I love my job....

I love my job, I love my job, I love my job......

And so goes my mantra which I chant every year at this time when the Sunshine List is published.

I might work at a college; I might be a respectable instructor in the fine world of academia. And yet, my partner and my combined income would never get us on that list. I will probably never make it halfway to the old boys' club - not even with this MA which I am working my tail off to acquire.

My head spins trying to fathom how people in my office that teach an extra class than I do, can make over twice what I do.....Those in question of course scored their positions at a time when Masters degrees were novelties and colleges were growing. Now, college job postings for permanent positions state that a PhD is  recommended, and colleges go out of the way to avoid hiring full time faculty. (The creation of the 10-month maximum at Ontario colleges is a direct response to the union's agreement that employees working 12 consecutive months must be offered a permanent position.)

It pains me and fills me with disappointment every year, that so many people out there can live such out-of-reach lifestyles, but also the shocking lack of balance in the system: college presidents make twice what our premiere does.

There isn't much else to say on the topic as change is out of the hands of the ones most affected.

For the moment, I'll just keep reminding myself how much I love my job, and I love my students, and I love my faculty......

JM

In a world...

"In a world without Hal Douglas, trailers were never the same again...."

When in doubt, bake cookies.

The life of a grad student is one that cannot be imagined until one is fully in its grasp, swept into the whirlpool, sucked into the quicksand. It is something I had heard about and yet really never understood. Until one day you look up and realize you haven't left the house in over two days, you're wearing yesterday's clothes, there's a bunch of healthy, unassembled ingredients in the fridge, yet your mac and cheese shelf is empty. And you dream about research databases. True story.

While there were probably many reasons that you initially chose it, it ultimately becomes the badge of your commitment to what you deem so important, bags under the eyes as permanent as tattoos somehow less important than the world of information just waiting to be discovered.

I've been at this for a mere two semesters, working full time, class at night, working for a prof on top of it all. I question my ability at least twice a week. I sleep with highlighters. I survive on pots of stew and chili that will last for days.

I have to admit, I am pretty lucky. I couldn't do it without having the best guy in the world at my side. Amazing how one's priorities change depending on one's situation. Right now, I love how he comes over and quietly does the heaping pile of dishes before he sits down to hang out.

In the past seven months, I have dealt with vague assignments, APA 6th edition, stats (although keeping a safe distance from them as much as possible), macro issues, which for a teacher is completely counter-intuitive....."so what does that look like in practice?" and even vaguer teachers....is that a word? And most recently, two weeks of class discussions that have completely questioned...no...clobbered...everything that I believed about language....

And so, tonight, when it's been all a lot to take in, I am baking cookies, something I used to do all the time to relax, to procrastinate, to escape. Sure I have to be up at 6am, two classes to teach in the morning. But somehow right now, it can all just wait.

Because while most would agree that there are too many difficult and vague people in the world, too much structure (take that, APA) and too many expectations, I have never heard anyone argue that there are too many cookies.

Food for thought (no pun intended): In a world of unwelcome alarms blasting us out of our dreams far earlier than we would like, there is something about the ding of an oven timer that puts everything right again.

JM