In the dead of night, when the world is asleep and no one is looking, I dabble in the blackest of arts: statistics and probabilities. My inner mathematician is mysterious, mighty, and mischievous.
I’m a duffer, as you might guess, so rather than compiling Excel spreadsheets and clogging my computer’s circuitry with programs designed to crunch [...]
Archive for the ‘academia’ Category
Mad Math
Posted in academia, advanced navel-gazery on May 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A Favorable Wind
Posted in academia, book-larnin', vagaries of verse on February 7, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Right now, for reasons I do not care to question, it is 46 degrees in Central Michigan. I have accordingly turned off my heat, thrown open my windows, and read “In Just-” to round out the trifecta. That makes for a respectable Saturday morning.
The day looks fairly promising altogether, truth be told. I’ve nearly finished [...]
The Academic Job Market: The Dismal Picture
Posted in academia, job market horror! on February 1, 2009 | 12 Comments »
I’ve generated about as much sunshine as I can, and I hope I’ve offered a little useful perspective to folks who are weathering a tough search season. If, however, you watch Rainbow Brite just for cameo appearances by Murky Dismal, here’s an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education for you. (Thanks to my Emory cohort Melissa [...]
Fireflies
Posted in academia, book-larnin' on December 10, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Well, here I am on the day of my first final exam and I just caught up with my grading for the semester thus far about 45 minutes ago. That either makes me a banana slug drunk on molasses or a ninja of the space-time continuum. In any case, it’s certainly not the worst place to [...]
The Academic Job Market: English Search Advice (Part III)
Posted in academia, job market horror! on October 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Since I covered the requisite prefatory material last time around, let’s see if I can polish off my general remarks on the cover letter today. If I finish up early, I might actually get some sleep.
1. Gloss the oddities. As most candidates figure out pretty quickly, many job descriptions in the MLA Job Information List represent swings [...]
The Academic Job Market: English Search Advice (Part II)
Posted in academia, job market horror! on October 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Last time around I glossed some general principles that I think might aid and abet the application process. Today I’ll try to give you a glimpse into one bald man’s act of sifting and sorting.
I think folks on the academic job market, particularly those who have never before explored those waters, should come armed with two bits of useful (and [...]
Sex and the Single Professor II; or, Solitude is Difficult
Posted in academia, amor fati!, solitude standing on September 19, 2008 | 3 Comments »
This is how I rope in the Suzanne Vega fans. They are, as you know, a key demographic.
Many moons ago I went to a dentist to have a filling replaced. She saw me on short notice, proved to be quite nice, and explained clearly her rationale for going with a simple fix that could always [...]
Nonce Sense
Posted in academia, vagaries of verse on September 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Let it be known that I am not especially British, so today’s title is really quite clean. No bobbies were harmed in the composition of this post. The cindies, however, did not fare so well.
We’ve just about wrapped the second week of classes here, and all seems to be going well. My students are terribly [...]
Sex and the Single Professor; or The One-Body Problem
Posted in academia, amor fati! on August 22, 2008 | 1 Comment »
First, a disclaimer: there will be no sex in this post. I will never let truth in disclosure stand in the way of a zazzy title.
Today’s post also requires more contextualization than usual, as it was prompted by readings of a recent post at The Salt-Box and an older post from The Chronicle of Higher [...]
