this is a bit annoying...

ok, i'm really upset, actually. or sad, rather. i know i look young and irresponsible but i'm not an idiot, dammit. i don't think i'm the youngest person in our department but i certainly look like the youngest one. i also teach less than the other new hires because i'm also rewriting a curriculum and intensively learning about the writing centre, but i guess it looks like i'm a joke. or it looks like i've been hired to fill some quotas. i'm a good one, that's for sure, i fill 3 quotas: woman, disabled, and international faculy. great.

so anyway, the problem started a long time ago but it really hit me yesterday. i'm the member of a committee but obviously, my opinion doesn't count and i am not expected to do any work. the other member of this committee has 1) worked on the projet on his own without telling me and presented the results to our department chair, and 2) complained to our chair that he couldn't do all the work alone and needed a third committee member, even though i've tried to talk to him several times, i told him when i was free to meet and that he should just tell me when the time was good for him, and i sent him some ideas to which he never responded.

and then again this morning. i am the member of another committee, and i said i would compile responses to a questionnaire that was sent to everyone and bring the responses to our next meeting. so i compiled the responses i got and made copies for everyone to bring at our next meeting. then on friday i wrote to the chair of the committee and said "could you send a reminder email to our faculty, because some people haven't responded yet" and she replied "oh don't worry, we won't need the responses at our next meeting (???), i'll send a reminder email again in a few weeks." and this morning, i got an email from her asking me for MY responses to the questionnaire, and she tells me that she has been gathering the responses too, and will be presenting the preliminary results at our meeting today!! WTF?? i am not lying or exagerating, i have printed both her emails. this makes NO SENSE!

i feel cheated and pissed off. and very very scared! something is very wrong, either with me or with this department. and i am not sure what i should do about it.

$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?

job hunting

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

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) ;)