Scholar for hire...inexpensive but not cheap!

I'm currently unemployed, by choice, in order to hasten the completion of my dissertation but after 8 months I've come to the end of my limited savings and must look for employment. After adjuncting for over six years, I want to avoid that low paid route but after being in higher education for so long, I'm not exactly a hot commodity in the business world.

When I identified myself as an academic at a recent tech conference, I got the pause and half-smile that says, "Isn't that quaint? Do you still read books?"

How to translate writing & research skills to the business world, that is my question to the brave, the few, my blog readers. I've looked at some pay-to-blog jobs which I could do from home but I think the pay is probably minimal. I'm not looking for personal exposure, just a paycheck for a job well done.

The jobs I've loved have all involved teaching & research but I don't have the statistical background to do hard-core website analysis. I'm a qualitative researcher which means I analyze text and interview people. I've worked with delicate issues ranging from sexual abuse to religious experience, to more traditional subject like vocational issues & migration.

This is the ultimate me, me, me column. I'm not really asking for a job, just any suggestions you might have. I think I'm suffering from a lack of imagination on how to translate my job skills to the nonacademic world. Thanks in advance!

Balancing, an Act

If you ever ask my mother, Ellen, about me, she would mention that I put way more hours into the jobs I've had than I ever get paid for, that sometimes I'm downright "lazy" and other times a complete workaholic. She is mystified that I don't have weekdays and weekends, a balanced life.

My mother, on the other hand, is an eminently practical woman, always busy, never sitting down until the kitchen is cleaned in the evening. But she only exerts exactly enough effort to get "okay" results. Her house is clean, not immaculate, her cooking good, not great, her patience moderate, but not extended, her clothing lightly used, neither old nor new. She enjoys and reads a great many books (she always is juggling 4 or 5) but doesn't remember the plots a month after she has read them as she has moved on to an equally enjoyable series of books. She has a green thumb but just manages a modest group of pots on her deck, a garden being too time-consuming.

She doesn't consider herself a success but in my eyes she manages to accomplish something I have never been able achieve->she achieves the greatest results with a minimum amount of effort. She does this by having the discipline of not expecting perfection, in fact, she would never ever expect that from herself. What she does expect is to be"good enough", to face tasks head on, even or maybe especially unpleasant tasks. She's a true Virgo and her chief strength is to persevere until her common sense tells her that her efforts would be best spent doing something else. She is economical in all things and, as a result, gets a lot of work accomplished.

I am quite the opposite, almost the polar opposite. Maybe because of the dominance of middle-of-the-road, suburban rationality in our home growing up, I was always drawn to the margins, both left & right, north & south. I am able to do absolutely nothing for long periods of time, just meditating, listening to the birds and watching the world go by like it is 1908. Another day I might get up at 3 am to work on a job I care about accomplishing and put in 18 hours.

But I am too cautious a person to live in the extremes of culture. I'm not to the manor-born, type A, go-getter but I also will always be gainfully employed, even if it is checking in books at a library...you won't find me in the White House but you also won't find me in a crack house! I'm edgy & contrary but not fearless.

Unfortunately, except for the arts, most occupations reward steady, consistent, hard work and people who are focused and who chip, chip away on their chosen career path. I am too passionate and ambitious to be a slacker but I also value a low stress life that lets me pursue my varied interests including friendships, faith, and volunteer work.

And so my life has been a series of large leaps of achievement followed by times of stagnation, times of winning awards & fellowships followed by long fallow periods where absolutely nothing is happening. While this might make me an interesting person to have at a dinner party, it has caused me setbacks from which I'm not sure I'll recover very soon. But who knows? Given the zigs & zags of life, I could be poised for a comeback any moment now!

I didn't intend to write an entry on myself, I had decided to write on time management until I realized that I am completely abysmal at it! I work on projects I love until I fall asleep at my desk but there are crucial, important tasks that I never get to. And so, if anyone is reading, please give me your advice on how to maintain a steady pace forward instead of my current habit of running far ahead and then sitting down while the world catches up.

Next post, I promise, will be less self-indulgent and confessional!

Becoming a pyromaniac

When I first started this blog last month, I had to limit myself to writing only one entry a day. I had so much I wanted to write down. Now, a month later, I find myself with so little worth saying. The enormous snowfall? So what. My teaching? I don't want to reveal too many details about that. My writing problems? How self-absorbed. My health issues? Everyone is dealing with something going wrong in their lives.Same old, same old.

How could I go from bursting with ideas to being intellectually bankrupt so fast? The muses are indeed fickle. And it has been quite a while since they smiled upon me and showered me with their blessings.

Right now, my ass has been called on the carpet (is that a real expression?) because it's been so damn long since I've turned in any of the work I'm supposed to be doing. It is almost like the pressure has to become unbearable in order for me to work and who wants to put themselves through that kind of stress? It's like being an actor who has stage fright who signs up to do 8 performances a week...almost like I have to force myself to do what terrifies me because I know somewhere in there there is a payoff. And that payoff is a long, long ways away.

The funny thing is is that I'm good at what I do. I think so and I've been told so by others. But I'm not "brilliant" and that apparently is the standard by which my advisers are judging me by. And the prospect of getting yet another rejection of my best efforts is demoralizing.

Ironically, intellectually, I know that this is something every writer goes through. I have books that tell me so! No artistic effort ever matches the ideal in your head (everything that exists is imperfect) and it is impossible to please every critic. All of these books tell me that the writers who are successful just work on despite the rejections that anticipate receiving, writing through the anxiety. But most people who want to generate creative work let themselves be stopped by the frustrations which are real and painful.

So, I guess I need a thicker skin or a bigger ego or a singlemindedness that will keep me working despite knowing that whatever I do will fall short of my advisers' hopes for me (this attitude is not me being a fatalist but what I've experienced over four years of working with them). I guess I need to stop seeking their approval and yet I literally can not move forward in the process without it, I can't take the next step until I get their okay.

So, I think I need to put on my bitch face and channel some of this despair into anger and put that into my work. Not the most positive approach but maybe it will help to light a fire from these burnt coals of my career.

Hey, I guess I did find something to write about...a good size dose of self-absorption but isn't that what blogs are really all about?

The weather outside is frightful/delightful

Well, I woke up to some beautiful scenery this morning...a thick white blanket of snow covering every inch of the earth with more soft flakes falling down. Kind of like living inside a snow globe.

But our local municipality has been slow in plowing the streets today and I'm not sure if I can even make it to the train station to get to NYC to visit this Korean church. I have one more hour before I need to leave...otherwise, I will venture out and see how far I can get on foot.

Bracing for snow

Ahhh, the snow is coming, finally! We're due for 6-13 inches so there will be a fair share of shoveling. I can hardly wait....it's been more than two months since we got a decent snowfall!

It has crimped my plans somewhat though. The students who signed up for the trip to the Korean church tomorrow all bailed on me, which is allowed as long as they do one of the other field trips this weekend. But I will show up on behalf of the group, no matter how bad the "blizzard" (which is what they're calling it) is because the minister was kind enough to invite us to come and participate in their service. It should be an interesting experience, both getting there and the service itself.

I wish I had something more interesting to write about but it has been a pretty lazy week as I've eased up on the workload to tend to this lingering cold. So, lots of cups of tea and wearing of the bathrobe way past the time I should be dressed. It's the kind of time when you wish, if you are single, that there was someone to take care of you, to fix you soup, insist you lie down, and feel your forehead for fever. Kind of a combined lover-mother, if that isn't too inappropriate. But my family is far, far away and my housemates, while perfectly decent people, have their own lives to lead. So, I will baby myself and not berate myself too badly for having nothing interesting to say today.

Time to go out and forage in the supermarket for food before the storm hits. Then, I can burrow in tonight, listen to Prairie Home Companion (yes, I AM that boring), do some writing, and watch the snow fall. Maybe if I'm inspired by the snow, I return to this blog tonight.

Otherwise, wish me luck slushing through the snow in the city on Sunday.

Blah, blah, blah

I've been wrestling with a cold the past few days and so far, the cold has won. That, plus losing the cat has left me logy (one of my mother's favorite words) and uninspired. No witty thoughts or keen observations or eccentric musings have come to mind so I've basically been shying away from this blog. I mean, we all have our blah-blah days and who wants to read about someone else's?

The only news in my life worth commenting upon is that my class is now taking trips to visit churches in NYC. Last Sunday we went to a Buddhist (BCA) service that was pretty conventional (English language, hymn singing) but was different enough for these primarily Christian students. They seemed to find it interesting which was the whole point of the visit, to get them to "see" church environments with new eyes. We start with the unfamiliar and then they take this keener vision and apply it to their own religious communities.

The people at the church were exceedingly welcoming to us and had fixed a nice meal for us after the service. This Sunday I'll take a different group of students to a Korean church which should be a bit more unusual (all in Korean language) for them to experience. After that, I'll start visiting my student's churches which are spread out throughout the city from Harlem to the Lower East Side.

This should keep me busy as I'm supposed to be doing my own field research at the same time. I have yet to find a church to work with but since there are thousands of churches/temples/synagogues/religious centers in the NYC metro area, it is just a matter of finding a good fit. The variety can be a bit overwhelming though.

I hope that somewhere there is some time during the week to devote to my writing. But it is clear that I'll have to MAKE time for it as there are only 24 hours in a day and right now the schedule seems pretty filled...quite a change from just a month ago!

Oh well, time to take my next dose of Vitamin C and "Emer'gen'C" (tangerine flavor).

The smell of chalk dust

Today I went into NYC for an organizational meeting for a class I will be helping to teach that starts tomorrow. I'm part of a "teaching team" which is a real euphemism because it's not a democratic, collaborative arrangement and the adjunct instructors make less than 1/10 of what the professor in charge makes. But it sure sounds good, doesn't it?

What I thought was just a morning meeting actually ended up being a talking session that lasted from 10:30 am until 4:30 pm with lunch brought in so we didn't need to (couldn't!) take a break. It is a good thing I'm a low maintenance person because by 1 pm I was ready to leave and by 3 pm, I started checking my watch every 20 minutes. Grumble, grumble. But I need this job and I'm glad to be working again.

I haven't worked since August when my last job ended and I decided to concentrate on my writing. Now I'll have to emerge from my writing cave, take off my working pajamas and dust off the business clothes, and reacquaint myself with a makeup brush. The solitude and unstructured life had turned me into a bit of a hermit...if I'd been a man, I'd have a beard down to my collarbone.

Being a writer (or trying to be one) is a dangerous life for an introvert...it reenforces our isolationist tendencies and leaves too much time for brooding self-reflection. Anxiety has free rein except for those moments in which you manage to corral it and put it back in the closet.

This class, while it will take time away from my work, will get me back out among students (I taught for six years) and walking the streets of the city. There will be a lot of fieldwork--taking students out into NYC neighborhoods, looking at new and historic churches--and that will be the best part of the position. I look forward to getting to know more about areas of NYC that I haven't ventured into before. The adventure starts tomorrow night...