horns of dilemma: pointy, uncomfortable
Today's piece of real-life pathos: I just gave curriculum advice to a student all worried about potentially failing an exam. She apparently felt she wrote really badly because her boyfriend chose to break up with her the night before. By SMS. The youth of today have whole new levels of technological enablement to basic lack of class.
While on the subject of curriculum advice, I need to do one of my periodic Hit The Witterers For Input things. I figure if I'm going to collect a bunch of highly intelligent and accomplished people in this random virtual fashion, I may as well make the most of them.
There is a job being advertised in my faculty, for the full-time, full-contact version of the curriculum advice I've been doing part-time all year. Certain of the Powers That Be have intimated that they would be rather happy if I applied for it. This creates a sudden, sharp dichotomy in the field of possibilities for next year. The lineup looks approximately like this:
Option 1. Full-time curriculum advice.
Advantages: regular salary in high pay-class, with medical aid and benefits. A job in which I have experience, knowledge and skill. Continued contact with students. Respect. (Probably). The chance to organise people to within an inch of their lives. Possiblity of doing it for a couple of years while publishing madly before attempting re-admission into actual academia. Ability to move all the junk from my current campus office into another campus office. Continued contact with academia and my Cherished Institution.
Disadvantages: may not be offered the damned thing anyway. Lack of access to teaching. Nine to five job. (I suck at those). Administrative responsibilities of position considerable, and likely to drive me demented at certain times of year. Full-time job unlikely to leave much room for research. Definition of self as Non-Academic, doing violence to identity. Sense that Those Bastards would have Won. Fear that sticking toe even further into admin waters will cause the somewhat circumscribed thinkers who might inhabit academic selection committees to take me even less seriously as an academic than they already do. Continued contact with academia and my Cherished Institution.
Option 2. Freelance editing, teaching and Independent Scholarhood.
Advantages: independence, flexibility, work from home. Editing is closer to the research/writing mindset than is administration. (Trust me on this). Ability to structure in enough teaching to keep my hand in without draining my energy as currently. Less likely to look bad on an academic CV. Portable, should I eventually choose the Bugger Off Overseas route. Closer to Ideal Sense Of Self.
Disadvantages: irregular earnings and concomitant tendency to keep my mother awake o'nights; no benefits. No commercial editing experience. No real idea as to what I could realistically earn doing freelance work, or how fast I could start said earning. (Memo to self: pick pumeza's brain.) Home study really small and would need to absorb all the crap from my campus office: warped space-time levels already dangerously high owing to knitting.
Poll Career Roulette
Any insightful, disparaging, encouraging, illuminating or other comments gratefully appreciated. I'm slightly tying myself into knots with this one.
Oh, and by the way. The repeat incursions of Sid (today is like Tuesday, only more so) are making me cheesebrained, which means d_hofryn and I still owe first_fallen a birthday present (f-f, you can stop reading now). I got as far as actually pricing said article yesterday, and it's slightly more than I expected or we're able to pay. Anyone else out there who shares the first-fallen love and still owes her a present of the birthday persuasion? Other chippers-in sought! Please drop me e-mail! (Part of the reason for the organisational debacle of abovementioned present is that the go-to co-ordinating person for present conspiracies in my immediate social circle is first_fallen. These ironies bite.)
While on the subject of curriculum advice, I need to do one of my periodic Hit The Witterers For Input things. I figure if I'm going to collect a bunch of highly intelligent and accomplished people in this random virtual fashion, I may as well make the most of them.
There is a job being advertised in my faculty, for the full-time, full-contact version of the curriculum advice I've been doing part-time all year. Certain of the Powers That Be have intimated that they would be rather happy if I applied for it. This creates a sudden, sharp dichotomy in the field of possibilities for next year. The lineup looks approximately like this:
Option 1. Full-time curriculum advice.
Advantages: regular salary in high pay-class, with medical aid and benefits. A job in which I have experience, knowledge and skill. Continued contact with students. Respect. (Probably). The chance to organise people to within an inch of their lives. Possiblity of doing it for a couple of years while publishing madly before attempting re-admission into actual academia. Ability to move all the junk from my current campus office into another campus office. Continued contact with academia and my Cherished Institution.
Disadvantages: may not be offered the damned thing anyway. Lack of access to teaching. Nine to five job. (I suck at those). Administrative responsibilities of position considerable, and likely to drive me demented at certain times of year. Full-time job unlikely to leave much room for research. Definition of self as Non-Academic, doing violence to identity. Sense that Those Bastards would have Won. Fear that sticking toe even further into admin waters will cause the somewhat circumscribed thinkers who might inhabit academic selection committees to take me even less seriously as an academic than they already do. Continued contact with academia and my Cherished Institution.
Option 2. Freelance editing, teaching and Independent Scholarhood.
Advantages: independence, flexibility, work from home. Editing is closer to the research/writing mindset than is administration. (Trust me on this). Ability to structure in enough teaching to keep my hand in without draining my energy as currently. Less likely to look bad on an academic CV. Portable, should I eventually choose the Bugger Off Overseas route. Closer to Ideal Sense Of Self.
Disadvantages: irregular earnings and concomitant tendency to keep my mother awake o'nights; no benefits. No commercial editing experience. No real idea as to what I could realistically earn doing freelance work, or how fast I could start said earning. (Memo to self: pick pumeza's brain.) Home study really small and would need to absorb all the crap from my campus office: warped space-time levels already dangerously high owing to knitting.
Poll Career Roulette
Any insightful, disparaging, encouraging, illuminating or other comments gratefully appreciated. I'm slightly tying myself into knots with this one.
Oh, and by the way. The repeat incursions of Sid (today is like Tuesday, only more so) are making me cheesebrained, which means d_hofryn and I still owe first_fallen a birthday present (f-f, you can stop reading now). I got as far as actually pricing said article yesterday, and it's slightly more than I expected or we're able to pay. Anyone else out there who shares the first-fallen love and still owes her a present of the birthday persuasion? Other chippers-in sought! Please drop me e-mail! (Part of the reason for the organisational debacle of abovementioned present is that the go-to co-ordinating person for present conspiracies in my immediate social circle is first_fallen. These ironies bite.)