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By Elle Madison

When you're job searching, it's funny how everyone you know suddenly becomes a career counselor. After I earned my Ph.D. in comparative literature a year ago, I wasn't able to find a tenure-track job immediately. Since then, every conversation that I have with friends and family inevitably returns to the subject of the job search, in spite of my own increasingly evasive maneuvers.

My family has discussed sending me somewhere for "discipline and direction." (Like a convent or the military?) Other people have suggested such diverse careers as becoming a reference librarian, a CIA spy, or a barmaid at an English pub. Still others would have me return to school and get a law degree or another Ph.D.

Few have taken seriously my struggle to find a job that actually uses the degree I have.

During one of the many job-search conversations, a friend asked me point-blank, "So, what's the plan?" I faltered and asked her what she meant. If none of my job and fellowship applications bear fruit, she asked, what was I going to do?

I found that I didn't have an answer.

A couple of years into writing my dissertation, I received as a gag gift a T-shirt that said, "Don't ask me about my thesis." After two years of looking for a job, I'm getting to the point where I need a T-shirt that says, "Don't ask me about my job search."

I realize that all of the heartfelt talks and well-meaning advice stem from others' anxiety about me not having a stable job and, generally speaking, the fact that I don't have my life all planned out. The problem with discussing my future with them is that I don't mind not having my life planned out: I even kind of like it.

But I'm not sure whether I've simply adapted to the uncertainties of pursuing an academic career in the humanities, or whether I have an innate character trait that led me to graduate school in the first place. Is being comfortable with uncertainty a bad thing?

I remember a fellow student in college complaining about the process of writing a paper, and she said that the most terrifying moment was seeing the word "Untitled" at the top of a blank computer document -- especially if she had a 10-page paper due the next day.

For me, seeing "Untitled" has always been a thrilling moment in writing an essay, because at that moment, the possibilities are endless. You could be on the verge of drafting your most inspired argument yet, but as you begin to write, the possibilities start to narrow. With each word, the flow of ideas in your essay is slowly being determined.

In life as well as writing, I savor the "Untitled" moments. The happiest and most exciting times in my life have been those when there have been multiple paths that I might take. Some might attribute that to a lack of direction and focus. I have heard that before.

I was once interviewed by an alumnus of a prestigious university as part of a college application. When I explained my plans to major in English and maybe psychology, he asked what I thought I would do with that degree. I said I wasn't sure; maybe journalism? I didn't know.

I'll never forget the look of disapproval on his face as he lectured me about a friend of his in college who hadn't been sure about his career path then and still, 30 years later, seemed to be "lost." In the end, I know the alumnus didn't give me a positive recommendation because I had to do a second alumni interview before I was accepted to the university.

Was that first guy right about me? Was my love of multiple possibilities a character flaw?

Others might simply call it commitment phobia. Admittedly, I'm a die-hard channel-surfer, I refuse to buy furniture that I can't move or assemble myself, and I can fit my entire wardrobe in one suitcase. Perhaps I was born with wanderlust, but I know that it has become an increasingly defining part of my personality since I began graduate school.

It seems to me that you have to be flexible and resourceful in order to survive graduate school and postgraduate job searching. You have to be willing to relocate wherever there is work, and you have to be willing to live on very little money. The demise of the tenure track is creating a new breed of learned vagabonds, who travel about the country with books in tow, teaching classes here and there in order to survive.

After finishing my Ph.D., I was determined not to become one of those vagabonds. I thought it was time, now that I was in my mid-30s, to give up my childish fascination with uncertainties and set down roots, buy a bed and a set of dishes.

Certainly my friends and family thought so, too. I searched for a permanent position, and since the academic world was not forthcoming, I found work outside of academe. But as soon I began said nonacademic job, I was already starting to apply again for academic positions.

This year I finally got a telephone interview for a one-year position. It was the best job for me that I have seen in the past few years of searching, at least in terms of the subjects I would be teaching. After the interview, however, when I thought that I might have to fly out in a week for an on-campus interview, I realized I was nervous about moving 3,000 miles to a tiny town in an unfamiliar part of the country. But it was only for a year, I assured myself. In the end, the department chose someone else.

Clearly, my relationship with the vagaries of the job market is somewhat ambivalent. Perhaps the key to success on the academic market is simply the ability to adapt. I thought I was adaptable, but maybe I'm not quite adaptable enough.

My ideal "Untitled" situation would be one in which I have a chance to explore my options. On the job market, you have no choice; you're subject to its caprices and whims. And it's difficult to be content when you feel that you have no control over what happens in your life.

Now that my search this year has come to a rather anticlimactic end, as the rejection letters have simply petered out, what are my choices? Ironically, I've realized that the only way to take back control of my career is to do the one thing I wanted to avoid: adjunct teaching.

I miss the academic environment. I miss the creativity that goes into designing a course or preparing a class discussion. I miss the excitement of discovery while doing research and the challenge of unfolding my analysis on paper. I miss doing what I spent years training to do. So I can either remain shut out of the university, or I can return through the back door.

"So what's the plan?"

Don't ask me: I'm still writing. But whatever I write, it will be my choice. And there can't be anything wrong with that.