Limbo

Things have not gone as planned.

Ok. Some things have not gone as planned. (Others went off better than we expected.)

But big things did not go as planned.

You see, I had a plan. I'm a Virgo-- we do that. We make lists. We make plans. We persevere and see them through. In general, we're a fairly dedicated and goal-oriented bunch.

But here's the thing--I don't have any big plans anymore. At least not about my chosen career.

The market tanked. The market more than tanked--the market imploded in a not-so-brilliant display of festering puss. Seriously people. The MLA market took a 21% plus hit this year--the largest hit in its history--and those are just of posted jobs. I know that at least 1/3 of the jobs I applied for were canceled.

I look around, though, and people don't seem all that disturbed or upset by these trends. I have peers who seem happy that they didn't go on the market this year, because (in their estimation) it will somehow be better next year.

Right.

Students in my department are planning a charming little round table discussion about the future of the profession. They've proposed insightful topics like "the role of theory in literary studies" for the discussion. No one has proposed the "what if there are no tenure track jobs for the hundreds of us that are graduating" topic.

Maybe I should.

I would, but honestly, I'm too apathetic at this point. I was hoping that I was just being all gloom and doom unnecessarily-- that I was just over-reacting to a more than disappointing job search. But then I read this insightful piece in the Chronicle. If only I'd read it 6 years ago, I might have cut my losses with a Masters. At least then I'd have a better shot at Community College jobs, and I wouldn't have been spoiled by actually enjoying my research or teaching lit.

Ok. That sounds pissy. Which it is--I can't really help that.

But the bigger problem is that I am in limbo. I'll be 30 in 7 months and have no real career prospects on the horizon. I'll try the market one more time, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. I'm sticking around as a student (hopefully), even though it's really the last thing I wanted to do. But after the end of next year, come May of 2010, I will have a useless degree that I spent my 20s on and no idea what to do next.

Because I don't want to do anything else. Yet.

I hope it's a "yet" situation. If not, I could be in for a long haul.

So what does a 30-something mother of 2 with a PhD in the humanities do with herself if she can't be a professor like she expected?

Stay tuned-- one can only guess.

Breaking Dawn

My favorite thing about the book? That the spoilers were so crazy that no one on the various message boards believed them....

Turns out crazy wins :)