Post your asides here

[aside]

[unrelated]
It is hard to believe that you have done half of what you claim.

[mamselle]

Oh, but I have.

M.

[mahagonny]

[unrelated]
It is hard to believe that you have done half of what you claim.

Hey, not only is it all true, but I left out a lot. I can make toast and replace a button on your shirt.

[polly_mer]

[unrelated]
It is hard to believe that you have done half of what you claim.

That's the difference between having 2-3 years of experience at a lot of things and having had the same year N>15 times.

It's not all that hard to have done a lot of things by middle age, when the funding keeps drying up so one moves to the next thing that is funded instead of clinging to the past.

But it is pretty hard to do very much when one doesn't actually believe in lifelong learning and keeps working hard at making something that won't work work instead of trying new things that might work.

[polly_mer]

[unrelated and probably too snarky, but I'm going to be grading late enough that I can post to the Friday Haiku thread]

Yup, the first thing I do when I'm planning a class is to figure out how to rip off my students. Doesn't everyone do that?

You'd be surprised at how many people focus on getting paid for minimum work instead of planning a course based on what students need to learn and then what activities could achieve the goal.

I certainly was when I started overseeing faculty and asking pointed questions regarding the syllabi being submitted.  It was pretty clear that many people end up ripping off students through making choices for the employee instead of the students.  That situation isn't limited to the adjuncts working at multiple institutions, but it's more common for people who are working hard to make several crummy part-time jobs be a middle-class existence.

[apl68]

[unrelated]
It is hard to believe that you have done half of what you claim.

Hey, not only is it all true, but I left out a lot. I can make toast and replace a button on your shirt.

I see your experience making toast and raise you knowing how to operate a masonry saw.

[mahagonny]

I'm normally a good speller, but (1) I'm not yet in journalism, and won't be so my culpability is not the same, and (2) I have hit the 'wall' as LarryC put it. So today I spell any old way.

[polly_mer]

These fora would be better if you'd stop sharing your experiences in those particular areas because you are wrong in general--at best outdated, but often just wrong.

[little bongo]

(possibly related?)

My opinion at the thread where it's happening would pull it further off-topic, I think.

I'll set aside any opinions I have of the participants' previous posts, and just say that I'm pretty sure you believe God put you there, right? And you've got to walk that lonesome valley, and no one can go it for you, and all that "Reverend Mr. Black" imagery? (One of my dad's favorite songs, may he rest in peace.) So the path on which you must go right now might be beyond your immediate, or even long-term control in a lot of ways.

But no one's forcing you to be the store's resident Squidward Tentacles. You can be Spongebob, too, if you want. He certainly has more fun. As for the rest, Res ipsa loquitor, yeah?

[mahagonny]

After we get finished with the first (pick one) 'South Asian woman/transsexual person/ African American woman/ African American transexual etc. to be appointed or elected to...'   can we just go back to the regular business of hating all elected officials and their staff? I mean in the interest of equality?

[mahagonny]

...and sure, a lot of people are interested in hearing more about your idea. Just ask President Romney.

[polly_mer]

<unrelated>

Why is academia filled with people don't feel a need to understand how the business works in that market sector, what the factors are that affect "every" institution within that sector, and what factors are not under the direct control of any individual institution?

Why are people who are supposed to be teaching critical thinking and experts at research so bad at doing the research that directly affects their jobs?

What's the over/under bet on how many more people are going to cry, how could we have possibly known?!, when the entirely foreseeable confluence of factors actually affect their jobs in the next two years?

[little bongo]

<unrelated>

I don't think it's a lie. I do think that's the absolute truth for that poster. Probably the worst I could say is to echo what others have said about a number of topics--we tend to give ourselves a great deal of credit, especially if we've "made it." And we tend to forget about others who might have helped or influenced us, or the factor of sheer luck (or fate, fortune, God or gods, etc.)

[Parasaurolophus]

<unrelated>

This is too mean for the asides thread. Too bad there's no forum equivalent of the white text trick I could use.

[polly_mer]

<unrelated>

I don't think it's a lie. I do think that's the absolute truth for that poster. Probably the worst I could say is to echo what others have said about a number of topics--we tend to give ourselves a great deal of credit, especially if we've "made it." And we tend to forget about others who might have helped or influenced us, or the factor of sheer luck (or fate, fortune, God or gods, etc.)

The flip side is  that people let themselves too easily off the hook for making bad decisions that were known to be bad decisions at the time because it was really "just bad luck".  I stand by the fact that since I starting paying attention to academia the constant message has been that it's a bad bet for anyone who isn't already a member of the elite and that was true in the 1980s onwards for the humanities and physical/life/social sciences.

If I could find this out as a hick in the middle of nowhere and then reading the mostly-read-by-upper-middle-class-aspirants magazines in the library at an engineering school, then there is no excuse for asserting that no one could have known and it came as a surprise, especially people who should have been interacting with all those who didn't weren't getting those jobs and had first hand stories about the pain of adjuncting or starting over in their thirties from an entry-level job.

I never wanted to be an engineer (people may remember the bazillion times I've told the story about majoring in engineering because I could then get a husband who would take care of me with a solid middle-class job so I could afford to dabble in academia), but, yes, studying hard and taking advantage of good tutoring means I have a good professional job that is pleasant enough. 

I have zero patience at this point for people who are insisting (still, to this day, even after years of the constant mantra in all the higher ed outlets) that somehow one couldn't know now that a plan to be a humanities professor is very unlikely to work out if one is not already solidly a member of the elite such that one isn't applying blindly, but is instead picking which set of personal friends have the more compelling offer.