Temporarily in Draft Mode

As I said in my last post, I got a campus visit a couple days ago. Yippie! I'm really excited about this, and, as I said in the last post, I think they are the school for me and I'm the candidate for them. I honestly believe that we are a perfect fit for each other.

However, when I booked my plane ticket, and forwarded it to the search committee, I didn't realize that Expedia would include my login name / email address in the message. It's the same nickname I use on this blog (because I'd rather confine junk mail to my hotmail account than have it pile up in my university inbox). So, just to be on the safe side of things, in case the search committee should decide to google my nickname and arrive here (I would if I were on a search committee), I've taken down all academia-related postings and just left up the ones about Québec politics and the innocuous personal posts. Those deleted posts are in draft mode and will reappear after the job search is over.

If, dear search committee, you do arrive here and read this, I just want to say that I don't actually have anything to hide. There's nothing in those postings that I wouldn't say face to face. Heck, I probably will convey much of what's in those posts when I see you in person, and the rest is already on my cv. I'm taking them down mainly because I feel stupid about not forwarding my flight itinerary to myself first and double-checking what it said, editing out my email nickname, and then forwarding it to you from my university account. What can I say but that I'm very excited to have been invited to your campus and it had been a long day by the time I made the booking. I'd also like to think that I'm mature, responsible, and tech-savy enough to fix my own mistakes. I'm not taking down my old website though, which also has the same nickname, because I trust that no search committee would hold me accountable for what I wrote way back in my undergrad days. As Virginia Slims would say, I've come a long way, baby! (In any case, there's so much out there these days that it's impossible to control one's google results anymore anyway, and academia is going to have to learn to accept that and adapt to the new tech reality. I've got lots of thoughts on that subject, but will save them for another day....)

My typically irregularly scheduled posting will resume in a couple weeks, at which point I hope to have some very good job news to blog about!

Campus Visit

I had a campus visit scheduled today. It's at the school where I think I have the best chance of actually getting a job offer and where the job description best fits my profile. I am sooooo relieved and happy about this! I don't want to say too much and jinx anything though. I'll be doing a job talk with a paper that I've given twice before and am currently expanding/revising anyway for a book volume. No teaching! More updates may follow once it's over a couple weeks from now, but for the moment I just want to bask in the good vibes that I'm feeling and the wonderful sensation of not feeling anymore that tight constriction that has been around my chest since the MLA list was posted back in September. Thrilled would be an understatement right now!

A Class Meme

I don't normally do memes, but I think that we don't talk about class nearly enough, neither in academia or in the general media. Why, for instance, does everyone say the Democratic primary is about choosing between race (Obama) and gender (Clinton), when really it's about race, gender, and class (Edwards)? Why is it that the advocate for the middle-class, and the only one who is really focussed on class at all, is simply dismissed as "an angry white guy"?

Anyway, on to the meme, as seen chez Dr. Crazy. Bold the statements that are true.

1. Father went to college.
2. Father finished college.
3. Mother went to college. -- She went to "community college", aka vocational school, to take an "office skills", aka secretarial, course when I was already in my undergrad, after doing her GED when I was in high school. My dad dropped out of the GED course. I wouldn't call my mom's course "college" in the four-year college sense though. It was only a one-year program.
4. Mother finished college.
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home. -- Thanks to the Scholastic book program through my elementary school. My mom always kept me well stocked in books and I read way more novels for pleasure when I was a kid than I do now.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children's books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18. -- My mom put me in skating lessons when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I was dressed up as a daisy for the final show we performed.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. -- Lol. My mom wouldn't even let me have a bank card to access my savings account until I was 18, even though I was working 40 hours per week.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp. -- One week long basketball camp for three summers in high school.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels. -- What vacations?!
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18. -- Almost never. All from the second-hand store where my mom worked from when I was in grade 4 until after I was in undergrad.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house. -- Yes, in the boonies.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home. -- They paid the mortgage on it.
25. You had your own room as a child. -- Thank goodness. My brother's room was the former "dining room" though.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school. -- A tiny, 10'', black-and-white set with a long antenna, and obviously no cable. Even the family tv didn't have cable because we lived too far from town. We only had 2 channels until I was 14, then 3 channels after that.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. -- One way to Toronto when I was 15 to visit my cousin, who drove me back home on a 24 hour road trip.
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. -- Of course, I knew. My mom never stopped telling me how little money she had every week for groceries, how much everything cost, how hard it was to stretch our money, how expensive university was, and how I absolutely had to win a ton of scholarships or I wouldn't be able to go.
Score: 9 out of 34.