the soup ingredients together.  She just knows.)

As ways to kill an overabundance of time go, I'm hard-pressed to think of a better one than cooking good food from scratch.  I find tremendous comfort and emotional support in mastering such a recipe myself.  And, with comfort and emotional support in such short supply nowadays, I'll take all I can get.

Rallying for real

I'm starting to think that the universe really wants me to stop pitying myself so much.  My colleague who survived the Port-au-Prince earthquake has returned to DOU-town, and she gave a lecture last evening to help raise awareness and funds for everybody in Haiti trying to put their lives back together.  I, however, have already made a donation, and I was in no mood, frankly, to hear about other people who had it worse than I.  I wanted to wallow.

So I stayed home, felt crappy, and after a while, I called my dad to talk over some short-term health insurance strategies and get some moral support.  Before I could even start bitching to him, he told me that a family member has just been diagnosed with a resurgence of cancer.  The woman barely survived her last round, and it took a serious and lasting toll on her.  And now this?  Fuck.  It's horrible for her and her whole family to have to go through this all over again.  And that, my friends, kind of took the wind out of the sails of my Good Ship Self-Pity.  It kinda sucks to worry about how to cover my ass for insurance, but it's a hell of a lot better than having insurance but also having a persistent life-threatening betrayal of the body.

So, when I woke up today, impoverished but reasonably healthy (knock on wood), I swallowed a good bit of pride -- I have my class-based resistances, I admit it -- and starting applying for jobs that might help me keep my health insurance.  Want some whipped cream on that, sir?

Oh, and speaking of health conditions, the stress can definitely turn physical if one doesn't go all Zen after a while.  I went to the dentist on Thursday, and he noted some slight inflammation of my lower gums, even though they're not much in the way of anything.  He asked me to move my jaw this way and that, and then guessed that I'm grinding my teeth -- I had already explained to him that I'm trying to finish a dissertation -- out of stress, and that the motion is bothering my gums somewhat.  Later that day, I suddenly became aware of doing exactly that.  Hm.

Need some coping skills

I have to admit that I'm not handling this whole funding/job situation very well, from a mental-health standpoint.  It's throwing me into a minor depression.  I have to remind myself to eat sometimes; this is not at all my usual style.  I had a brief rally when I authorized the tuition payment from my bank account this morning, a feeling of "well, at least that's over and done with!"  The rally has ended.

I find that, when I go to my department of late, I feel this unexpected sense of shame and humiliation.  The only thing I can think of as a comparison is the sensation of having been publicly abandoned or cheated on by a lover, and having to explain the situation to those colleagues who knew me (us?) before the bad stuff happened.  It feels awful.  And that kind of experience is essentially the only one left to me as a reason to go at all.  No TAship, no classes = no reason to drop by the department at all.  Oh, I forgot, there's also the possibility of checking my mail folder.  Today, it let me know that another fellowship program rejected me.

What on earth am I supposed to do with myself all day?