We’re at our favorite indie coffee shop, and there’s a group of four pretentious hipsters sitting on the couches near us and they’re annoying the fuck out of me. They’re either grad students, or have just finished. One of them has started teaching, though I don’t know if it’s tenure-track or not.
OK, maybe I’m just jealous because I can no longer teach college. Fuck. I can’t teach, period. Just a few days ago, when I actually went to the gym, I had to run back upstairs three times because I kept forgetting something. I used to teach essay- and research-writing and MLA format. I mean, I had that thing memorized! Now, I doubt I could write a research paper to save my fucking life.
As much as ECT has helped me, sometimes it pisses me the fuck off. Actually, I fell into the TRD and was unable to teach then. I think I had to quit in the middle of whatever semester it was, so it isn’t entirely because of the ECT, but it’s only made it worse. Everything has a price, doesn’t it?
Oh, some people just like to GO ON about themselves. Maybe they were and so you had a right to be annoyed.
You know you’re a smart cookie, and I know you’re intelligent; you don’t have to have that certain job to prove anything.
Hell, I’ve done lots of mindless jobs and sometimes people treat you a certain way and then they’re surprised to learn you have a brain!
So don’t feel bad about it.
OMG, annie — they were just so awful! That’s why it was funny to be IMing with Brian right in front of them!
Apparently, the one guy is just a TA, and Brian said we were probably like that when we were in grad school. I reminded him that our little group was too busy eating at fancy restaurants (using student loan money) and bitching about how much we hated certain professors, classes, you name it!
We were like junior high kids: a friend and I would regularly play hangman in class and write notes back and forth that said things like, “Kill me now,” or “Poke my eyeballs with a pencil, please.”
Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want a tenure-track job because I wouldn’t really be able to choose where I live. If one day I could teach just one course a semester, that’d be fine with me. Because I taught English and not say, math, grading took up way too much of my time.
I also wouldn’t mind being a skate guard at an ice rink! Seriously! Thanks for cheering me up.
Ugh, I hate freaking hipsters! You were right to be annoyed!
It certainly does. I found real happiness with the love of my life and 40 lbs came along with it ((sigh))
One of the things that drives me nuts about some grad people (and/or ‘writers’) is that they have such a damn pretentious attitude… like no one else can do what they do.
We can do what they do. We have a different path is all. No one is any more important that anyone else.
Well, except maybe fire fighters. Because fire is dangerous.
I hate annoying people among other stuff.
lol
Ananke, me, too! Though some people may mistake me for one.
But I’m really not!
Robin, that’s a price tag that’s easy to peel off! I put on medication weight and gained about 40 lbs. When they first took me off, I lost 10 lbs. immediately.
It took me years to do anything about it (like the decision to play hockey this past season). When I started working out in late August (and I hate exercise), I could barely do 10 minutes on the legs-only ellipticals. But I lost the weight! And if I can do it, anybody can. Trust me. Hmm…that gives me an idea for my “Currently” sideblog….
Dan, OMG — totally! You are right on. And you know how it is — it seems like everybody’s a “writer,” or a “poet.” I guess my path is the Dark Side of the Ice. Heehee.
Gladys, I’m sure Brian thinks I can be annoying. Hope that means you won’t hate me!
I remember when I was in graduate school in a research field, thought I was on the road towards a tenure-track professorship career. I remember thinking that what I was studying was so incredibly important. And I remember the elitism of acedemia, as if no one in the “real world” was doing anything of importance. I had to drop out because of my illness, I’m now in a different field. And I can’t get over how little I think about the subjects that I once thought I’d spend my life studying!
Bah! You aren’t pinging for me. I’m gonna resubscribe to see if that updates me.
And I live in a town FULL of people who are FULL of themselves. >,
You rock Barb.. screw those pretentious fucks don’t let em get you down about yourself.They have issues too or they would’nt be human.
Barb:
I was on the catblogging sites when I noticed your name.
You were a drummer in the music dept. at the Academy.
Maybe you remember me from there.
I was the other “Barb” in the music dept.
I was a sophomore voice major the year you started-and left for ‘regular’ high school at the end of the ’85-86 school year.
I remember Cynth, and Liz, and Paul, and ‘Cat and…
It almost seems like that happened a lifetime ago .
Anyway, once we get back to Chicago-we’ve been living in MO for the past year-I intend to restart the “annoying little twerp”.
In original incarnation it was a center/ right pro military blog. While I certainly still believe it still, this “run” will probably be devoted to Aspergers’ awareness and advocacy.(Aspergers’ Syndrome is at the far upper-end of the ‘autism-spectrum’. I was diagnosed with A. S. in 2003) Einstein was most likely an Aspie
We Aspies get might tired of those that want to ‘cure’ us. We have quirks-not the flu. We don’t need curing-we need acceptance.
When I get Twerp up again I’ll blog-roll you-if that’s okay.
Have a great day
Emilija, in retrospect I was the same way — thought I was this elitist scholar/artist. The ECT has been a humbling experience.
KG, I’m not pinging? Oh, you mean like on Bloglines or something. I’ve stopped using it because there are so many blogs on my blogroll obviously, and I just can’t read every single one every day or even the ones that are updated. It gets too overwhelming, then my anxiety goes sky high, and blah blah blah.
Thanks, ragensmom.
Barb! Of course I remember you! I don’t remember Cynth, but get this — Paul dated my uncle for a little while, several years after graduation. You can imagine my surprise when he showed up for a family Easter gathering! Liz has obviously done well for herself, more so in my opinion than Lara.
Me? Heh. I was supposed to replace Veruca Salt’s drummer for the rest of their tour with Hole. That experience, among others that were building up, was the catalyst for my first suicide attempt. I had just been diagnosed earlier that year with bipolar disorder.
Anyway, I thought you were a year ahead of me and graduated — didn’t realize you went back to regular school. We’ll have to get together when you’re back, and you’re more than welcome to blogroll me. Let me know when you’re here and your site’s up and running. You can always Contact Me whenever you want.