...but until then, i wouldn't mind it if things slowed down a bit. life is crash-bang-booming through the end of summer and into the beginning of fall, and in pullman that means: 1) 95-degree temperatures every day for the next month and 2) yearly existential dilemma over whether the payoff of my job is really worth the completely insane hours and less-than-minimal pay.
fortunately, #1 is easily mitigated by a few strategically placed $10 box fans.
#2 CAN be easily mitigated by a few strategically placed bottles of wine, but history has shown that that solution is impermanent at best.
author's note: i put slices of kiwi in this giant salad i made a few nights ago and then they rotted the next day, so now i'm eating huge, tasty piles of hearty salad that is really great except the one out of every ten bites that has a brown, rotting chunk of kiwi in it.
every fall, especially now with the advent of facebook, i see a tidal wave of comments, blog posts, and status messages bemoaning the end of summer, discussing one last weekend trip or party before "work" starts, or complaining about how everyone is already "stressing out". i empathize in a sense. i had (as you'll find out in forthcoming posts) pretty much the most fun, adventurous, exciting (and, conveniently, healthiest and cheapest) summer of my life this summer. it was a relief knowing that i can still enjoy life in a really fundamental, kid-with-a-cardboard-box sort of way even though i'm almost 30, and it was also just fun to have so much...fun. god, i always sound so profound when i talk about good things.
so in a sense, i'm sad to see summer go. i'm sad to ramp back up to 14-hour workdays, setting my alarm, and not just being able to say "the hell with it all" every few weeks and disappear into the hills with my tent. there's so much i have left over that i wanted to do this summer that i literally have a Google Doc listing all the places i want to hike to and camp at and climb mountains around next summer. it's a bummer to realize suddenly how enthusiastic you really are about something (traveling, hiking, playing music, you name it) just when you have to chuck it all and get your nose back to (on? in?) the grindstone.
but stress? fear? this terrifying amount of angst that so many of my fellow teachers seem to have? i don't get it. i don't feel stressed at all. either i'll succeed or i won't. i'll work to the utmost of my ability at all of the things i have in front of me before december, and if my bosses don't think i did a good enough job...what else could i have done?
i guess i've kind of always thought that way, at least since i started teaching in 2005. maybe it has something to do with my past working all kinds of crappy jobs while needing to constantly suck up to authority figures in order to keep said crappy jobs. maybe it's the fact that even though it's been five years now, i'm still really grateful to have the job i have, and while there are days that i'd rather sleep in than teach class or write a seminar paper, i've never once woken up with that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach like i used to on a monday morning before heading off to chipotle or the gas station. and that's why i don't get the stressing out. why would you go through the incredibly rigorous process of getting a ph.d if you didn't want to? i mean, sure it's not the most pleasant process in the world, but it's not like things are going to become suddenly simpler when you finish the degree...more than likely you're going to end up doing the same thing you're doing now, somewhere else, with even more pressure on you and maybe a little more money in your pockets. and that's the GOOD option.
i'm not picking on anyone in particular here, and honestly i'm not trying to "pick on" anyone at all. i guess i'm just trying to understand...nobody just stumbles into a job teaching college the way you might stumble into selling cars or managing a chipotle. there's a long, deliberate process involved in people like myself getting ourselves to the stage that we're at. if that process is really destroying your life, do something else instead. challenge is important, but so is being happy.
i'm sad because i'm going to miss all the opportunities i briefly had during the first half of this summer to indulge in some things i don't normally have the luxury of indulging in when working 80 hours a week, but the only thing i'm going to be stressed out about is whether or not my car's going to survive the drive to tri-cities on thursday. and, hell, i'm not even that good of a teacher or student. if anybody SHOULD be worried, it should be me...
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