11 May 2006

Apologies Again

     Once again, my ever-patient readership, I'm sorry to go so long between posts, but events of late have been hectic and chaotic.  The end of the academic year, alas, means more than just the oh-so-welcome return of halter-tops, reminding most of us with Y-chromosomes of grade six when, er, things seemed to be popping out, gloriously and deliriously, all over (or returning, breathtakingly, like swallows to Capistrano).  Rather, it also means a final raft of marking, followed by an exhausting flurry of applications for positions for both summer and the next academic session.  For the first time, I'm taking a very mercenary approach to applications for the coming year, hunting for whatever courses I might be able to pick up, wherever I can pick them up.  Okay, perhaps this isn't mercenary-- maybe it's just whorish, but we'll stick, if only for the sake of pride, to the former, and because sometimes it seems I've been wearin' my .44 so long it makes my shoulder sore~~I'm a soldier of fortune....~~ 
 
     I'm, of course, not willing to discuss what I have applied for, or to suggest anything about my appropriateness for positions x or y, for fear of jinxing myself yet again and probably severally.  (What's the cliché about Virgoans, that they tempt fate with their natures?  Snark! )  I'm reminded now of two things, apparently contradictory.  A good friend of mine once very kindly said that I was "the most academic person he knows," which I thankfully know he meant in the kindest way possible, and that said compliment comes from someone who knows more such types than I ever will.  And yet in just about every way, I realize I'm on the periphery of academia like Pluto is on the periphery of this particular end of the non-Douglas Adams universe.  Go, as that ubiquitous They would say, figure.  Ironically, enough, that's okay with me. 

No comments: