About a month ago, I received an email from the Graduate Chair's receptionist asking me to make an appointment with Dr. Upchurch regarding when I was planning on graduating. Now, I have never met Dr. Upchurch, and am the type of person who always goes to the worst possible scenarios when confronted with a scenario like this, so I initially thought a huge multi-syllabled expletive and then started asking myself what the hell I could have done to warrant a verbal lashing from the chair.
I quickly sent an email saying I could meet with him later that day, and then actually went down to the receptionist's office to see what the hell I did to get into trouble. She said I had done nothing, and that he really did just want to talk to me about when I planned on graduating. Now for the regular joe, this might have ended the worry, but for me, i just thought that she didn't want to be the messenger of bad news, and continued to fret about it for the next 5 hours.
So, it finally gets close to the time when my appointment should be taking place, and I head over to Dr. Upchurch's office. However, there was someone already there, so I decided to wait outside in the hallway on the comfy couch until the guy leaves. While waiting, I actually see Upchurch leave his office, run to the English Dept. Main Office, make a copy and start on his way back when he is stopped by the Director of the English Department. They start to talk about money and funding, and I - this entire time - am looking inconspicuous by pretending to read a book, all the while listening to their conversation and trying to figure out how this might relate to me and why I am being called into the so-called principles office.
So, eventually both go their separate ways, Upchurch goes back into his office, and I followed him in about a minute later. Eventually the guy who was in the previous meeting left (I happen to know this guy, he's a fellow TF and he didn't look happy) and I enter the Seventh layer of Hell that I perceive to be Upchurch's office. Once the introductions were over with, I was asked by Upchurch when I planned to graduate, and I told him that my game plan was Fall '10. He then stated that the university was cutting funding for Master Student Teaching Fellows (TFs), and that next semester, there was to be no MA TFs in the English program.
Now obviously, this should have been devastating news, and for me, my legs started to go out from under me - at least they would have if I wasn't already sitting. I actually wanted to stand up, just so I could fall defeated back into the chair in which I had previously been sitting. However, the next line made me... well, this is mixed company so I won't finish that line. He told me that he had the funds to keep three Masters' students on, and asked me to push back my graduation date until spring '11 and to teach there for another year. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. So, there will be three of us next semester teaching at UNT who are Masters' students, and the rest will be PhD students.
Now, to be perfectly honest with you, I have absolutely no idea how I got tagged for this. Someone somewhere must have been looking, and somehow I got on someone's radar. Upchurch even went on to say that the school thinks I'm doing a great job teaching up here... who know's, maybe I got good reviews from student evaluations last semester (I never got my hands on them) and I'm sure that all those A's last semester didn't hurt me either. However, this is a new feeling for me, I'm not too used to getting great unexpected responses like this. So, I've been very gracious lately for all that I have, and humble for the opportunity that UNT's giving me. However, I have been keeping this news close to the vest, and have only told a few people what it was that Upchurch wanted to talk to me about, because I didn't want to rub it in anyone's face, 'cause that's not very cool if you don't know them... THAT"S WHAT SHE SAID!
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