Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Grumpy and Less Grumpy

My ESL class has 17 students--half of them are 15 or 16 year old Italians from Milan, and the other half are students in their 20s and early 30s. The younger students are basically here on vacation, and the older students are here to study. The class dynamic is not pleasant. My younger students are intelligent and reasonably well behaved, but there are many reasons why I do not wish to teach high school, ever. I'm feeling very grumpy about it.

Speaking of grumpiness and teaching, I had a job experience (that is to say, not getting one) last week that made me rethink getting an MFA. I won't rant about it too much, but come on: I have an MA, teaching experience (in creative writing and literature), a solid publication record, and a forthcoming book. That's a lot more than a lot of post MFAs have.

Less grumpy news: Mark and I booked our tickets to Vancouver for the Positions Colloquium in August. I'm not reading or presenting, but Mark is, and the list of invites includes many friends as well as people I've never met whose work I admire. And Vancouver is great--it's true that I've never been in the Pacific Northwest in the real winter, but I admit I'm quite smitten with all the cities I've been to in that region, Vancouver most of all.

2 comments:

Jessica Smith said...

re: ma/mfa. that is really stupid. you do have a lot more qualifications than most MFAs.

Nada Gordon: 2 ludic 4 U said...

I also didn't get a job recently, to which I can only say PHOOEY.

Anyway, I can relate.