The Northward Contrail

Busy again

I haven't had time to come up with much for today.  It's been a busy week.  Monday was nice to have, and we relaxed a bit, but the rest of the week has been hectic.  I've had to do a bit of travel, there have been appointments to keep, there has been work to get completed, and very little of it has been compelling. I've had to spend a few hours in the office, much of it doing some fairly tedious paperwork, and it hasn't exactly had me doing handstands.  Sure, I've caught a moment here or there for enjoyment, but there's been enough in this week for me to be glad the weekend's almost here.

See you Monday.

Some things I've learned

In no particular order, some lessons in life I've found out, often the difficult way:

People who claim to have all the answers often don't have a bleedin' clue.

Life is much messier and more complicated than any set of talking points would have you believe.

No matter how carefully you edit, you'll always find an error once the thing has been published.

Sometimes you'll be amazed by the kindness, selflessness and generosity of your fellow humans.  More often, though, you're appalled by the cruelty, selfishness and inhumanity people show not only to each other, but to other creatures.

The quietest folks are often the ones most worth listening to.

The importance of flossing after eating popcorn cannot be overstated.

Statistics will readily make a fool of you.

The Internet is simultaneously the best and worst place to look for information.

Any television show, movie or song you loved in its original form will inevitably spawn a terrible revival or remake.

The empty seat next to you won't be that way when the airplane leaves the gate.

Any time you think humanity is completely kind and good, just read almost any comments section on the Internet.

The world doesn't operate on words like "ought to" or "shoulda." We may use those words, but nature and fate think they're hilarious.

Growing, and pain

When I was working on my master's degree, I had to write a thesis as a capstone project.  I could choose the subject, but it had to pass muster with the committee.  So I went to something I'd been interested in, a subject that combined my interest in aviation with the way it was covered in the press, and from there trying to get some insight into how different forms of media cover complicated technical issues and disasters. 

Well, my first attempt at selling it as a thesis went ka-blooey.  My adviser, who was also the graduate dean, thought it would be too big and too complicated and that I'd have to travel far and wide for my sources.  I got discouraged and down and out about it.  But I didn't give up.  (Remember "stubborn"?)  For a seminar the following semester, I put together a paper-length version of the project as a proof-of-concept vehicle.  It got a good reception from the instructor, so that was sort of an easy way for me to show it had value.  The subject was approved by my committee, and I went forth.

I spent the summer working on that thesis.  I scoured microfilm and microfiche, conducted e-mail interviews with a retired engineer who had particularly valuable insight in the real story, spent hours banging away at the keyboard, stayed up to the wee hours of the morning to the point at which I started to get a little loopy.  Three months later, there was my completed draft.

At this point, I should say something about my thesis committee.  The first member was the instructor for the historical methods course, a very quiet younger gentleman who was fairly easygoing.  The second specialized in statistical studies, and...well, he was lovably quirky. Kelsey Grammer could portray him in the movie.

Then there was the third member.  I'd tried to enlist the help of a professor I particularly liked, but he begged off because he didn't have much of a technological background.  Instead, I went to another professor.  I'd not been taught by him, but I knew him by reputation, and had been referred to him by a friend.  This professor was beloved, but legendarily tough and just a little feared.  He was very cordial to me, even though we'd never met, and agreed to be part of the committee.

When the first draft was ready, the committee took time to review it, and one Friday morning we met in an empty classroom.  I thought I had done a decent job on it.  Well, things went the other way.  Gently, but still.  My historical methods professor didn't have much to say, since he was familiar with the work.  My stat methods professor was encouraging, but wanted more numbers. 

As for the third...well, it was one of the most gentlemanly instances of absolute evisceration I've ever encountered in my life.  Not a single page was left untouched.  He never raised his voice, he never said a cruel word, he never made it personal, but his disappointment was clear, and when the thing was over, I had been reduced to a quivering pile of Jell-O.  If you've seen "All the President's Men" and recall the scene where Ben Bradlee reviews one of Woodward and Bernstein's first Watergate stories, pokes holes in its flaws and orders it buried deep inside the first section, that's about it. I spent the afternoon at my job in the school's photo lab, paging through the required revisions and nursing my pain with vending-machine food.

I took the weekend to get over it, and accepted that the only way around it was through it.  Page by painful page, I made the changes that were requested, or at least most of them.  I did a little reorganization, added a few more statistics where requested.  And, I have to say, the finished product was an awful lot better as a result.  The corrected, improved draft was soon back in their hands.

Later that semester, I had to show up for the defense.  I was nervous.  Was it going to be more of the same?  I found out early on that it wouldn't be.  I'd made the changes they wanted, and it turned out they were happy with it.  They just wanted to ask me the usual closeout questions about my sources, what I'd learned, and all that kind of thing.  And when it was done, who was the first to congratulate me?  The same professor who, months before, had reduced me to gelatin.  He was now smiling warmly, congratulating me.  Talk about feeling like I'd earned something special.

Even though I was finishing my master's degree, I had already begun my doctoral work, so I was going to be around at least another semester.  My adviser requested a meeting with me one afternoon.  The reason?  That professor wanted me as his graduate assistant.  Normally, he only hired students who had taken his courses as undergraduates.  But he liked my writing, in spite of its flaws (he's the first person who's ever referred to me as "a stylist," which I thought was neat).  And he wanted me to be his assistant.

I served him as best I could the following semester.  I can only say it was an honor and a privilege, and that in those three months I learned more about teaching by watching him than I could have from three years of education courses. 

None of it would have happened had things not gone the way they did.  It was painful, but well worth it.

The devil you know

I figure it's been five years and the statute of limitations is now up on it, so I'll tell this story.

In the Spring of 2005, I didn't know where things were headed with my job.  A few months before, I'd gotten results of my three-year review, and it hadn't gone well.  Making matters worse was that our academic dean, who had been kind and patient through my many mis-steps, was retiring.  There had been a close call several months before when we all thought we'd be drafted into working on something that just wouldn't have worked out.  There were also these ongoing rumors about the college's financial health.  Things were at the point at which I wondered: were better opportunities out there?  Could I make more somewhere else, or would I have to take that second job tending bar at P.J. Calamity's?  Could I get the chance to be an official, full-fledged department chair on a permanent basis?  Could I get on at a place where I wouldn't have to worry about if it would still be there next year?

Back then I used to keep a job search going through the Chronicle of Higher Education's e-mail service.  One day, I saw a listing for a department chair position at one of the local two-year colleges.  While there was no journalism program, I did complete a cognate in history and was qualified to teach in the discipline, and I had also taught Speech courses.  There was plenty enough overlap.  So I applied, put as much polish on my qualifications as I could, and sent in the application.

A couple months later, I got a phone call.  They wanted to schedule an interview.  I shuffled a few things, found the next good date, and confirmed it with them.  Later they called back.  Did I want a hotel room for the night?  Well, it was enough of a drive and the festivities started early enough in the morning that it wasn't a bad idea.  (Plus, I mean, I'm a sucker for free lodging.)  So I took them up on it.

I should have known things weren't going to go so well when I showed up for check-in and found out the room hadn't been paid for.  My tour guide, one of the professors in the department, had given me his phone number, and they called him and squared it up.  He had told me he'd be by at 6:30 to pick me up, show me around town a bit, and then we'd meet the rest of the faculty for dinner.  And that's how it went.  It was a nice dinner.  The guy showed me around downtown, and I think he was a little chastened when I gently told him I was very familiar with the town, since I'd spent three years there during graduate school.

An excellent night's sleep later, I shoved off for the interview.  The college at which I was interviewing had two campuses, one for each side of town.  The one on the other side of town was where I was headed for the first part; it was to meet the academic dean, get a tour and meet a few folks, and then we'd go to the other campus for the interview itself.  This much of it went well.  The dean and I hit it off, and he couldn't have been nicer to me.

We then adjourned to the other side of town, where most of the faculty worked.  I got a tour, and then a department chair from another department took me to lunch.  The rationale was for her to give me a candid idea of what it's like to be a chair at this institution, and during lunch I asked her a lot of questions.  I started to think that maybe this wasn't such a bad gig, and I started to daydream just a little.

Then came the interview.  I was asked to teach a brief sample class, and that part of it went well (teaching the introductory part of screenwriting is always a good fallback for a quick lecture).  But the question-and-answer session...well, I bungled it in a couple places.  I went on through the interview, trying to do my best.  But I was starting to notice some things about my potential subordinates that, well, didn't really make me that comfortable.  There was a little bit of Very Serious Indeed in the air.  One faculty member, I thought she was just plain cool.  The rest...I could see the potential for clashes.  They got earnest at times.  After the interview, there was a little drop-in with finger food as a "thank you" for me, but by that point, the air was out of the balloon.

(Oh, and the kicker: At the end of the interview, I lost my sunglasses.  I went back to try to get them, but the room had been locked.  By the way, did I mention the interview took place on April 1?)

I drove home that afternoon trying to rationalize it.  I'd gone to an interview, been treated as a guest, got a free night and some good food out of it.  And, really, that was about it.  I kept my options open, and wrote thank-you notes to everyone at the technical college who had been a part of my visit.  I didn't want to burn any opportunities, because you never know what could happen.  The greatest job offer in your life could potentially come, right?  So be polite and professional.

But by the time I arrived home, I had pretty much decided that if it came down to a choice, I really wanted to stay where I was.  I already had a good job.  I knew my way around the place.  I was comfortable with my students.  I liked my work, and I enjoyed the freedom I had to innovate.  I liked my colleagues' relative lack of ego.  I even came to realize that not being a department chair was actually a pretty good thing, since the headaches of command often outweigh whatever prestige comes with it.

As it happened, the decision was made for me, and a letter came a couple months later informing me they'd decided to move on to another round of candidates.  That was fine.  I signed on for another year where I was, took the bad with the good, and things worked out okay.

It's now five years after that interview.  I'm still at the same college.  I'm now tenured and one of the more senior faculty members.  I still have the same small, comfortable academic department, still working with folks who, for the most part, check their egos when it comes time to get things done.  I work with wonderful students, have been trusted with some sensitive tasks by the higher-ups, have served in a critical position or two, and have even won an award that was an unexpected surprise and a great, great honor.  It's not been a bad ride at all, and I have never had a moment's regret about staying there.

What if I'd been offered the other job, and taken it?  Who knows?  I could have set the world on fire and have built my own little empire, and maybe now I'd be leaving Gulfstream IVs as tips for waiters. Or maybe I'd be out of a job due to budget cuts or my own bungling.  Or, just perhaps, I'd be in prison for having taken a six-iron to one of my faculty members.

But none of that matters.  It turned out the way it was supposed to. There may be a danger in saying that the place you work is the place where you feel you belong, but even on its bad days, the job I now have feels like  a job that was made for me.  And, unless something really weird happens, I don't think I want to tinker with that.

A Memorial Day prayer

From Norman Corwin's "On a Note of Triumph":

Lord God of trajectory and blast
Whose terrible sword has laid open the serpent
So it withers in the sun for the just to see,
Sheathe now the swift avenging blade with the names of nations writ on it,
And assist in the preparation of the ploughshare.

Lord God of fresh bread and tranquil mornings,
Who walks in the circuit of heaven among the worthy,
Deliver notice to the fallen young men
That tokens of orange juice and a whole egg appear now before the hungry children;
That night again falls cooling on the earth as quietly as when it leaves your hand;
That Freedom has withstood the tyrant like a Malta in a hostile sea,
And that the soul of man is surely a Sevastopol which goes down hard and leaps from ruin quickly.

Lord God of the topcoat and the living wage
Who has furred the fox against the time of winter
And stored provender of bees in summer's brightest places,
Do bring sweet influences to bear upon the assembly line:
Accept the smoke of the milltown among the accredited clouds of the sky:
Fend from the wind with a house and hedge, him whom you made in your image,
And permit him to pick of the tree and the flock
That he may eat today without fear of tomorrow
And clothe himself with dignity in December.

Lord God of test-tube and blueprint
Who jointed molecules of dust and shook them till their name was Adam,
Who taught worms and stars how they could live together,
Appear now among the parliaments of conquerors and give instruction to their schemes:
Measure out new liberties so none shall suffer for his father's color or the credo of his choice:
Post proofs that brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those who profit by postponing it pretend:
Sit at the treaty table and convoy the hopes of the little peoples through expected straits,
And press into the final seal a sign that peace will come for longer than posterities can see ahead,
That man unto his fellow man shall be a friend forever.

(Thanks to Transom.org for the text.)

From Norman Corwin's "On a Note of Triumph":

Lord God of trajectory and blast
Whose terrible sword has laid open the serpent
So it withers in the sun for the just to see,
Sheathe now the swift avenging blade with the names of nations writ on it,
And assist in the preparation of the ploughshare.

Lord God of fresh bread and tranquil mornings,
Who walks in the circuit of heaven among the worthy,
Deliver notice to the fallen young men
That tokens of orange juice and a whole egg appear now before the hungry children;
That night again falls cooling on the earth as quietly as when it leaves your hand;
That Freedom has withstood the tyrant like a Malta in a hostile sea,
And that the soul of man is surely a Sevastopol which goes down hard and leaps from ruin quickly.

Lord God of the topcoat and the living wage
Who has furred the fox against the time of winter
And stored provender of bees in summer's brightest places,
Do bring sweet influences to bear upon the assembly line:
Accept the smoke of the milltown among the accredited clouds of the sky:
Fend from the wind with a house and hedge, him whom you made in your image,
And permit him to pick of the tree and the flock
That he may eat today without fear of tomorrow
And clothe himself with dignity in December.

Lord God of test-tube and blueprint
Who jointed molecules of dust and shook them till their name was Adam,
Who taught worms and stars how they could live together,
Appear now among the parliaments of conquerors and give instruction to their schemes:
Measure out new liberties so none shall suffer for his father's color or the credo of his choice:
Post proofs that brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those who profit by postponing it pretend:
Sit at the treaty table and convoy the hopes of the little peoples through expected straits,
And press into the final seal a sign that peace will come for longer than posterities can see ahead,
That man unto his fellow man shall be a friend forever.

(Thanks to Transom.org for the text.)