Finished up the conferences today, and I'm thinking I was able to accomplish some useful pedagogical crap in them. It's never ceases to amaze me how saying exactly the same things to a group and to an individual can have such different receptions. I basically repeated the same ideas to each student today (conceptual associations between texts, show your reader how to read your evidence, be aware of your audience's expectations) and these are the same things I've been saying in every writing-focused lecture, but during the conferences I saw nearly every single student suddenly get it. And this isn't even a large class, but it really reinforces my suspicions that the standard class structure is about the worst way to produce intellectual advancement, and really isn't even very good at basic transmission of information.
Then again, maybe I suck as a lecturer and should rent myself out as a private tutor. Or maybe first-years are a strange and mysterious breed that needs special handling. Like those pugs with the congenital floppy tongue thing.
[Insert coherent segue here] I was talking to my fellow ABDer and office neighbor J today, and he articulated my problems with next year's funding in a way I hadn't quite put together yet. Due to the problems that resulted in my committee pulling me off the market, I'm stuck finding a plan for paying for next year. At the same time, the department is so convinced that I should be already done that I'm ineligible (that is, "don't even bother applying" rather than "it's unlikely, but you can give it a shot") for any further funding.
So, basically, they're telling me that I can't leave, but can't stay here.
And now... oh, there's the anger again. I do have a lead on a gig that would make everything better, but I'm trying not to count those ducks (chicks? lizards?) just yet.
Then again, maybe I suck as a lecturer and should rent myself out as a private tutor. Or maybe first-years are a strange and mysterious breed that needs special handling. Like those pugs with the congenital floppy tongue thing.
[Insert coherent segue here] I was talking to my fellow ABDer and office neighbor J today, and he articulated my problems with next year's funding in a way I hadn't quite put together yet. Due to the problems that resulted in my committee pulling me off the market, I'm stuck finding a plan for paying for next year. At the same time, the department is so convinced that I should be already done that I'm ineligible (that is, "don't even bother applying" rather than "it's unlikely, but you can give it a shot") for any further funding.
So, basically, they're telling me that I can't leave, but can't stay here.
And now... oh, there's the anger again. I do have a lead on a gig that would make everything better, but I'm trying not to count those ducks (chicks? lizards?) just yet.
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