Monday, March 26, 2007

Springtime on campus = ew.

Today the temperatures have crept past seventy for the first time this year, which seems like good news. However, I work on a college campus, which means that this is actually bad news. Ordinary college students who just last week slumped around campus in their hoodies, boots, and pajama pants have now removed ALL of those items and replaced them with much smaller pieces of fabric that, if you look closely, can be identified as miniskirts, tank tops, and shorts. I'm referring to the girls, of course; the guys are just as bad, though: many of them are wearing beaters or have removed their shirts entirely. And, the combination of exposed female skin and warm temps have transformed them into loud, smirking assholes. (Many of them were assholes before but kept this under wraps, just like the girls kept their skin.)

I try very hard to believe that humans are, in fact, much more sophisticated than animals, but often I find my efforts challenged, particularly when the mating rituals described above are boldly displayed before my resistant eyes.

Sadly, these primal cycles affect me too. Today I wore a skirt with bare legs and open-toed shoes, and I noticed that some of my male students behaved...differently. Some were louder, more show-offy. Others were more gentlemanly, deferential. Still others tried extra hard to participate to my liking. Basically, whatever they thought they could do best, whatever has won them most attention in the past, that's what they did, probably subconsciously.

But who am I to say? I'll never REALLY understand men. Even though I used to hate it when women said that, now that I'm married, I know it's true. I know Mike VERY well as a person, but as a man, he remains mysterious to me. This is why I once swore I would never marry: at the time, my idea of being in love was conquering the other person, and you can never truly conquer what you don't understand. (Ironically, when you DO come to understand that thing you don't want to conquer it anymore.) But now I'm down with ambiguity. What else do we have to keep for ourselves other than our own mystery? I know I want to keep (horde maybe is a better word) just a little bit of mine.

But anyway, back to complaining about college mating rituals. The bottom line is, if such a sordid, archaic thing must happen, I wish they would at least keep it out of my sight. Maybe I'll start failing girls for showing too much leg and guys for noticing. But who am I to question or disrupt nature? Maybe I should just accept the inevitable.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Offers

Despite my somewhat irrational fears of rejection on all fronts, I have received two "offers" (aka acceptance letters) from PhD programs: one from WVU and another from Duquesne. Both have offered me a full scholarship, teaching fellowship, and stipend of about 13 grand a year for five years. Now I must choose.

For a few days, the situation seemed very complex. For a while, before I was accepted at either school, I was sure that I wanted to go back to Duquesne. Then, I was accepted at WVU and got a very flattering email from a nineteenth-century Americanist who specializes in Native American literature. She told me that they were "very excited" about my application materials and that she personally found my work very interesting and very much wanted me to choose WVU (the word "very" was used often). And so, I wavered. Scholars excited to work me? It seemed too good to be true, and as I (sadly) crave validation that I really do belong in this field, I was a sucker for the praise.

But now that I've received an offer from Duquesne, and just as much validation from professors who know me pretty well, I find myself wavering again. Why not return to a department where I've already "proven" myself? This afternoon I was so conflicted that I made a trusty "pro/con" list for both schools and talked through it with my friend Jill. After this exercise, I realized that I only want to go to WVU for one reason: Timothy Dow Adams, an autobiography specialist and co-editor of a scholarly journal on autobiography. And honestly, I don't really think that reason is good enough. What if he's a jerk? What if I decide I don't want to write my dissertation on autobiography after all? Then I'm stuck in West Virginia, which is VERY unappealing to me.

So, I think I'm going to go back to Duquesne, as a degree from there will allow me to pursue the career I want: a tenure-track position at a small liberal arts college. But first, five more years of hard work, including one or two in the library, researching and writing a 150-300 page dissertation. I must hate myself. But, academia is the only workplace for me, and I do kinda love it, in the same way that I love large meals, which I know will result in a stomach ache, gas, and fluid retention, but that I just can't stop myself from consuming.

Why does like have to fluctuate between darkness and light? And why is the darkness so appealing to me? Grrr.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

St. Patrick's Day

I'm always surprised at what a big deal St. Patrick's Day is in Pittsburgh. Especially here on the Southside, where there are (purportedly) more bars per square mile than anywhere else in the country, two of them Irish. This meant that drunk yinzers staggered by our house from morning til night, most of them wearing everything green they could get their hands on, which made for some pretty humorous moments.

But my favorite St. Patrick's Day moment by far was the sight of a drag queen, decked out in a green mini-dress, gigiantic blonde wig, and heels, drunk and attempting repeatedly to walk through a revolving door that had been locked. Hilarious.

Other than an opprtunity to laugh at drunks, St. Patty's Day means very little to me. I'm not a big drinker, and even though I now have an overtly Irish last name (that rhymes very unfortunately with my first name), I don't really identify all that much with the teeny bit of Irish blood that I inherited from my mom (which is actually a very controversial topic in her family: her grandmother's generation denied that they were Irish to avoid discrimination/stereotypes). I can appreciate some Irish literature (I've even been won over to Joyce), I like some traditional and contemporary Irish music, and I'd like to visit the country someday, but these things are not a large part of my life. And honestly, the Celtic aesthetic doesn't really resonate with me, probably because it's so overused, and by individuals categorized under a different form of nerdiness than me.

Mike is Irish and Eastern European (like many Pittsburghers), but he's never been that interested in his nationalities. While I'm a first generation American, he's probably a third or fourth, and while I grew up with my Sicilian grandparents, his Irish grandparents died before he was born. So, he's just as uninterested in St. Patrick's Day as I am.

Still, I'll look forward to my occasional visits to Piper's Pub and The Harp and the Fiddle, where I will indulge in strong Irish beer and the VERY few items on the menu without meat.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Grading makes me want to vomit.

I used to think that there could be nothing more psychosis-inducing than writing papers, but I've discovered over the last few years that I was wrong. Grading papers is far, far worse.

There's so many of them. And they're all so bad. Well, not ALL of them are bad, but most of them are. And it takes forever. And I just know that no one will bother to read the comments I've spent days laboring over. And of course I've procrastinated, leaving most of the papers until the end of spring break, making the whole situation even worse.

I'm having an existential crisis over it. I know, I know: I practically have an existential crisis every day. But this one is particularly shameful and adolescent.

I considered paying someone to grade the papers for me, but unfortunately I would fail my students if they paid someone to WRITE their papers, so I feel morally obliged to do the work myself.

Why God why.

Now I have to go grade some more, meanwhile choking back my lunch. Seriously, make it stop.