Sunday Afternoon

It's nearly three in the afternoon and the house is quiet. Parker and Suzanne are napping, Thing One and Thing Two are watching a movie, and the cat is outside stalking mice and crickets. I'm here with a fizzy glass of diet 7-Up and Joan Sutherland singing Bizet's "L'amour Est un Oiseau Rebelle" on my itunes. (I know, mentioning that I'm listening to opera makes me sound immensely pretentious. If it makes you feel any better, it's the only opera I have out of thousands of songs, I don't even know what it means in English, and the only reason I bought it is because I remember hearing it on Sesame Street when I was kid.) Anyway, it's a one of those lovely late summer afternoons when the sky is filled with amorphous white clouds that seem too drowsy to even change shape. A little breeze is pushing the ash tree leaves around and our neighbor's abandoned sunflowers lean over like they'd really just like to take a nap. It's still and I appreciate that.

School started week before last and, in many ways, it's good to be back. Returning to a schedule came as a bit of a shock -- things like getting out of bed at a specific time, having places to go, shaving, etc. had become a little foreign to me. But overall, it's nice to have a specific purpose for each day, to have specific things that have to get done, to see my colleagues and friends around campus. I really do enjoy being in the classroom and so it's nice to be back.

At my school, the tenure process is radically different than other places I've taught. At IV, you're hired and then have what amounts to a three-year trial period. Your teaching is reviewed by your dean and one of the VPs twice a semester and you're asked to be on various committees, action groups, advisory whatevers, etc. At the end of three years, you present a portfolio of your work and accomplishments at the school during your trial period and then they either give you tenure OR they say "Thanks but no thanks. See you later." Yup, at IV you either get tenure or you get on the road. I'm not worried about whether or not I'll get it, I'm just a little overwhelmed at the prospect of assembling my portfolio. It's just one more project, you know? As any regular reader may gather from this blog, when I feel overwhelmed, I just kind of lock up and don't do anything. I suffer from AAP -- academic anxiety paralysis. I wish I was one of those hardcore doers, you know, someone who just gets crap done come hell or high water. But I'm not. I'm a guy who is glad it's Sunday so I can justify not doing "work" but can blog because it counts as journaling/family history.

Anyway, I have all my stuff assembled more or less in order, I just need to start putting it all in page protectors with the appropriate dividers, etc. I also need to finish writing a little introduction to both the portfolio itself as well as each of the five sections. I present to my dean and a couple of VPs in a few weeks and then to the Board of Trustees a week or so after that. So hopefully but October, I'll be a tenured professor of English. Won't that be cool? Not as cool as finishing my stupid stupid stupid PhD but still pretty cool.