Skip to main content

Rootless

Apartment hunting, job hunting, self control, goals.  Lots of things to do -- a half notion of where I want to be -- but no clear path to get there.  Jobs and apartments: I can send out resumes and reply to ads, but there's competition.  For an apartment, I need proof that I can pay out the year.  Now that my husband has income, I have some security -- but how do I convince a land-lord?  I feel like I need to be able to provide everything immediately, or I'll lose the apartment.  And I'm already supposed to have begun hunting.

Jobs -- I only have a vague notion.  I'd like to do something that gives me a sense of accomplishment.  Something as structured but varied as school work.  My skill are all abstract.  I have no relevant experience to land me in a particular industry, and I don't know where to go to apply for entry level jobs.  I'm registering with temp. agencies, hoping I'll get a call, hoping it will lead to something.  I'm in the same position I was 10 years ago -- before I went to grad. school, before I left for China.  I face the same gnawing question, what will I do with my life?  Only now I don't have the existential comfort of a vocation to fall back on.

No longer destined for literature, for poetry.  I evaded the problem before by declaring myself for philosophy and throwing myself desperately at graduate school.  But in five years, I grew bored; I grew doubtful; I threw myself into other things, but lost my taste for them as well.  Now, no guiding light.  So it's only me against the multitude of professions.  How does anyone do it?  And I think I ought to know by now.  三十而立 -- established at thirty.  But I have uprooted myself.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sample Essay On Shakespeare's Fifth Sonnet (For My Students)

The theme of Shakespeare’s 5 th Sonnet is saving time. In the poem, Shakespeare talks about how time makes beautiful things ugly. He compares growing old to the way that summer changes into winter. Though in the summer there are many beautiful flowers, in the winter all of these beautiful flowers are gone and there is “bareness every where” (8). The winter is so empty that we could almost forget there had ever been flowers at all – if we didn’t “distil” (13) the beauty of summer to make perfume. What Shakespeare means is that we need to find a way to remember being young (the summer) so that when we are older (in winter) we will still be able to remember being happy. We could do this by having children, who will look like us and make us remember who we were when we were young. I just explained the theme of Shakespeare’s poem and summarized the poem. Now I will talk about how he communicates his theme. First, Shakespeare uses metonymy to help us understand how beautiful we ar...
Post a Comment
Read more

To Witness That Such Things As Monuments Are Possible (Saying "Hello")

It's been such a long time since I've written anything.  That phrase ought never to be used in the first line of a composition -- as a matter both of ethics and of style.  But if I'm to begin again at all, I have to begin with the first thought that strikes me, and given what I am beginning, the first thought that strikes me is that. I am clearing my throat before I speak or testing out my voice.  It was much the same thing to say to myself again and again "Hello" when I was young -- just to assure myself that I could speak.  It is honesty, anyway, and it is a true record.  But wouldn't it be odd to come across the memorial of a man, each of whose entries began, "It has been such a long time since I have remembered...?"  This is meditation in the way that I know it -- repeatedly catching oneself.  This awareness comes and goes in waves -- in waves, perhaps, it builds into something deeper.  Or else it just subsides and reappears.  But that is...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Teaching

A bit frustrated recently applying for jobs back in the US.  I could be applying to more jobs and following up more vigorously, but the rejections wear you down after awhile. It's a crash course in Stoicism. Here are some of the questions I've had to field as I've applied for teaching jobs: Why do you want to teach in a Catholic school? How would you address a wide range of skills in the classroom? What do you think causes students to fall behind academically? What helps them succeed? How would you address the diverse set of student and family needs that you are likely to face? How have you demonstrated a commitment to urban education? How would you communicate a sense of urgency in your classroom? Describe a time when you demonstrated a "whatever it takes" mindset. They're reasonable enough questions in themselves, I'll admit. But I constantly have the feeling of having to jump through hoops. I know that people have in mind a certain ideal; I ...
Post a Comment
Read more