PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES!


Quick! If you want to see a picture of my adorable blond pumpkin visit my friend Marcy's site and scroll down until you see two little bandits with a backpack peeking through the slats of a fence. The one with white hair is Issac. Aren't they cute?

I have been so blessed with excellent babysitters.

TEACHING

I got the job teaching Spanish. I start on Tuesday. I'm thrilled, but a little upset that I don't know Spanish better. Ay ay ay! To avoid this issue, I am requiring each student to get a college-style Spanish/English dictionary. I've been babbling to Issac in Spanish as much as I can and now he will "da me un besito" when I ask for one. Cool!

THE FUTURE

Since I am supposed to be graduating this semester, I thought it might be prudent to talk to some of my professors about what I can expect from grad school. I'm trying to get my priorities straight and make a plan for the next few years of my life. Do I need to go to grad school? What is grad school like? What can it offer me? Why bother?

After speaking with Dr. Smith, a woman embittered with the belief that "the renaissance still belongs to men," I decided that I don't think I want a PhD in English. Not at this point anyways. Dr. Smith made it clear that she thinks that a PhD in English from the University of Florida is no more well respected than pink puke on the floor, and is pretty much useless in the academic world. She said that to teach at just about any state university requires a PhD from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, or Berkely. She then proceeded to make it clear that Berkely was out of my league, because she barely made it in and was a much better student than I seemed to be, since she had taken honors thesis classes and was Sigma Tau Delta (an English literary society) and yadda yadda yadda (she ran off a list of a hundred clubs that she belonged to). Bitterly, she stated that the only way to get into those good schools is 1)to have one or both of your rich parents be an alumni, or 2) to be insanely ambitious from a young age.

Dr. Smith = insanely ambitious.
Me= not so much.

She talked about the prejudice she encounters in the snobby academic world when colleagues at conferences find out that she works in a southern university, since in those academic circles to be southern is still equated with being stupid. She says even at UF, one of her colleagues with a PhD in English stopped attending English department parties because nobody would even talk to his wife, a high school English teacher. Snobs!

She asked me what I want from the program, from grad school. I said I wanted to learn things that I haven't learned yet--I want to know more about literary theories, I want to become an authority on the English language, I want to study more literature and know a specific genre inside and out. I want to improve my critical thinking skills and write essays on new and interesting literary topics. I want to completely and fully understand the literary terms I encounter and I want to use these terms to analyze the literature around me. I want to know all the things that I feel are itching right behind the surface, but that undergraduate studies never really addressed in any significant depth. I want to know more! I still feel empty!

She said that I should probably go for my Master's degree if I just want to learn more for personal reasons. What the hell does that mean? That after a Master's degree it ceases to be about personal learning and becomes political? Yes, I think that was her stance. Yuck.

When I was little I imagined myself going to Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. It was this vague fuzzy image of me walking through those halls of tradition, books stacked in my arms, wearing a pleated skirt, coat, pressed shirt and and shiny brown leather flats. Getting a very, very good education. I know I am of the caliber to be there--I deserve a good education, and I want one.

It really stinks that so much of your future is dictated by the decisions you make when you are fourteen years old. When I was fourteen I was amazed to learn that some of my upperclassmen friends were going on tours of college campuses all around the country--I didn't know that people did that. My parents never discussed college with me. When I was fourteen I was in ninth grade, and I didn't care about school. I cared about reading books. I was invincible and refused to believe that the world was such a political place that I wouldn't be able to charm myself into or out of any situation that would present itself before me. I was Melissa, afterall. Loved or hated by everyone, eccentric but never ignored.

Ignored. I hate to be ignored. And that is exactly what these snobby places would probably do if I tried to enter their ranks since I have nothing to show for myself but a 3.2 GPA, a healthy toddler, and a keen desire to know more about English.

Dr. Smith asked me what I want in my life. Do I want a job as a professor at a top-tier university? If so, I will have to practically sell my soul for 5 years (not to mention the rest of my life spent cranking out articles trying to establish tenure), and even then if I got my degree from a crappy state university nobody "respectable" would want me.

Do I want to enjoy my life, my leisure, my family, my ability to take my summers off and travel, my freedom, my making a difference in the lives of analytically-impoverished teenagers? Yes. And I decided I really would be happy being a high school English teacher. It fits me better. I'm not trying to impress anybody except myself.

But I still want to know more--all the things that they haven't taught me, and I know those things are out there. Remember the days when you could go to school for four entire years and emerge an authority on a subject? What the hell has happened to the level of expectations in our schools, secondary and post-secondary?

I asked Dr. Smith if she ever envied those people who just side-step all the bullcrap and hit it bigtime anyways--those people whose greatness emerges whether they get a phD or not, people who would be welcomed to teach at any univeristy, even Harvard and Yale. She said, not without sarcasm, "And...what people would that be?" I felt stupid because I couldn't think of any off the top of my head, but I knew they were out there. So I vowed to compile a list. To make the list I looked for respected members of the literary community who have no more than a BA degree.

Here is a start:

Chinua Achebe (BA, London)
W.H. Auden (BA, Christ College, Oxford)
Jane Austen
Maya Angelou
Samual Beckett
Willa Cather (BA, U. Neb)
William Faulkner (Noble Prize Winner, 1950--Never graduated U. Miss.)
Seamus Heaney ( A "first" in English, Belfast)



People who "made it" in general, against all odds and expectations:

Mark Whalberg
Pretty much ALL ACTORS


If you have any suggestions to add to my lists, please email me.