What's the point?

If you're not aware of it, the job of the adjunct lecturer in higher education is a tenuous one at best.  If I'm not worried about how many classes I'm going to have, then I'm worried about if those classes are going to make, or lastly, if a full-timer is going to come along and then take my class, because their's didn't make.  And unlike full-time professors (roughly 30% of the faculty versus the 70% of adjuncts), I do not get paid if I do not have classes to teach.  Being an adjunct lecturer is a stress, and I'm finally finished.

I never would have thought that I would say that, but it's the truth.  Recently, we're having other issues popping up, too; especially the limiting of classes for my colleagues and myself.  Last spring, I was able to teach a full load of 4 classes a semester per college.  Now, because of new regulations, I can only teach 3 a semester.  On top of that, I can only teach 2 classes an entire summer (it used to be 4) and absolutely no wintermesters.   Luckily, I am able to teach at two different colleges, and have been teaching 4 classes each place for the last two years, and I really did feel like I contributed to my household's earning.  Now, I can teach up to 3 classes (though that doesn't mean I get 3, this semester I only received 2 from one college and I'm not sure I'm going to get any from them in the summer) and am continuously told that I can have classes only to see them taken away from me; thusly, I continue to believe that I will have money coming in, only to find that, no, it's not, or that's it's a pittance of what I thought it was going to be. It's discouraging.

This leads me to having to throw my hands up in the air and state that the administration just does not care about the hardships of the adjuncts.  We're working poor; I could not live on an adjunct's wage, and everyone in the college knows these facts, but don't seem to care.

Thank goodness I've been working towards receiving secondary certification, because I am done with all the stress that comes along with being in higher education.  It's a sad state of affairs when someone who was both good and well-liked at their jobs cannot stay there because they cannot earn a living wage.

We stress to students the need get a higher education. However, they get that education from a group of individuals who earn as much (or less) than they do when working at a retail job.  What kind of a system do we support, where this scenario is not only a likelihood, but I can see it in my paycheck now versus what I was making before I went to further my education and help others further their's, as well?

a moment's peace

I set here on my brown couch, looking at the reflection of myself on the laptop's screen, and see my son watching an inconceivably moronic show that could have only been made by tripping hack.  This is my life now, and while for a moment it might sounds dull or insignificant, I find it very rewarding.  I often wonder how I got to this place in my life, then think back and smile for all of the experiences that Mandy and I have created together to get here:

Love God?

It was November before the temperature dipped below 85 degrees. I was standing outside of the terminal, waiting, when I found an old message from you hidden inside my favorite book that I picked up from my shelve on the way out. It was a postcard, one with daisies, that read, "Doing fine," and some other cliched term of endearment that quickly made the pain return. I walked to the trashcan, hesitated, and then threw it away. Our love was in the spring when the smell of flower filled the air, before our innocence was lost, and that time had passed.

I read something similar to this topic by a facebook friend, but thought that his ending didn't really fit; his protagonist kept the written message. So my writing was in response to his.

*No idea why, but when I wrote Love in the title bar, in the drop down menu Love God? appeared. Thought it was as good a title as any and chose it... or possibly it chose me.

I'm Not Dead, Yet!

I'm sorry for the awful inconsistency of my blogs, I've been very busy with life and school. So, with the apology out of the way, here's a list of things that have happened since I last wrote on this thing... a year ago. In chronological order:

1) Amanda and I got two dogs. Bogie and Lulu Burns. After looking at the picture for a second, Lulu is the one laying her head on Bogie. So tiny and cute right? Oh how quickly things change. A year later and this is the demon dogs that they've become.

I find the picture on the left to be a fair and balanced representation of them now.

2) Amanda and I were married on December 18, 2010 at our house in an intimate ceremony with only one friend, our parents, siblings and Amanda's niece and nephew present. After that, family members (both blood and not) showed up at our house for the reception and cocktail party. When all was said and done, it was a perfect night.

3) I successfully defended my thesis March 25, 2011; one of the worst experiences of my life. Now looking back, I feel I wasn't prepared enough by my thesis director, didn't have a good enough grasp on the history of postmodernity, and could have used about two more weeks to try and get it 'right.' To be honest though, I don't think one of my thesis chairs would ever have been happy with it. The biggest injury was the fact that my thesis director thought it went well. Earlier, I had asked what a good defense would be like, and she said that a good defense was nothing more than a really engaging conversation, where people are jumping in and interrupting each other to talk about different topics. However, she failed to mention to me that those conversations would not include me, and that those topics would be about how I should have done things differently. Longest hour I ever experienced, but I learned a lot in that hour and it was helpful for the final revised product.

4) While I now had a defended thesis, that did not mean that I was done. I rewrote my thesis and turned in the revised copy in mid-April (I don't remember the date). Because I didn't meet the April 1st deadline for turning in my completed thesis, I do not get to graduate until August, even though I am 'officially' done with school. I consider myself a graduate at this point, and am just waiting for the paper conferring upon me my Master's of English Literature.

5) This is the best news: Amanda's got a bun in the oven! As of Sunday she's 10 weeks. At the moment we're throwing around Alice for a girls name (or whatever other name strikes Amanda's fancy at any given hormonal moment) and if it's a boy we're going to name it Atticus (if you do not know where that literary name comes from, go read a book). The due date was initially on our wedding anniversary, but as of right now, the doctor says December 23.

While life has been stressful this last year, I wouldn't have changed anything I've done, and am very happy. I'm going to try to be better about updating this thingamajig, but until then, hope that this meets everyone well.

Flames

I often wonder what happened to the old me, the one who was willing to burn bridges with no gumption - I would say something without blinking an eye, not caring that I offended or irrevocably ended a blossoming relationship (I'm using that term in the loosest of terms, by the way). However, now I wonder and contemplate my statements - usually though my girl friend my contest that very statement.

Regardless, I usually try to placate a person's feelings before I puncture their balloon.

I don't know why this particular point has come up, but I was thinking about this today, and I can remember a time when I was talking to Nick, and I was telling him about how I realized I was about to burn a bridge with someone - I can't for the life of me remember who that was at the moment, but I want to say it was a co-worker - thought, what the hell can this chick for/to me, and then burned that bridge without a second thought as to what repercussions could possibly happen to me.

Now that my mind is moving, I think this happened right before I left the previous job, and the co-worker was one who annoyed everyone there. That's right! i am thinking correctly now. This female worker was continually trying - and sometimes succeeding - to get me in trouble, for things i legitimately didn't do. For example, while talking to her about a project we were working on, she, after the conversation was over with, went into her boss' office and told her I was rude. Thank goodness a co-worker saw the entire conversation and backed me up against the claims of this other person.

So, eventually I started to detest this particular person, and decided Fuck It. So, instead of going after her in such a way that I might get into trouble, I decided to be a little more original about it, and went for public ridicule. And how did I do this? I took pictures of her from her Facebook account, photoshop'd them, and then put those said pictures on a poster by her cubicle. And to top this off I then went to the head boss, asked her to come look at something funny, and pointed out what I had done. Sadly, I got the response I was looking for, the head boss laughed, quite a bit actually, which only encouraged me further to do this.

Here's my handiwork:

As you can see, I put a lot of detail into the work.

To be honest with you, I don't know when she found out about this particular piece of work, but it stayed up there for about a day, and then was removed. By whom... I'm not sure, but that information was never got by me.

An Afternoon

I look at you, me talking too much while you stare off into space, us sitting on the porch in the back yard after you've come home from work. There you are, sunglasses on so I can't tell if you're looking at me, or if your head is just tilted to the sounds coming out of my mouth. And I keep talking, talking to the silence that surrounds us, while trying to make you laugh and failing miserably. I can see that you're so tired from the daily boredom of your job, and I can do nothing but talk about my day, you all the while probably wanting me to shut up, so you can relax for five minutes after the storm of the work week, and the daily commute. But I can do nothing but talk, trying to encapsulate to you my experiences; trying to share with you everything that I have done for the day, so that maybe, for a moment, instead of being two people in a relationship we can be one. One person who have shared the same experiences, and are so close together that the silence is no longer deafening.

But all you can do is look into space. And i cannot articulate to you why I try to fill the silence, creating a schism separating me from you when we should be binded comfortably together. Yet for you, you do not seem to mind the silence. Maybe it's at those moments that you feel us truly as one, or maybe those are moments of peace, where you do not have to engage with me and the world, instead letting it take you, like a pliable lover, as it will. Looking at you, while you possibly listen to me, I question what a person like you can find so beautiful and charming in a person like me. And in these moments, I doubt my self.

Maybe one day I will be comfortable with the silence that sometimes surrounds us... but until then, I'm sorry for stealing those moments from you.

Yowls of my Plight

My girlfriend's cat is named Dirty Harriet, and she has been yowling at a stray cat late at night recently. Now, some might say, that sucks, and that person would be right. However it is worse than just suckage, she has been yowling on the windowsill behind our headboard, thus waking us up in the middle of the night. Now one might saw, that is horrible, but one does not have the entire story yet. This cat has been causing much ridicule to be directed my way via the GF, because she seems to think that I scream like a little girl when I deal with the situations the cat creates. So, this is my rebuttal to the GF's statements that I am a wimp.

To begin with, the first time it happened, I had never heard a cat yowl before; I've never owned a cat before living with the GF. So, needless to say, it was quite a shock when I was awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of something that sounded like a combination between a screaming child and a bat from the depths of hell yelling curses into my ear. And then what happened once I was violently awoken? The GF grabbed a hold of my knee, and started to squeeze. Why? She said she was just making sure I was okay. But I know the real reason, to scare the holy hell out of me! And then her response to my screaming? She calls me a wimp, when i thought that someone was trying to get me! What was the appropriate response, I ask you? I'm not sure, but I shot out of the bed like a rocket when she grabbed and squeezed my leg. And thus the ridicules started...

So to not repeat myself, let's just say this type of thing happened a few times, and move on to the next post-able story dealing with a Yowling Cat, an Easily Startled Male and a GF who finds the two interacting to be extremely amusing.

About a week ago, the yowling cat was again in a windowsill in our bedroom. However, this time instead of being behind the headboard, it was in the other window - which happens to be on my side of the bed. So, it's about 5 o'clock in the morning and I hear this damn hellion noise coming from somewhere. First, I tapped the curtain behind my head, because I wasn't able to be cognitively aware as to where the cat was stationed. So, after tapping the curtain, and not getting the desired result, silence, I figured Harriet was on at the other window. I then got up to do the same thing, tap the curtain and tell her to shut the hell up. However, that particular plan did not work as planned.

Here's what happened:

I got out of bed, and went to the window that the cat was on. I did what I planned, I tapped the curtains, hoping to shut the cat up. Didn't expect this though, the cat was quite startled when I tapped the curtains; she hissed at me then proceeded to fall into the close basket pulling the curtains with her and making the curtains land on top of me. At this point, I screamed... the GF says like a little girl. Now granted, I guess I should have acted manly at this point, and been a stoic dude who didn't react at all, however that was not the case with me. So what? I screamed, but do I have to be characterized like that of a pre-pubescent female?

Now granted, maybe not the manliest response in the world. I'll give her that. But I had a curtain fall on me, along with a hissing cat! How should I have reacted? I'm human, I screamed! Possibly quite loudly. And then I had to put the damn curtain back up, which just added insult to injury. But it was not until everything was finished, the cat taken out of the hamper, the curtain rod put back in it's place, and my head laying on the pillow that the girl turns over from her side, looks at me and told me thus: that I'm a wuss.