LtD, Vol. 1: The Perilous Job Search

Dear Debbie,

You have known for quite some time that I intended to begin a blog serial dedicated to you, my mentor and friend, in which I would chronicle some of my adventures in higher education. I began this adventure while sitting sideways in an old blue high-back chair across the desk from you, and for the last six years you've been there with me, listening to my ramblings and laughing at my attempts at comedy. I wanted to wait until I had a job to begin writing this, but my fingers are tired of texting and I am about three phone calls over my limit for the day and so now, thanks to the webernet, you are obliged to continue listening and laughing as I type from the comfort of my… well, telling you where I am would give away the ending, so let me start a bit earlier.

Yesterday I drove to Indiana (yes: the state of) for an interview (you know this, of course; but, you understand, other people might be reading [a writer can dream]). The state of Ohio seemed to know that I was coming and summoned up a blanket of cloud cover, so there was no sunshine whatsoever until I was nearly to Indiana and the sun was at just the right angle to blind me; and you tell me the big O-H is harmless. I arrived in Fort Wayne without significant incident, met the people I was supposed to meet, was fed delicious local foods (who knew that stir fry was an Indianan delicacy?), did about three hours of research and interview prep, and went to bed.

On the morning of my first in-person higher education interview, I was up very early. I took my time getting ready, blow-dried and brushed my hair, even applied make-up; I looked pretty dang professional. New shoes, nice pants, cardigan, matching earrings, and no cartilage stud… stripped of my individuality, maybe, but quite the picture of what you would want in a hall director. I compensated by making sure that everyone who interviewed me knew about my motorcycle by the time we were done; gotta maintain as much cool as I can. Everyone was very kind, suitably impressed by the motorcycle, and they had some excellent questions. It was a good, if exhausting, day, and I was fairly content to climb in my car and mentally prepare for a long drive back to PA.

As with all stories involving myself and cars, that is where the adventure really began. I set the GPS, checked the tire pressure, stopped for gas, and set out for home… only to be stopped after the next set of railroad tracks. Or, more appropriately, not stopped: the pedal was going almost to the floor before anything remotely resembling 'braking' occurred. You know me well enough to believe that I didn't really accept that there was a problem until I had driven about five miles further and realized that the two-lane road was going to be four-lanes and fast very soon, at which point I did a cunning U-turn (it didn't require a complete stop!) and made my way back toward civilization very slowly, with a hand on the e-brake and a prayer on my tongue.

Somehow (by the grace of God, I know) I ended up on the right street, in the right block, to roll down the road and into an auto shop that was five minutes from closing, where the owner was locking up on "Golf Day" (Terry would appreciate that tradition, methinks) but was willing to take a look at my car. It only took fifteen minutes or so to determine that the back half of the 'master cylinder' was blown, meaning that I had front brakes, but no rear brakes. The truly ironic (I believe, but I don't have an internet connection to look up the definition at the moment) thing is, this was the safe car - I took it because the rear brake pads and rotors had just been changed.

All of this, of course, confirms for me that there is a black spot curse especially for motor vehicles, and I have it.

Larry Lash, the mechanic and hero figure of this grand adventure, was able to get a call in to the parts store in Indianapolis and order a new master cylinder a few minutes before they closed. He then offered to drive me back to the University and pick me up again in the morning when the car was fixed; the University generously welcomed me back, fed me dinner, and gave me a room. At dinner, I made friends with the man behind the counter, who wished me luck and made a fresh batch of french fries just for me (my father questions my use of the word 'friend' for someone who gave me a triple serving of deep-fried potato, but I stand by my choice).

Incidentally, the town where Mr. Lash has his Auto Service is called New Haven. Poetic, isn't it?

In any event, it has been an interesting day, to say the least. Anna Eichner tells me that this is exactly what should happen to Hall Director interviewees, because it allows them to see how you function under pressure... I just find it funny. Is that an appropriate way to deal with stress? Better to laugh than be crying, I suppose. I look forward to seeing you sometime soon, but until then, consider this my thank-you for setting me out on the perilous road to employment.

And yes, I think that may actually be too obvious to be a pun.

Sincerely,

Ceci

Pending: Adventure

I've put this off until far too late in the day, and at this very moment my father is wolfing down his supper so that we can leave on time. To be fair, he said we would leave at 6:00 and he got home an hour early.

If you read my earlier post (here) you know that I've been looking forward to summer sailing for some time; I'm headed up to Erie tonight, and tomorrow the adventure begins! Just a few thoughts before I take off...

1) I think that sailing could be an introvert's dream. All that blue, all that quiet, and steady work that doesn't require too much thought to distract from internal processing. I packed my journal, a Bible, and a few small books to keep me company.

2) I think that sailing will quite possibly be an introvert's nightmare. I've been reading the training manual and realizing just how little space there really is on this thing, and 40 shiny happy people to fill it. This should be interesting.

3) I'm going with a College History Consortium, so I'm kinda psyched that there will be students and professors there... and maybe we'll get to have lectures!! I'm such a nerd.

4) I sincerely hope I packed enough. There's a whole lot to keep track of and only a little bit of space to fill up... fingers crossed.

I'm pretty sure I'll have a few things to say when I get back, but for now... I'm headed to (Lake) Ontario!

The Real Question

Although I have lost none of the angst that instigated melodrama in my previous post, after some reflection I realized that I never really got at the thing that I wanted to say. What I did say was true and valid, of course... I'm not losing confidence in this dream, exactly, but I do need a place in which to wonder what it would take to decide that enough is enough. A  wise woman who visited Geneva a few months ago said "Writing is thinking"; I know so little about the hand of God and what it means to wait for direction and trust his plan that I can't help but write.

So the real question is, how does one discover the difference between real confidence from faith and simple defense-mechanism apathy?

When I bought my motorcycle last summer, I tried (and failed) to have a few conversations with my dad about why I wanted to ride. In my father's mind the purchase was the least intelligent thing I had ever done, and my decision to continue riding the most reckless. I wrote a post in defense of my decision a few months ago, but to summarize, I honestly don't believe that it is irresponsible to ride because ultimately, you're only a safe as God keeps you. Every time I hit the road in any kind of vehicle I am aware of the risks, I do my best to keep my head on straight, and I know that it is God's hand that guides me through safely.

It's amazing to me that I have that kind of faith when I'm on a bike with just a thin textile jacket, jeans, and a helmet for protection, yet when it comes to resumes, cover letters, and waiting for the illusive interview I feel like James' "wave upon the sea, driven with the wind, and tossed"? Because the confidence I feel in the daytime when I'm writing and cooking and cleaning isn't always there in the evening, when the distractions have dissipated. On my bike I feel light and joyful and connected to the creation in new ways, and while I am conscientious I know that there is little I can do to keep myself safe, yet in the job hunt, every passing day makes me ask myself a few more times, "What are you doing wrong? Why didn't you do this and this and that while you were in grad school? They would make your resume worth more. Shouldn't you be calling... emailing... filling out more applications...? Why. Doesn't. Anyone. Want. Me."

Why is it so easy to be recognize grace in my successes and so difficult to wait for it in new endeavors? Why am I so quick to feel responsible for all of the things that don't work out?

Don't answer any of those questions. This isn't about me, it's about faith. It's about hearing the Holy Spirit. And it's a tiny bit about hoping that God has a plan for my career that makes me feel light and joyful and connected to the creation in new ways. (I can see it now "SOC 318: Two Wheels and Four Lanes - an inquiry into motorcycle culture in the U.S." A semester cross-country... dude, that would be awesome...) 

Something Will Turn Up

I am currently unemployed. I knew that I was going to be unemployed since graduation marked the end of my usefulness to my alma mater, and so I got what many people would consider a head start on the job search. I began filling out job applications in January and continued slowly-but-surely until the present. I tallied my savings, told myself that I had a few free months before I had to start working on loan repayment, and moved back to my parents' house. I started off fairly laid back about the whole job-finding process; now I complete at least one application a day, and I have received exactly no responses apart from a few automated rejections.

Of course, my own response to silence and the occasional rejection is literary in nature. Either in my thoughts or aloud I announce, "Something will turn up!", thereby inviting both my favorite author and my favorite character to the experience; it's good to have company. Deep down, though, there's the nagging question of when - today? next week? at the end of the summer? If I dwell on that thought, there's an even deeper nagging question - is this really where God is calling me?

You see, near the end of the semester I had moments where I questioned whether my calm concerning the job search came from true confidence that God knew what he was doing, or from the apathy of exhaustion. As a moderately insecure introvert, every cover letter feels like a major emotional investment, and a risky one - not only am I sharing some portion of myself with complete strangers, I'm not convinced of the value of what I have to share. Am I accepting my circumstances and waiting for God's timing, or is it simply a defense mechanism?

Today I read an excellent post on the academic job search from one of my favorite blogs, Shitty First Drafts, and one piece of advice really caught my attention: "4. Be ready to bail on this whole academic career thing and decide what will trigger you to do it." I know it's early (and a bit melodramatic) to talk about bailing just because I haven't had a call back, but I do wonder what it would - or should - take for me to decide that this isn't my path. I have so many other dreams and interests... am I chasing the wrong one?

If I am, you would think God might have said something before I spent two years in grad school for higher education. Then again, his ways are not our ways... I'm sure something will turn up.

While I Was Out...

Being newly graduated and unemployed, I decided that my best option was to move home for the summer. I'm not sure how most parents would take this sort of thing, but mine were most accommodating: to be specific, my father announced "I'm so glad... it's almost like getting a raise!" and my mother started to develop a list of family projects with which I could help. No sooner had I told them (before graduation) than they wanted to know how much I had to move and how soon they needed to bring the trailer over. Three weeks later I decided it was about time, and we packed up all of my things and brought it back to the family homestead.

It's funny how things aren't quite the same in your memory as they are in real life. For instance, I swear that my room shrunk - all of my neatly packed boxes are stacked waist high, and more than half of the floor is completely taken up. I'm terrified to unpack anything lest it expand to fill the space I need to access the dresser. I'm having a similar problem with bookshelves; I only bought fifteen books this year, yet I have more than fifty that are going to stay in boxes for lack of space. It's inexplicable.

One thing I know wasn't me, however, is the decór. I walked into my room last week, with the dark forest-y green on the walls that I fought tooth-and-nail to convince my father would work (and it does), looked around, and realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore. A massive satin comforter with quilting patterns and appliqué flowers covered the bed, the mirror door was replaced with a normal one, and three versions of George Washington's face were looking down on me.

I kid you not; while I was out my room was turned into the Revolutionary War Memorial Guest Room... but will I be here long enough for it to be worth changing?

Who told you you were smart?

If you are interested in education at any level, in any way, you should read John Taylor Gatto's The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher.

I've been saying this for years now, practically since before I was interested in education myself. Few (if any?) people have taken my advice, and based on their expressions I don't want to know what the education majors were thinking after they had read it. Education majors don't particularly like me; I should probably look into that. In this case, however, it's understandable - as a high school teacher in New York City, Mr. Gatto had some pretty hard things to say about public education. Speaking in an exceptionally sardonic tone, he claims that America has a national curriculum that does not educate, but rather schools children into bad habits that "produce physical, moral, and intellectual paralysis."

We use The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher in a course required for student ministry majors called "Contemporary Adolescent Culture." The course itself seeks to provide insight into and discussion of the experience of adolescents in America that is most notably influenced by family, mass media and public education. In an interesting twist, most of the students enrolled are freshmen and therefore land squarely in the category of "adolescent," although many of them fail to make this connection. I, as a grad assistant and sometimes instructor, have the opportunity to watch those who have made the connection engage this article as a sort of deconstruction of their understanding of what can be learned, and how, and whether intelligence is really a 'thing.'

This last question is usually of great concern; if there is more to the merit equation than innate intelligence and effort, not only might these students realize a realm of social injustice they had never considered before, but they often lose faith in the identity given to them by their high schools. Why are they the ones who made it to college? and, is it possible that they're not actually 'smart'?

To be completely honest, if all my students left the classroom that day asking those two questions and earnestly following the answers they find, I would consider the class a success. In fact, the attitude of humility they inspire might be considered a win for liberal arts as a whole and we could graduate them then and there. In contrast, the more traditional response of students has been disbelief and anger. As they attempt to invalidate Gatto's 'lessons' they often unwittingly reveal how very well schooled they are. Here are a few examples:

"It's not 'confusion,' there are just some things that aren't connected at all! Like math and art." (Oh, yes, DaVinci would be proud...)

"But what would kids do if they didn't have homework?!" (Spend time with their parents? Build a better mousetrap? Be kids? Unfortunately, we may never know)

"Will we have to know this for a paper or exam?" (personal favorite of mine)

Every year a particular 'lesson' seems to rub a particular group of students the wrong way. This year it was Class Position - the one where students are placed in a certain class and taught to stay there. Despite well-sounding exhortations "to higher levels of test success, hinting at eventual transfer from the lower class as a reward," "if I do my job well, the kids can't even imagine themselves somewhere else, because I've shown them how to envy and fear the better classes and how to have contempt for the dumb classes." This year I listened to an extensive explanation from a student that no one had ever told him/her that they were smart, it just was that way; and certainly no one just decided that other people weren't smart, they just, you know, weren't. But they weren't treated any differently.

I was homeschooled K-12 and I am aware of some of the pitfalls of that education, but the more I hear about the way education works in this country the more concerned I become. Two minutes later, while illustrating another argument, the same student explained, "Our school was doing construction for a while and they got a trailer to use for a classroom. There was one group of students in a regular class that had to walk out to the trailer every day... they didn't want to make our honors class move out there." I kid you not. And I ask again, When did they start telling you you were smart? Because I'll bet it was before the 'regular class' was moved to the trailer and you weren't.

Bon Jovi and other Worship music

Half of the writing I do is merely expelling thoughts from my head... maybe you can help me sort out fact, fiction and significance from my observations.

I was able to attend Jubilee this year for the first time, and it was excellent. I mean, it would have been mind-blowing if I attended as an undergrad, but as a grad student who has well and truly bought into everything they're selling, I found it an encouraging and exciting experience. It helped that Hearts&Minds had a massive number of books there; I may or may not have spent two full workshops perusing. More than that, however, I appreciated the together-ness of the large meetings when, among other things, we stood together to worship.

The band was great. I come from a church - well, several churches in succession - that leans hard on acoustic, contemplative, traditional music, but that doesn't mean I have a problem with amps, drums, electric keyboards and the like. It was louder than I was used to but it was good... and then they brought the violins out. I play the violin. I love listening to the violin. When I hear the violin, especially in worship, I remember a line from a book I read as a child: "I thought my soul would rise and fly." Between the togetherness, the power of the music, and the rising and flying of my soul with the violins, I had an exceptionally amazing time of worship that weekend. I believed I felt the Spirit moving.

Fast forward about a week and a half, and picture me and my friend Kara headed to a concert. Not just any concert, a BON JOVI concert. I'll pause while you laugh. Here's a treat:

Lots of interesting things happened on the way there, including my applying eyeliner for the second time ever in a dimly lit restroom (welcome back to the 80s), a snooty waiter at Mad Mex (I know, right?), people selling t-shirts on a busy interstate, and almost losing the tickets after we drove all that way... but eventually we made it there. The tickets were a white elephant gift, and I was surprised - and surprisingly pleased - to discover that we were behind the stage at the Consol Energy Center. We were literally looking down on the band, and they had the courtesy to run 360degree sound so we missed nothing (especially not the awesome dance moves). One beer and a few shockingly famous songs later, and we were singing and dancing with the rest of them, cheering until our throats were hoarse because he absolutely refused to play "Livin' On a Prayer" until the very end.

Something was bothering me, though, and it didn't take that long to put a finger on what it was; namely, I had pretty much the same experience at that Bon Jovi concert as I did during worship at Jubilee. I mean, the words I was singing were different. The instruments were different. The company was (really) different. But there was a deep similarity of my feeling, my attitude... my soul? There were no violins, but that light, flighty sensation and the power of the words I was singing hit me the same way.

This was (I hope) understandably distressing to me, and as I reflected I came up with a few plausible explanations:

1) We're doing worship wrong. What I perceived to be a powerful worship experience at Jubilee was little more than the adaptation of a technique, perfected in rock music, that inspires a particular emotional response. It's not completely unheard of, and it fits with a certain view of reality (the one I was raised with, in fact): most emotion is suspect.

2) There's nothing wrong with the worship, and nothing wrong with the Bon Jovi concert. If everything is spiritual and feeling - physical or emotional - is an expression of God's good creation, then maybe the Holy Spirit was in both places. But then... why worship?

3) It's not really the worship or the concert, it's me. It's perfectly reasonable to consider that I am not as dedicated as I seem, nor as wise as I would like to believe... perhaps I simply don't recognize the Holy Spirit, and I was fooled by the music into believing that he was there. Either time.

This is just the beginning, I know, of the explanations that could be proposed, but it's all I've got. I have to acknowledge that there was a substantial difference between these experiences, and that is that I was intensely aware of the words I was singing. You simply cannot confuse Bon Jovi lyrics with most worship lyrics, because the rebellious humanism comes through loud and clear... but that's a conversation for another day.

That's all she wrote!

Oh, except for this great picture. That's a Terrible Towel, btw :)