this and that
A very merry unbirthday to kernezelda and 
danceswithwords!!!! And, well, a very merry unbirthday to all the rest of you, too, but those are the very recent ones that I missed. *squishes the birthday girls*
**
Under the subject heading of "shows with actors that I like from other things," I enjoyed the pilot of The Chicago Code, starring Jennifer Beals, and I think I will watch more. I wasn't blown away, and I don't think it's the most original of shows (very much in the line of the plotty, ensemble police drama, rather than the procedural police drama; that is, another version of The Wire Lite). But it was entertaining, and I like Jennifer Beals, and I like the idea of a woman of color having top billing on a major network show (playing a character who is the most powerful police officer in Chicago).
I did not, however, make it past the first commercial break of Allison Janney's new show, Mr. Sunshine. I believe my thoughts can be summed up as "CJ Cregg would not be impressed." :( This makes me particularly sad because there was this lovely moment during our Super Bowl shindig the other evening when all the women in the room gushed about how we are predisposed to want to watch Allison Janney in anything because we all want to be CJ when we grow up.
Also, is Victor Garber regularly on Flashpoint these days, or was that just a one-time guest appearance for which I saw a commercial? Because somewhere along the way, I think he, too, became someone I would be inclined to watch in other things just because Victor Garber.
**
There was a depressing but all-too-accurate piece in the NY Review of Books last month about how business management models are deeply failing higher education (in quite different ways) on both sides of the Atlantic. It's entitled "The Grim Threat to British Universities, but there's also a nice comparison with what's going on in the US (no mention of Canada, but as usual, I think we slot somewhere in between, based on being organized much like American universities but funded somewhat more like British ones). I have said this before and will keep saying it: universities are not businesses and should not be run like them.
I am so weary of the system: of sending out applications that I know no one will look at seriously (in the pile of hundreds) because I don't have a book contract, and when you have a hundred great applicants with book contracts, why would you hire someone without one? Of lecturing to over 100 students at a time, none of whom are getting the individual attention they deserve, from me or from any of their other instructors. Of trying to explain to students who want to know what other classes I teach or who want me to supervise an independent study project that my status as contract faculty in a severely underfunded program means that I can't teach upper-level courses or supervise independent study projects. "But you're my favourite professor/the only professor I know/the only professor who ever seemed to give a damn." And I earn less than $15,000 a year for the privilege, sweetheart.
There is a novel that I would like to read (or write, possibly, but I'm really not the novel-writing sort) about the relationship between eager undergrads in the first blushes of academic love and the burned-out, underpaid adjuncts who teach them.
Anyway. Pfft. Academia sucks, and as the aforementioned link suggests, "making it" in the sense of landing a real academic job just makes it suck differently.
(Not that the other things I might like to do with my life are in better shape: library funding is being pulled left and right, as are positions in public arts and humanities advocacy--the latter of which helps explain everything else. "There's no money in poetry, but there isn't any poetry in money, either." Or something like that, and I forget who said it.)
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.
danceswithwords!!!! And, well, a very merry unbirthday to all the rest of you, too, but those are the very recent ones that I missed. *squishes the birthday girls*
**
Under the subject heading of "shows with actors that I like from other things," I enjoyed the pilot of The Chicago Code, starring Jennifer Beals, and I think I will watch more. I wasn't blown away, and I don't think it's the most original of shows (very much in the line of the plotty, ensemble police drama, rather than the procedural police drama; that is, another version of The Wire Lite). But it was entertaining, and I like Jennifer Beals, and I like the idea of a woman of color having top billing on a major network show (playing a character who is the most powerful police officer in Chicago).
I did not, however, make it past the first commercial break of Allison Janney's new show, Mr. Sunshine. I believe my thoughts can be summed up as "CJ Cregg would not be impressed." :( This makes me particularly sad because there was this lovely moment during our Super Bowl shindig the other evening when all the women in the room gushed about how we are predisposed to want to watch Allison Janney in anything because we all want to be CJ when we grow up.
Also, is Victor Garber regularly on Flashpoint these days, or was that just a one-time guest appearance for which I saw a commercial? Because somewhere along the way, I think he, too, became someone I would be inclined to watch in other things just because Victor Garber.
**
There was a depressing but all-too-accurate piece in the NY Review of Books last month about how business management models are deeply failing higher education (in quite different ways) on both sides of the Atlantic. It's entitled "The Grim Threat to British Universities, but there's also a nice comparison with what's going on in the US (no mention of Canada, but as usual, I think we slot somewhere in between, based on being organized much like American universities but funded somewhat more like British ones). I have said this before and will keep saying it: universities are not businesses and should not be run like them.
I am so weary of the system: of sending out applications that I know no one will look at seriously (in the pile of hundreds) because I don't have a book contract, and when you have a hundred great applicants with book contracts, why would you hire someone without one? Of lecturing to over 100 students at a time, none of whom are getting the individual attention they deserve, from me or from any of their other instructors. Of trying to explain to students who want to know what other classes I teach or who want me to supervise an independent study project that my status as contract faculty in a severely underfunded program means that I can't teach upper-level courses or supervise independent study projects. "But you're my favourite professor/the only professor I know/the only professor who ever seemed to give a damn." And I earn less than $15,000 a year for the privilege, sweetheart.
There is a novel that I would like to read (or write, possibly, but I'm really not the novel-writing sort) about the relationship between eager undergrads in the first blushes of academic love and the burned-out, underpaid adjuncts who teach them.
Anyway. Pfft. Academia sucks, and as the aforementioned link suggests, "making it" in the sense of landing a real academic job just makes it suck differently.
(Not that the other things I might like to do with my life are in better shape: library funding is being pulled left and right, as are positions in public arts and humanities advocacy--the latter of which helps explain everything else. "There's no money in poetry, but there isn't any poetry in money, either." Or something like that, and I forget who said it.)
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.