|
fiona
|
 |
« on: August 04, 2008, 01:33:29 PM » |
|
I think what I get from this article, on first reading, is a strong message that if you're not enjoying the work in academia (or anywhere), you need to find out ways to make it enjoyable, now. If it's only endurable, and there's not much hope of change . . . I think we're trained to be future-oriented as academics (when I finish this semester, when I get my degree, when I get tenure), but we don't always focus on whether we're enjoying the present. http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/08/2008080401c.htmThe Fiona |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The Fiona or perhaps La Fiona
Professor of Thread Killing, Fiork University
The Right Reverend Fiona, PhD, Bishop of the Fora
|
|
|
expatinuk
Has spent over 1000 pounds but now holds a Brit passport!
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 6,653
From SC living in UK
|
 |
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2008, 01:49:53 PM » |
|
The father knows what he's talking about...
You can apply the same principle to parenting...
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Expatinuk seems to be a Soviet Satellite in stationary orbit over the UK
It is what it is.
|
|
|
|
mountain_ivy
|
|
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2008, 03:56:50 PM » |
|
Fiona--
Are you having a slow summer?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
I run with scissors.
|
|
|
llanfair
Village idiot and Very
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 23,199
Whither Canada?
|
|
« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2008, 06:30:21 PM » |
|
It's probably easier to enjoy the present in academe if you've come to it from a dull former profession. That's my situation. I was practically weeping with boredom some days.
I still can't believe I get paid to tell people about what happened hundreds of years ago.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
This place stinks like a pair of armoured trousers after the Hundred Years' War.
|
|
|
|
fiona
|
 |
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2008, 07:44:10 PM » |
|
Fiona--
Are you having a slow summer?
No, I'm avoiding work I'm supposed to do. Of course. How 'bout you? The Fiona |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The Fiona or perhaps La Fiona
Professor of Thread Killing, Fiork University
The Right Reverend Fiona, PhD, Bishop of the Fora
|
|
|
|
dfquinn355
|
|
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2008, 11:52:23 PM » |
|
Is the father's advice all that remarkable?
Aren't teachers supposed to have the chops to make lessons reverberate with ideas and activities that bring an assortment of challenges for themselves and for their charges?
Throw the high heat once, the batter swings through it.
Throw a second and a third fast ball, and the hitter gets a tick of timber on it.
Throw the number one a fourth time, and the cowhide has landed in the parking lot 400 feet away.
Gotta mix them pedagogical pitches, is what I'm saying.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
expatinuk
Has spent over 1000 pounds but now holds a Brit passport!
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 6,653
From SC living in UK
|
|
« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2008, 03:23:34 AM » |
|
No, the father's advice isn't all THAT remarkable. But it's really odd that in the past 20 or so years we've all become focused on being the BEST, rather than being the BEST for the circumstances.
There was a thread not too long ago about a mom who was torn because the BEST (A+) daycare was forcing her to spend an inordinate amount of time in the car shuttling the kid back and forth. There was a VERY GOOD (B+) daycare a 10 minute walk from her house, but she felt that she would be a horrible mother if she took her child out of the A+ daycare for the B+ daycare.
Perhaps it's a generational thing... but to me it was a no brainer... B+ is good enough when measured against quality of life. Most of the young parents who contributed to the thread thought that she should spend the hours in the car to ensure that the child got A+ daycare.
We only have one life... we need to enjoy it.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Expatinuk seems to be a Soviet Satellite in stationary orbit over the UK
It is what it is.
|
|
|
|
treehugger1
|
|
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2008, 12:34:23 AM » |
|
Ok. So it wasn't such remarkable advice. Still, Fiona, I'm glad you posted it. It's a good antidote to the general asceticism in academia -- the work-worry-and-whine mode that seems so common.
Besides, it's advice I'm living at the moment: I might or might not finish the dissertation, but I certainly will have a good time in the process. So it's nice to have it reinforced.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Not a member of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. May we live long and not die out.
|
|
|
|
mountain_ivy
|
|
« Reply #8 on: August 08, 2008, 03:09:40 PM » |
|
Fiona--
Are you having a slow summer?
No, I'm avoiding work I'm supposed to do. Of course. How 'bout you? The Fiona I've come kicking and screaming back to what passes for reality in this unreal universe. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
I run with scissors.
|
|
|
|
