I woke up today with my (not bad, but more sad) mood not yet dissipated. I thought I could sleep it off. I went to bed at 11:30 and set my alarm for 8am, but I got up around 10 when Boris wanted to be walked. We walked outside and it was beautiful and I hoped the mood would vanish by the time we returned. I got a letter from M and it was cute and had drawings of me, him, and B.
I don't know why I feel so sad! Is it the disappointing mom stuff, the teaching evaluation, my disillusionment with working in a university, plain old M.K. and his rudeness, the feeling I am not good at what I am doing? I just keep having horrible thoughts that stress me out. My girlfriend who just graduated college in June after having a baby (alone) in Washington, and how she can't afford to have her heat on due to student loans and other expenses like day care. The thought of ICU bills for my friends with twins, reaching over a million dollars. How do you live like this? The college grad especially makes me sad. The whole reason she went and finished was to make a better life for her son, and now she is drowning more in bills than if she had just maintained a minimum-wage job at a clothing store. It is just so sad.
Anyway, it is these little thoughts in my head that is keeping me down. I know I have work to do today and I need to do it. I just am not sure how to stop. I am not going to the meeting with MK today because a) we don't learn anything and he doesn't plan an agenda, he just spouts; and b) it is a waste of 2 hours. I would have to drive in (30 min ea way) for an hour meeting. It is just a waste of time. And I have not yet recovered from how rude he was yesterday during my evaluation. I wish I had asked him if I had done anything right. I even "walked around the classroom" and "hovered around their shoulders" like he told me to last time (like a 1980s elementary school teacher). Sigh. It is really depressing and not encouraging. I know I should get over it, but I am just still so disappointed that he picked yesterday of all days to come and observe an ill-traveled white girl teaching "multicultural" lessons. Sigh. I wish I had had one of our international students speak! Sigh. I just want to move on. And that is probably the last time he will observe between now and the time I leave.
I say leave in case I don't graduate. On the phone last night with A, I just got so jaded about why I am here. I love researching, but I just don't think I am going to get a job at a university because no one is hiring. And now that I know you have to teach 2 days on your interview, I can't see that going very well a la MK. Academics are so snobby, and I just don't see a majority of them encouraging you. They are very high school in the way they deal with people. They don't like new people and they tend to only hire when forced. It is very rigid for a supposedly liberal field. I guess it is mostly self-centered people who go into academia because they think they are so awesome at school? And then a small percentage because they want to go to help others? I wonder.
Ideally, I would work at a school like where I got my M.A. in Washington. I really loved that school. The surrounding area did not have a very robust economy, and most of the students there were not, say, "low income," but they worked to pay for it and really wanted to be there--they weren't just students shipped off at 18 to go to college because that was what their parents thought they should do. I liked that about my old school, and those are the types of students I like to encourage. I love the students here, too, they are great and hardworking! But it is the faculty and administration that stifles a lot of the fun. And I know that they are a small part of it and not in your classroom all the time with you, but I don't know if I could make it past the interview process.
The older I get, the less sure of myself I have become. I don't speak confidently like I did when I was 23 and getting my first job. I thought I could do anything. And I usually did! I lost that quality long ago. The last time I really remember having it was when I was applying for a job in Bethesda and the organization was wanting a Master's with research experience and I didn't have enough. That drove me. I was looking for another job, actively, even when moving to Washington. I think I may have still "had it" when I applied for the MA program. I think I started losing it after that interview. I remember feeling worthless and as an imposter. And then I got in. And I think I just worked my bum off to stay in and finish. A lot of people didn't finish, I notice later, including people like G who was really bright. She just now defended her thesis 5 full years after starting. That surprised me. It is just more evidence that graduate school is about tenacity over brightness.
I do often wonder what life would be like if I had chosen Washington over Texas. I was drawn to Texas for a variety of reasons (family, comfort of campus, etc) but I realize that Washington was a much better school and I could have gotten a much more prestigious degree from them and a better job. But then I wonder if I would have liked it there, and if I would have finished. I just felt the need to flee the state after that big breakup. I don't know. And I am glad I met M after all this time. I just don't really feel connected to my department anymore, and that may be a feeling most people go through in their 3rd year. I don't know. I just need to work hard the next 14 months and get the heck out of here. Start something new. Again. Sigh.
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