Bay Area
(In which our hero spends quite a bit of time and money walking around an unfamiliar city in pursuit of professional development, and ponders his limited access to the finer things in life)
Right, so:
I’m sitting in my friend’s unbelievably posh apartment in Pacific Heights, SF. Why-oh-why did I decide to be an academic instead of a hedge-fund manager? The place is beautiful, kitchens like that I believed only existed in my wettest of dreams, and there is an original Andy Warhol over the mantle.
I’m not usually one who flips out over the material, but as I have begun to grey a bit I am starting to see more clearly what exactly I have given up by my (not particularly) principled choice to be an academic.
This whole trip to the west coast had been kind of a big expensive drag. I’ve been staying with C-Bunny, an ex, who has gotten increasingly snarky as the days have passed. It is true that I’ve stayed too long (a fact due to the bizarrities of airline pricing schemes), but she did invite me unsolicited for the full ride. (Plus, thanks to bad weather, late flights and her turning off her celly the night I got in, she got one night’s reprieve at the beginning anyhow.
As to the conference, well, a big passel of historians is never going to be that much fun, but this one seemed to have amped up the depressing one notch. I had no good schmoozing time, and my paper was in the very first session on the first day, so much that followed was hardcore anticlimax. I did, however stick around to the bitter end to see J’s paper in the very last session of the entire whiz-bang.
And, since my school is skint, much of this expensive journey will come out of my own deeply indebted pocket. I love to travel, but I loathe it when I’m anxious about money. Actually, having grown up (much like the SDS kids) in relative material comfort, the whole notion of being in debt is kind of terrifying. I don’t sleep well when I have a credit card balance, and, thanks to getting paid jackshit last year while still having half a foot back in Brooklyn means I’m carrying what to me the metaphoric equivalent of one of those stones they pressed you with until you admitted to being a witch (think “more weight” for the Arthur Miller fans out there. Of course, I’m still in the whole thousands less than the average American, but it’s all about one’s individual threshold for this kind of thing, no?
Still, I acknowledge how irritating someone who grew up where I did, how I did, and has had the opportunities I have had, is when he whines about his quote-unquote “poverty.” Still, sitting here, it’s easy to feel deprived in comparison.
I think what is really getting me is all of the impending flux in my life. There is nothing worse than having made all of the decisions to make a change, but to still have a long wait ahead for the moving truck. This term, on a good day, feels like my “victory lap” at my current gig, but on a bad day, I feel like it’s a bit of a pointless exercise, much like trying to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic to conform to the principles of feung shui. All the while I’m not working on all of that important crap I ought to be doing to get my future in order.
Right, so:
I’m sitting in my friend’s unbelievably posh apartment in Pacific Heights, SF. Why-oh-why did I decide to be an academic instead of a hedge-fund manager? The place is beautiful, kitchens like that I believed only existed in my wettest of dreams, and there is an original Andy Warhol over the mantle.
I’m not usually one who flips out over the material, but as I have begun to grey a bit I am starting to see more clearly what exactly I have given up by my (not particularly) principled choice to be an academic.
This whole trip to the west coast had been kind of a big expensive drag. I’ve been staying with C-Bunny, an ex, who has gotten increasingly snarky as the days have passed. It is true that I’ve stayed too long (a fact due to the bizarrities of airline pricing schemes), but she did invite me unsolicited for the full ride. (Plus, thanks to bad weather, late flights and her turning off her celly the night I got in, she got one night’s reprieve at the beginning anyhow.
As to the conference, well, a big passel of historians is never going to be that much fun, but this one seemed to have amped up the depressing one notch. I had no good schmoozing time, and my paper was in the very first session on the first day, so much that followed was hardcore anticlimax. I did, however stick around to the bitter end to see J’s paper in the very last session of the entire whiz-bang.
And, since my school is skint, much of this expensive journey will come out of my own deeply indebted pocket. I love to travel, but I loathe it when I’m anxious about money. Actually, having grown up (much like the SDS kids) in relative material comfort, the whole notion of being in debt is kind of terrifying. I don’t sleep well when I have a credit card balance, and, thanks to getting paid jackshit last year while still having half a foot back in Brooklyn means I’m carrying what to me the metaphoric equivalent of one of those stones they pressed you with until you admitted to being a witch (think “more weight” for the Arthur Miller fans out there. Of course, I’m still in the whole thousands less than the average American, but it’s all about one’s individual threshold for this kind of thing, no?
Still, I acknowledge how irritating someone who grew up where I did, how I did, and has had the opportunities I have had, is when he whines about his quote-unquote “poverty.” Still, sitting here, it’s easy to feel deprived in comparison.
I think what is really getting me is all of the impending flux in my life. There is nothing worse than having made all of the decisions to make a change, but to still have a long wait ahead for the moving truck. This term, on a good day, feels like my “victory lap” at my current gig, but on a bad day, I feel like it’s a bit of a pointless exercise, much like trying to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic to conform to the principles of feung shui. All the while I’m not working on all of that important crap I ought to be doing to get my future in order.