Author Archives: sjrobin

Catherine’s Story

Cheers!  I made it to my due date!  Huzzah.  Blue and pink banners fall.  There should be a damn parade in honor of every single woman who waddles her way to 40 weeks where people plop her on a throne that foot-massages like a Brookstone chair and hand out chocolate every time they pass, like $200 a pop in Monopoly.

Too bad, Bundle of Joy over here came a full month early.

Listen, I had plans.  I am the plan master.  I was going to exit work on 12 April.  All lectures for my survey classes were going to be done.  I was going to send two more dissertation chapters to the advisor.  Cute wooden jungle animals on the nursery walls.  Receiving blankets washed in Dreft I would have already bought.  The works.  I had PLANS.

Rin’s plan was better.

Baby, at every single point in his chaos, has known exactly what needs to be done, like some eerie clue-in to the divine/cosmos.

And since so many people have wished us congrats, given their thoughts and prayers, and asked for her story, as crazy/unexpected as it was, here it is.

 

Tuesday, 22 March

We knew she was still breech.  The stubborn (genetic disposition), still mystery-gendered (my choice, not the husband’s) cantaloupe inside the ol’ uterus had stopped moving as much as it used to–hardly any kicks, no jabs, just shifting weight and this kid’s head constantly poking my rib cage.  Two weeks before, we’d done a bio-physical test just to make sure the baby was, you know, still a resident in there.  Baby was moving fine–hands, fingers, toes, even practicing breathing like a champ–but breech.  I hadn’t felt any of the earth-shattering movement Google said meant Baby had flip-flopped, so we knew.

That didn’t make getting confirmation at my pre-natal checkup any easier.

“Baby is breech and already engaged in the pelvis.  We need to discuss a C-section.”

I was devastated.  I had wanted a natural labor.  No drugs, no epidural.  Just me, the ice chips, and J yelling at me every contraction that there’s no crying in baseball.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not into the New Agey water-birth, doula, and placenta-smoothie-recipe package.  I study history; all the women I’ve ever studied have done it this way.  And I’m a writer.  I wanted to feel this experience, to learn the words that describe it.  It was a point of pride for me.  Of the Seven Deadly, that’s me.  I wanted to know I could do it.

A smart, healthy baby was always the only goal, but I didn’t realize how much I wanted this experience until it was no longer an option.  I thought, if we had to have a C-section, it’d be because something was immediately wrong, an emergency in the middle of labor.  Not scheduled, not like this–so clinical.  Not, “Okay, this baby is scheduled for 9:45 AM, so we need to leave for our appointment in 10 minutes.”

We scheduled a version (ECV) where they try to manually turn the baby.  Success rate was bleak.  Seriously, Doc stat-dropped that around 5% of babies are breech this way by this point in pregnancy.  I mean, really, wow, that’s our luck?  Of course it is…  With everything that’s gone wrong with the house, with jobs, with cars, everything the last nine months, J and I have turned into the friggin real-life versions of Eeyore.

I was trying not to lose it in front of the doctor–absolutely teared up in front of him and the stupid med student–but as soon as they left the room, J stood up and told me to let it out.  I sobbed into his shirt.

Smart, healthy baby–that was all that mattered.  But it was such a disappointment that I’d never get to feel what it’s like when Baby is ready, to tell J “it’s time,” when your water breaks naturally, when you have contractions.  I’d never get to push.  We only want this one baby.  This was our one chance.

I cried the entire drive to work.  Got to campus right before my 11:00 class, so I sniffed and dabbed and walked straight from my car to the classroom.  Cried in my office.  My contacts were blurred by the end of the day.

So what do we do?  I’m not a fan of the passenger seat, so I spent the entire evening trying techniques to disengage and evict Baby from the pelvis and flip, like lying on a propped-up ironing board and hanging off the sofa.  (Don’t worry, guys.  The Lamaze nurse said it was safe.)  No luck–the extent of my ability coaxing baby to turn was the equivalent of “here, kitty, kitty.”  It wasn’t looking good.

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Most use my ironing board has ever gotten.

 

Wednesday, 23 March

We weren’t even going to go to the last Lamaze class.  What was the point after the imminent C-section?  J had hated the whole thing, ever since the guided meditation session on the first night, because it was a little too out-there for our tastes.  Back in the 80s, Mom had a retired drill instructor for her Lamaze classes.  I was expecting something like that: “Breathe, you dogs!  Breathe–hee, hee, hee–and PUSH.”  Something hardcore, which I would have enjoyed more than the soft-spoken, ultra-hippie nurse we had.

But J said we should go, probably just to make me feel better because I was still a hormonal wreck weeping over Pampers commercials, so he packed the pillows in the car, dragged me off the ironing board, and we went.

Funny enough, the last Lamaze class was all about surgical births.  She showed videos of sections, talked about what happens during a section, the right questions to ask.  All of it.

Sure, I felt a little queasy that night when we left.  Just nerves over coming to terms with reality.  And hunger.  So we grabbed some McDonalds, and the super-mild, barely-there cramps went away.

 

Thursday, 24 March.  D-Day.

I was in my office when IT happened. 5:45 am, I was up and at the computer.  My Reformation Europe had an exam I needed to finish.  Then I needed to prep for my Industrial Revolution lecture in my HIST 102.  Three students to email, advising at 8:00, quizzes to grade.  The best-laid plans.

A couple minutes after 6:00 am, my water broke.

It took three full seconds of trying to clench muscles down there before I realized, this is my water.  My water just broke.

I just sat there for a minute, thinking, oh wow, this is happening.  Huh.  And then, I stood up, Atlas shrugging off the world, water ALL over my office chair, great, then waddled into the hall.

“J, I really need you to get up.”

He grumbled.  Told me later that he thought I was asking him to come kill a bug or something.

“My water just broke.”

That got him moving.  No contractions.  In our defense, we handled that morning like parenting pros maxed out to Duggar-proportions.  I made the bed, cleared the kitchen table, cleaned out the car.  Called/texted the first string of family and friends.  Thank God my Boy Scout of a husband wanted the hospital bags packed FOREVER in advance.  I’d only just stuffed the vitals in my airport carry-on a week, two weeks before to get him to stop nagging.

We took our sweet time leaving the house, probably around 6:45-6:50.  I didn’t feel a single contraction until we were en route to the hospital.  Mild contractions.  Completely manageable.  Got this.  I even finished the Reformation Europe exam in the car.

Full-force maternal anxiety didn’t hit until we reached Labor & Delivery.  This baby was coming a month early.  This was bad.  And why hadn’t Baby turned head-down?  What was wrong?  Something had to be wrong.  I was tearing up by the time we reached the front desk.

 

Me: “My water just broke.”

Front desk attendant: “Congratulations!”

J: “She’s 35 weeks pregnant.”

Front desk attendant: “Oh.”

Me: “And the baby is breech.”

Front desk attendant: “…oh.

 

She said she’d have someone come see us in a second.  I didn’t think she meant literally, but I had JUST plugged in my laptop to email work when a nurse came to get us.  This was clearly urgent now.

The next two hours flew.  The doctor on call examined me.  I was already 4 cm dilated.  This baby was trucking.  (I’d had fingers crossed for that.  Mom only had a four-hour labor with me.  We waste 0 time in my family, just to compensate for running habitually late the rest of our lives.)  Contractions started coming more frequently.  Still manageable but definitely feeling them now.  Got to employ some basic Lamaze breathing, just to get my money’s worth from those classes.  J was fantastic, never left my side.  He was strong when we were both terrified for this baby.

It was all a blur.  The phone calls, the bustle of nurses.  Mom and Dad calling in, flying home from vacation.  Us, obsessively checking Baby’s heartrate on the print-out.  We asked for my regular OBGYN, who normally worked T/Th, but he was away on vacation.  Of course he was.  I submitted the Reformation exam to the printer, all strapped with monitors.

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This is not the best photo of me, but hey–applaud my superior work ethic.

It was divine providence: thanks to the last Lamaze session the night before, I knew exactly what questions to ask about the C-section when the doctor came in.  I should have known then that Baby had a plan.

I told the doctor on call that the gender was still a surprise.  Truths fell out–that I had wanted a natural labor, that J had wanted to announce the gender, cut the cord.  That this was not how we had expected this day to go.  Bless, Doc kept the ultrasound from Baby’s nether-region to keep the surprise.  Then the nurses wheeled me away without J to administer an epidural.  It was time.

Things started moving even FASTER after that.  I’d already bumped 2 or 3 other women down the C-section list because of my emergency.  But it had been evenly paced.  The next thing I know, everyone starts hustling.  Apparently, I found out later, my contractions were even stronger.  I was in active labor, this baby was COMING.  And Baby’s heart rate started to drop.

J wasn’t even in the room when I felt them cutting into me.  Tugging.  I was in Hulk-rage-panic mode.  “Where is my husband??”  I thought he was going to miss the birth of his child.  Meanwhile, he was literally running down the hall to make it.

Three minutes was all it took, from first incision to offspring.  J was there for most of it, maybe two minutes of the three.  He rubbed my hair, told me it was okay.

And then they lifted her out.  I couldn’t see anything past the partition, but even in the chaos, the good doctor remembered about the surprise, what we wanted.  And he asked for “dad” to come and look.

J: “It’s a girl!”

They whisked her away immediately for the NICU nurses to inspect her.  I remember J’s first words.  He told me that she looked the size of a normal, full-term baby.  J reminded me later, I was scared because she wasn’t crying.  Then, all of a sudden, we heard a scream from the adjacent room.  Atta girl.  She had trouble breathing at first, but they gave her 5 minutes and her APGAR shot up to an 8.  A full month early, and she scored an 8.  She’s a fast learner, our kid.  World, watch out.

They called J into the NICU room a few minutes later.  He got to cut the cord, and then he carried her back to me on the table, all wrapped up, and held her against my chest and cheek.  I kept cry-asking, “It’s a girl?  It’s a girl?”  I couldn’t get over her chubby cheeks.  “Meet Catherine Grace,” he said. 

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We stayed in the hospital until Easter Sunday. I won’t bore you with a recap of all those days, but it was great.  Everyone–all the nurses, doctors, everyone–was so impressed with how well she was doing for being only 35 weeks.  No trouble breathing, no trouble latching/eating, no jaundice.  I didn’t think we’d get to take her home–not a month early.  I told J before we left the house, just to leave the car seat because there was no way she wouldn’t end up in NICU.  How wrong I was–just a little hip dysplasia, something so fixable.  I told J that she’s the reason we’ve had such terrible luck–she’s been siphoning it all for herself because she knew that she’d need it.  When they wheeled me into the recovery room, she was sucking hard at J’s thumb.  “She’s hungry,” he said.  She was fine.

I remembered the bio-physical test weeks ago…  They counted different types of movement for Baby: opening/closing hands, moving feet, and breathing.  And the doctor doing the ultrasound said that practicing breathing was one of the most difficult ones to measure because babies weren’t always doing it.  But the first time she moved to that area to see, Baby was practicing.  And when she went back to that same view later in the test, Baby was practicing breathing again.

So yeah.  Baby has known exactly what needed to happen, and she took care of business.

It gets even more “meant to be” than that.  Twenty minutes after my water broke, I would have been on the road to campus for advising, an hour’s drive.  A month later, with my regular due date, who knows how much worse her hip dysplasia would be. The girl with the plan.

It gets more surreal.  That afternoon, there was a shooting at another local hospital.  A doctor and a few others were killed.  J’s dad was supposed to have an appointment with that doctor at that time of the shooting.  He rescheduled for a couple hours later when J told him we were having the baby.  This baby probably saved J’s dad’s life.

And think about it.  Rin gave us the best of both worlds–I was never going to have the natural labor I wanted because she was breech, but I got the spontaneous, amazing start I wanted–to feel labor, to be able to tell J “it’s time”–and J to announce her gender and cut her cord.  The best of all possible worlds.  It’s almost foolishly creepy how much immediate faith I have in what this child can do.

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This baby was just meant to be.  From the first “sign from the universe” when my plotted due date on the ovulation calendar was Wednesday, 20 April (my birthday and weekday) to the day she was born, this is how it was supposed to be.

She was meant to be here, just like this.

 

SJ

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Oh, Louisiana

I was really trying to make these blog updates a consistent weekly thing, but there goes Louisiana, interrupting my regularly scheduled programming with such stupidity with higher education that it stuns me temporarily paralyzed and delays my update.

Thursday, 11 February, was a big day over at the Robin house.  It was a friend’s wedding rehearsal (cheers), the post-New Hampshire Democratic debate (thanks, PBS), and a new episode of The 100.  Stellar stuff happening.  It was also the day that recently inaugurated Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards delivered a public address on the dire crisis in Louisiana higher ed.

In addition to the over-reliance on adjuncts in higher ed (which deserves its own rant one fine day), the hot mess unfolding the last seven years in universities in the Deep South state has been a fantastic trainwreck, slow-motion Michael-Bay explosion–and an unfortunate commentary on the condition of public higher education in the United States.  If you’re unfamiliar with the doomsday situation currently on the news, you can check out grim articles here and, for its effect on public universities, here.

Be warned: it’s a lot like the end of Donnie Darko.

In short, the state is facing a $940 million deficit for the current fiscal year (ending in June) and an anticipated two billion-dollar deficit for 2016-2017.  Thanks to the structure of Louisiana’s state charter (their last constitutional convention was in 1974, before the oil glut of the 1980s and the current one limiting revenue), the only unprotected funds are health care and higher ed, obviously two highly superfluous, absolutely unnecessary budgets.

The state economy’s near-total dependence on oil works great when gas prices are high, but not-so-much when the cost of filling my tank allows me the extra-tall hot chocolate from the corner Racetrack.  And whereas Texas learned from its mistakes in the 1980s and diversified its economy in the aftermath, Louisiana hasn’t, a situation made worse by the state’s reckless budget planning that relies too heavily on projected funds rather than money already stuffed in the proverbial mattress.

Since former governor (and former POTUS-hopeful/comic relief) Bobby Jindal took office in 2008, public universities in the state have suffered extraordinary cuts to their operating budgets, substantial loss of faculty and staff, the closures of departments and termination of degree programs, and tuition hikes to compensate the loss of state funding.

The latest anticipated wave of cuts is the worst yet.

Public university administrators in the state are baffled over what’s even left in the bare bones to cut.  Anticipating a $65 million cut, the LSU system proposed shutting down its agricultural center and undergraduate programs in dental hygiene and medical lab technology, a huge blow considering the LSU system operates a medical center in NOLA.  The University of Louisiana system (including 9 state colleges) proposed furloughing non-tenure-track faculty and non-classified staff to account for its share of $38 million.  Schools risk losing accreditation, much less attracting qualified professors to educate Louisiana’s future workforce.  TOPS, a state program to help high school seniors who meet academic standards fund college tuition, is out of money, and now universities are expected to absorb 20% of the necessary costs for TOPS students–in addition to the expected cuts incurred from the $940 million deficit.  If the immediate budget crisis isn’t met, universities warn they may need to suspend classes mid-semester.

So what’s left to cut?  After seven years of winter, these universities are out marrow and red blood cells and are down to pawning vital organs in back alleys to “doctors” with X-acto knives and styrofoam ice chests.  Most faculty have not received a cost-of-living raise in eight years.  Hell, the history department at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond has actually collected a voluntary donation if you want to drink the office’s stash of coffee.

Louisiana higher education has turned into the scene from Apollo 13 when Ken Mattingly dumps a box of odds-and-ends from the NASA space shuttle onto the table and tries to duct-tape-fix the power disaster/impending death of the crew.

Accurate representation of public university faculty not currently uploading their resumes to monster.com.

As much as I could rant and rave about the political shortcomings that created this situation in Louisiana, Christmas isn’t coming early.  I’d rather waste your time addressing the bigger ideological problem exacerbating this crisis: the popular perception of the professor.

See, on that same fateful Thursday, just to counter-balance all the amazing things that happened–like that killer fight scene in The 100, amiright?–I made a terrible, terrible mistake.  I went into the black hole no one should ever go: the comments section of news articles.

There, I was struck with gems such as these:

comments4 - colleges as cash cows EDIT

comments5 - stop funding EDIT

comments7 - teach 6 hours a day EDIT

Ouch.

Before I get hit with peanut shells from the gallery, I’ll admit, fair-play, these select few comments I’ve picked out aren’t 100% representative of the comments I unfortunately spent the last few days reading.  But they are, nonetheless, still indicative of a popular modern attitude towards academia, one that leads to the vilification of universities as un-American, liberal centers with a sinister agenda and books like this one: Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth, which has 3.5 stars on Amazon.

Considering Twilight has 4/5 stars, maybe I shouldn’t be so offended.

See, alongside the polarization of politics in recent decades and the long, long, long aisle in-between the red and blue, we can identify two radically opposing attitudes towards “the college professor.”

On the one hand, we’ve got Hollywood lauding the degree-toting, classroom-employed intellectual.  Indiana Jones, “the Professor” Hinkley building radios out of coconuts, Doc Brown, Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgard in Good Will Hunting, the X-Men’s own Professor X.  Hell, even Professor Farnsworth.  Okay, so we’ve got a wide range of sanity there, but at least my generation and others grew up with a pop culture that respected academia’s elbow-patches.

On the other now, one exposed by the comments section of those Louisiana news articles: professors are cushioned, privileged positions that require 8 hours of work per week, protected by all the locks, fine dining, and financial security the Ivory Tower has to offer.  Must be nice.

The budget crisis in Louisiana has turned into political warfare between state Democrats and Republicans, with each side dug firmly in the trenches.  Even the legislators who are supposed to be addressing the crisis are polar-opposed between raising taxes and cutting down on spending.  State Treasurer John Kennedy wasted zero time airing a Republican response to Edwards’ doom-and-gloom speech, proposing more than 400 ideas in reducing spending.  It’s worth pointing out, as several have, that several of his proposals are based on years-old, even decades-old, data.

And the bystander at risk in this political war is higher education, an on-the-altar victim too many people seem eager to strike with the Iphigenia dagger.

Many Louisianans seem willing to sacrifice education just to ensure no new taxes, and still others see the potential loss to the university systems as good things, justifiable cuts.  The situation is so extreme in Louisiana that voters (beyond those directly affected) felt little outrage over Jindal’s massive budget cuts to higher ed during his eight years in office.  The current governor had to threaten the future of LSU football to get attention to the education crisis.  And still, commenters would rather see more sacrifices to their state’s education and health care systems than condone the sheer possibility of a tax hike.

comments3 - scare tactics too many universities EDIT

comments6 - cut classes EDIT

 

comments2 - vote no to all taxes EDIT

If Louisiana were a Sy-fy disaster movie, there would be no one eligible to play the eccentric professor who discovers the apocalyptic disaster and narrowly averts the end of the world.  The state just doesn’t have the funds to support research and, *even if* the non-tenure-track instructor weren’t so busy teaching 300+ students a semester for subsistence wages to actually discover something important like an asteroid hitting earth or ice twisters, hardly anyone in the state would believe the poor schmuck.

The vilification of education is the death of our future.  Education is not the antithesis to hard-working, blue-collar Americanism.  Getting an education doesn’t mean the abandonment of values, and both a college-educated and a trade-oriented workforce are necessary for success.  It doesn’t take a degree to realize that.

I firmly believe that college is not for everyone, and we do an incredible disservice to our youth by stressing university as the “inevitable” next step and undervaluing trade schools.  But we need college-educated workforce to move forward as a nation.  Every time we devalue and demonize higher ed and those professors employed in the industry, we cripple our ability to innovate, learn, and progress.  We–even you, Louisiana–need thinkers, scientists, mathematicians, economists, and yes, even writers, philosophers, and historians.

The vilification of higher education needs to stop.  The applaud of ignorance needs to stop.  Get your act together–or don’t, Louisiana.  You’re already ranked 47 out of 50 in WalletHub’s 2015 assessment of public school systems, and your high school and college graduates are flocking away from the state’s workforce faster than Kanye can hit up social media for cash.  The shortsightedness in shooting university professors in the foot will catch up with the state’s long-term economy and stability.

The vital importance of public higher education in Louisiana is a bi-partisan issue.  However voters and legislators choose to solve it, Louisianans and the American population at large must realize that it is a problem that must be solved and that professors are worth the effort.

***

Song of the Post: “Sallie Mae Back” by Dee-1

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Beginning of the New Semester

Ah, terrific.  The start of a brand new semester.  The smell of crisp, glossy pages of textbooks that will never be opened.  The touch of smooth, unwrinkled Scantrons, fresh from the 5-pack, that by the time we have our first exam, will be crumpled enough to jam the scanner.  And the disinterested, possibly stoned blank 2×4 looks of everyone in my late afternoon HIST 101.

“Today we are starting with the Bronze Age and the foundation of our earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia.  After the Neolithic period, when we developed agriculture and gained the means to form permanent settlements….”

My very first day of teaching (as a graduate student at the university where I’m completing my PhD), I walked into the classroom, totally rocking the Jansport backpack and an ironic history t-shirt with my dress slacks.  I was 5 seconds older than the students I was teaching, and they all knew it.  This was how Doogie Howser must have felt working at Eastman Medical Center.

Even ZZ Top was in awe of my cool.

My program dropped me into the classroom with little preparation, which backfired on some fellow grads but was really the ideal system for me.  Trial by fire.  Go big or go home.  Excellent, my kind of poison.  I was given a specific course my first semester but had Kim-Jong-Il levels of dictatorial control over the syllabus and structure with little oversight.  I was in a perfect position to learn what kind of professor I wanted to be and the pros/cons of every decision.

It took a couple weeks to find my rhythm.  At first, I was typing full-on lecture notes for every single little detail possible, complete with footnote citations in case a student ever dared to question my sources.  (They never did.)  I used to sweat blood over creating informative powerpoints.  I struggled with pacing and having the Goldilocks just-right amount material for a 75-minute class.

Those were my pre-briefcase experiences.  Now I have a leather, Indiana-Jones-esque bag that I sold a kidney to buy before my first semester at my current university.  So worth it.  That briefcase contains a piece of my professor-identity, like a friggin horocrux.

“Writing is critical for success, not just for you guys stuck here taking notes until 5:00 but also our early civilizations.  The ancient Sumerians created a system of writing called cuneiform, based on distinct wedge-shaped characters.  This was vital for record-keeping, harvest reports, business transactions.  Here, you can see a bill of sale on a stone tablet, written in cuneiform, for a field and a horse in exchange for silver.”

It takes time learning what kind of teacher you want to be.

I tell the undergraduate and graduate students I mentor that when you’re teaching, you create a persona beyond yourself, someone that can take the punches, deliver the lecture with finesse, and overlook the kid drooling three rows back.  Personally, I like to think I’m a cross between Jon Stewart as a history professor and Carmen Sandiego.

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The Venus of Willendorf statuette, c. 25,000 BCE

“Remember, fertility was critical for the survival of our Paleolithic tribes, and the Venus of Willendorf is one example of that.  Obviously, she’s a little…uh, well-endowed here, and as a result, scholars argue that she likely functioned as a fertility statue to encourage pregnancy or ensure safe delivery.  Think about it.  I’ve seen from TV, childbirth is scary, and even if you watch the birds do it and the bees do it and the woolly mammoth do it, actually giving birth to a baby back in the Paleolithic period had to be frightening.  If some shaman tribal chieftain pressed this into my hand during a contraction and told me it’d ensure a safe delivery, I’d have it surgically implanted.”

If I throw my pen at the girl clearly not taking notes on her laptop, is that a lawsuit?  If so, how much of a lawsuit?

My first very semester, I tried being a strict, no-nonsense instructor because I feared students challenging my authority.  I limited classroom discussions.  I was nervous whenever a student might ask a question I didn’t immediately know the answer to because I worried it would make me look weak.  Like a limping gazelle in front of a pack of rabid lions.  I didn’t let myself tell jokes.  I never left the podium because it could double as a riot shield in case of a coup.  I was miserable.  Teaching wasn’t FUN that way.

By examining the best and worst of my own professors, I’ve learned the balance of enjoying my job and still establishing lines in the classroom that can’t be crossed.  I always dress hyper-professionally because I am such a young instructor.  It evens out the laid-back approach I have while lecturing.

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For as Unabomber as I look on my off-campus days, I rock young professional wear.

I tell jokes that only I think are funny.  I wear Converse with my nice slacks.  I enjoy getting to know my students, whether it’s the kid in the front row who always wears an Attack on Titan jacket (rock on, Survey Corps) or the two soul sisters interested in studying abroad next summer.  I probably care too much, but it hasn’t backfired yet.  Maybe when my teaching style finally does reveal its faults, I’ll re-weigh the pros and cons and adapt.  Then again, maybe not.

“Here’s your Trivial Pursuit for the day for ancient Mesopotamia.  Forty percent of all the grain grown in the region was brewed for ale.  How about that, eh?”

Just the other day, my department head advertised a job listing for a new American history instructor at another state university.  A woman saw the salary and commented, “Who can possibly live on that?”  I laughed.  I laughed and I laughed.  The answer?  No one, lady.  Would you like the chicken or the beef Ramen tonight?

What adjuncts and non-tenure-track faculty do isn’t for the money.  Clearly.  We work for something else.  Sometimes, some semesters more than others, when the vibe of the classroom is dead, when you’re tired and stressed and scrounging for appreciation, it’s hard to quite remember what that “something” is.

“This is a Sumerian terracotta relief of a woman playing the harp.  Here’s the thing, these ancient Mesopotamians aren’t static or dull.  It’s easier to realize that when you imagine them coming together around the fire and listening to something so familiar to us as music.”

There!  Movement in the back of the room!  We’ve got a live one!

Student: “So…what did they make the harps out of…?”

Heads poke up like meerkats on alert at the beginning of The Lion King.  Even Laptop Girl has perked up to pay attention.

“Well, you see…”  I start to explain about the set of 11 stringed instruments (2 harps, 9 lyres) that have been uncovered in the region.  Suddenly, there’s interest.  They ask what other instruments have been found.  I tell them about the music guides we’ve found on stone tablets.

Hook, line, sinker.  We springboard into an active discussion on how we are still learning more as historians about the distant past and why history matters.  They ask perceptive questions about the hierarchy of Mesopotamian society, the building of ziggurats, Gilgamesh.  By the time we get to Hammurabi’s Code–“Eye for an eye, people”–a couple even Thunderdome-chant “Tooth for a tooth” back at me.

We all know it: next class will be a brand-new struggle to get them engaged all over again, but right now, that doesn’t matter.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget why we teach the way we do: why we make the decisions we do, organize lectures the way we do, even why got into this career in the first place.  But then, just when we are getting the most desperate, we get the reminders we need.

“All right, guys.  Thanks for a great class.  See you all on Thursday for Brendon Fraser’s personal favorite, ancient Egypt!”

A few kids even laugh.

Oh right.  THAT’S why I do this.

***

Song of the Post: “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne

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The Start

My husband is making me do this.

There is zero use sugar-coating that.  He’s got the proverbial gun to my head on this one, and worse, my nearest and dearest have rallied to support him.  I hate it when that happens.  They tell me starting this blog is good for me, like eating my spinach or listening to NPR.

So here goes nothing.

I am a fifth-year PhD candidate working on my degree in history (late medieval/early Renaissance Europe).  I picked up my Master’s back in 2012, and while smarter minds with greater self-preservation skills would have stopped there, I decided to dog forward for the gold.  Now I’m four chapters in, my Arbor-Misted liver is probably on the fritz, and I’m pretty convinced the light at the end of the tunnel is just a bug zapper.

Life would probably be a lot easier if I had the means to focus exclusively on my dissertation, like some of my peers, but that’s not a luxury Young Turks (the Rod Stewart variety, not the actual Ottoman Empire political movement) with ambitions actually have.  Our insurance company keeps insisting that I pay our homeowners bill in US dollars, not smiles, IOUs on a post-it, or my firstborn, which is unfortunate since my graduate school stipend ran out last year.  I worked in retail for a while to get by while the husband did a stint in law school, but those turned out to be terrible life choices for both of us, and we needed a change.

Now I work as a full-time instructor at a nearby public university which gives me the horror stories and tiny successes I’ll be filling this blog with.  Being a young (and young-looking) female instructor has its challenges.  I have been mistaken for a student more times than I can count, been asked out for a date in front of my class, and had to shut down budding rebellions before they break out the pitchforks.  I usually teach between 275 and 300 students each semester, and balancing the demands of a full-time teaching position with the obligations to my PhD has not been easy.

Worse for my mental health, I feel Hermione-Granger-compelled to take on more responsibilities than I should because I’ve convinced myself being a proactive over-achiever matters and, whatever, I’ll sleep when I’m dead or, you know, have tenure.  So it’s a life of committee meetings and the inability to say no, with a reward I’ll probably only get in teacher-heaven, certainly not on my paycheck.

In my free time (the sane use this for eating and sleeping), the husband and I are remodeling our Ghetto House to keep the walls standing and the squirrel that’s chewed its way to living in the attic satisfied.  It’s a lot like Tool Time without hazard’s pay.  I’ve hammered the 1x6s on the roof; he’s tiled and grouted the kitchen floor.  We’re both responsible for the gaping hole in the sheetrock behind the fridge.

It’s not the glamorous life they advertise on graduate school brochures.  You know, the ones with photos of students, looking deceptively eager to learn, smiling with their faculty mentors, who weirdly don’t have bags under their eyes or wrinkles on the suit jacket they’ve worn three days in a row.

I secretly write historical adventure fiction on the side to convince myself my career did turn out like Indiana Jones like I always wanted, and I ignore my Golden Retriever when she’s judging me for popping the cork before 5:00.  (Hey, I’m a world traveler.  It IS always 5:00 somewhere.)

So my friends have convinced me to start this blog.  Maybe they’re tired of listening to me vent.  But somewhere after rushing to teach with sawdust still in my hair from the house, having a student compare me to a porn star on a teaching evaluation, and religiously dodging both my dissertation advisor and messy workplace politics, I realized I have stories to tell that some people may find worth reading–maybe to avoid my mistakes or at least get a laugh from them.

This blog serves as some hard-learned life lessons about balancing academia with all the other vitals necessary for survival and happiness.  Sure, names will be changed to protect the innocent, and much like The Simpsons and Springfield, I’ll never overtly reveal my actual affiliations.  But I promise these experiences, the good and the bad, are all mine, for better or for worse.

On that note, cheers.  Let’s get started.

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In case you were curious, it’s 5:00…in Brazil.

SJ

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Song of the Post: “Doctor Jones” by Aqua

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