relief

i had lunch with one of the nicest people in my department, someone i think i can trust and who's been very nice with me. she's also new here, and we decided to have lunch together today. we talked... and talked... and talked... and i was very happy to realize that i was not the only one feeling somehow disconcerted at the way things work here. she also feels disappointed by the way we were in a sense lied to, during our job interviews, when we were told that this and that were going to happen and we would create this and we would change that and there were so many opportunities at this university etc... and in the end, nothing happens, every time we wante to do something we're told that we can't because it would upset someone or some other department, and in general, things are a mess. i was so glad to hear her say that.

in the end, she said she gave the department two years to make her feel the way she should be feeling now, the way she was promised to be feeling now... it amazes me that she left a wonderful job at a very large university somewhere else to come here (she transfered her tenure here). so she knows what she's talking about and i can see that it was not just me complaining about things but that there is a real problem in this university.

we also both think that this university needs to learn about drinking fountains and provide at least one per department!!!

$10,000

some days i love my job, some days i hate my job. most days, though, i just wonder why i've been hired. i think the thing that bothers me the most is that even if i end up loving what i'm doing, it's not in my "field" really, and if i eventually decide to find a new job in teacher education, i'll be in trouble because i won't have done anything in this area. also, i'm starting to feel schizophrenic because i am still working on articles that relate to my previous life (teacher education, esl) and i'm soon going to be expected to work on projects that relate to my current job (which is what? i'm not sure yet).

so, i've been working on the creation of a new course that has absolutely nothing to do with anything i know, but i must admit that it's been fun (although i look like an idiot when people ask me what i'm doing and i have to tell them that i don't have a clue). i've baught two hundred thousand books on the subject and i'm trying to learn as much as possible. i'm talking with tons of people who usually don't know about all this any more than i do, which is a relief, and i've presented the first outline at our departmental meeting yesterday for a first approval. so far so good.

anyway, i just got a photocopy card with $10,000 on it... i guess this university's got money! maybe they could also increase my salary?

moving in the right direction

two good things happened recently, two victories, in a sense. first, i met with the current writing center director and i'm now working with her more closely to get to know the writing center and the people working there so that i'm ready to take over next year. there's a lot of work that needs to be done and i've ordered a few books on writing centers because i'll need all the help i can get. the tutors seem nice and i'm excited to work with them more and more.

second, i decided that i really didn't like the way the class i teach is being taught (all sections have to teach exactly the same way)! next semester, only one section of this course will be taught and i've asked my boss if i could teach it instead of teaching another course as i was supposed to do. i explained my reasons (changing textbooks, problems with cheating, organisation of assignments, etc.) and my boss said ok. was supposed to teach only 1 class next semester and i don't know if i'll teach only this class or if i'll teach this class IN ADDITION to the other class i was supposed to teach, but i don't care much, i'm not terribly busy yet and it'll keep me busy during the long winter nights.

i feel a little better...

job hunting

i wonder if i should start job hunting again... i'm bored and i want to do teacher education, not undergrad babysitting...

blah

why am i not writing here? because i don't know what to think. i feel so much like a graduate student, still. i teach 2 days a week, and the rest of the time, i go to a few meetings here and there and i work in my office from time to time... i am not sure what i'm doing, actually. i still have tons of things to do to get settled here, like getting a new driver's licence, new licence plates, parking permits, health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, stuff like that. i guess monday is my "real life" day. tuesday, i try to work in the office. wednesday, i prepare my courses and do nothing. thursday and friday mornings i teach, and then in the afternoon i try to work in the office. that's about it.

i drove to school today, instead of taking the streetcar + subway. it's much faster (15 to 20 minutes instead of 30 to 45 minutes) but i paid $12 for the parking!

ok, on a happier note, i found two nice photographs (tulips) to hang in my office. i'll also bring my huge world map and maybe the guggenheim museum picture too... it feels so... dull, still. and yesterday, i was down in the big liberal arts office to give my transcript to someone and took this opportunity to ask about getting some "stuff" like enveloppes, paper clips, etc. because i have nothing at all in my office... and the nice person gave me the bookstore catalog and told me to choose the stuff i wanted and he'd go get them for me! pencil sharpers, file organizers, tacks, post-its, markers, book holders, note books, staplers, erasers, ... ... it felt like christmas :)

one last thing: yesterday i sent an application to tesol to be on the publication's committee...

job

i think that with time, i'll be able to make a difference in this program. i see now some of the limits, some of the restrictions i'll have to work with, but maybe within my department, with the courses that we do teach, at least, i'll be able to change a few things. i am not thinking that my job will be horrible or anything. i'm just disappointed because i realize that the people who hired me had no idea why they hired me (not me in particular, they just didn't know why they needed someone). the people i work with are nice, my office is very confortable, my teaching load really light, the benefits are excellent... and when i think of job offers some of my friends got, i know that i'm very lucky.

however. there's a big however. i want to be in teacher education. that's my specialty, my expertise, my research, my passion. so one day, i'll have to get a new job...

things i must work on:

- article for TQ about my dissertation (due this december)
- book about teacher education (due ?)
- small article for ET about caucuses (due in october)
- state-of-the art article for language teaching (due in march, not even started...)
- and now a book review, haha :) (due in january)

ps. i'll make this blog "private" very soon. so if you want to keep reading it, let me know, at misslulu at rogers dot com except if your name is xiaoye or kiara (you'll get some odd invitation from blogger and hopefully it'll work) ;)

day 2

the weird thing is that it's hard for me to think of myself as only a teacher and no longer a student. yesterday, when that lady was being stupid about starting class at 11:00, i should have acted as a professor, not as a TA. i should not let people give me orders, i should not be intimidated by people, i should not shut up during a meeting with the dean of engineering when the topic is esl students and i'm the expert. i must find a way to see myself as "just as good as they are." it'll be a long process.

i also feel that for now, i've been hired as an "image" of something but i'm not supposed to really do anything except teach and publish. my job description talks about leadership in this and leadership in that and revising the curriculum and upgrading the course and blah blah... but really, i don't think the esl instructors see me as something else than "just another esl instructor who knows nothing about nothing" and every time i make a suggestion, they say "oh, no, we've been doing things THAT way for many semesters and..." and they won't change. their excuses are either that "it works" so why change it, and also that "it's not university policy" so we just can't change it. for example, we all have to have exactly the same assignments at the same time, and we need to grade everything exactly the same way. i want to add an extra chapter? no can do! i want to penalized my students if they come late to class or miss class? no can do. i want to use different examples than those in the (british!) textbook? no can do!

something else is highly disturbing: the esl instructors see all their students as cheaters and liers. for example, we can't assigned them to write essays at home because "they'll ask someone else to write the essays for them." so we have to ask the students to write each essay (it's a composition class!) IN CLASS and then we initial EACH PARAGRAPH before they leave class and then they can revise the essay at home once and we only grade the revised essay. forget about the importance of revision! we can't ask them to revise the ideas but only to revise grammar. why bother about the ideas, the organization, the sentence structure, etc.?! another example is, we MUST all have our exams on the same exact day and we can't have exactly the same exam (but then we're supposed to grade the exams exactly the same way!) "because they'll memorize the questions on the exam and they'll tell their friends in other sections." etc. etc. etc. it's not like everyone is innocent until proven guilty, it's everyone is guilty, period! i absolutely hate that. on the one hand, we have to "treat them like adults" so we can't take attendance, and on the other hand, we treat them like kids and can't even ask them to write an essay at home because they'll cheat. right. this is so screwed up.