Who Says There Are No Jobs? Pish-Tosh!

Do you ever casually look for jobs on-line? I do. Usually when I am supposed to be grading or completing some other tedious task that is the bread-and-butter of my work as a tenured professor. I sometimes even apply for the jobs I find, but I have only been mildly successful at that pursuit, and never in a life-changing way -- a nibble here, a nibble there ("Finish your book, stupid," they write back on a postcard. "Oh yeah, right, I forgot" I say, and paste it in my scrapbook of Futile Acts.) But as I take little breaks from writing letters of recommendation so that many of my favorite students can go to graduate school and also worry about being jobless, I have been checking the listings and see if the economy has affected the market or that American Studies job at the University of Hawaii has opened up yet.

Of course, it's always 1933 when it comes to jobs in United States history or American Studies, isn't it? Yes, these are more popular fields than Renaissance Poland or Enlightenment Corsica, but there do seem to be fewer jobs than normal. OK, move to Tier Two: the creative job application.

This is how it works. For example, I have always wanted to work for UCLA, but if there were a job there in history I would never get it because someone in that department once fired my sorry ass, and she is the kind of person who holds a grudge. So how much better to apply for a tenure-track job in economics? My enemy would never find me there, guaranteed. And I bet I could also give it a good shot as chair of the English Department at the University of Minnesota: with all that course relief, I bet I wouldn't have to teach so many courses -- and have you heard of the New Historicism? I mean -- HELLO!? If Minneapolis is too chilly for the Radical household, a quick look at H-Net shows that there are an astonishing number of positions available in Qatar. I'm also happy to say that Zayed University in Dubai is hiring in history, as is New York University's campus in the United Arab Emirates. Or how about Professor of American Studies at Keimyung University in Daegu, South Korea's third largest city! This job is made for me. First of all, they do not want anyone Korean (qualified.) Second, their ideal candidate is "a talented and enthusiastic faculty member who will actively and passionately lead students in advancing their knowledge of English." That's what I already do! Except I would be a lot closer geographically to Kim-Jong-il, and that would worry me a lot.

But here's a good one, and it is totally local: Director of Alcohol and Drug Initiatives at Yale. That's a job that keeps a person stateside, without spending vast sums on sunscreen or wool hats, and I would never have to write a letter of recommendation again, nor teach Engllish (hell, they are so plastered, they don't even understand English!) But in trying to control undergraduate drinking anywhere, I would worry about acquiring a sense of futility about my work. Wouldn't you?

Ah well. Back to grading.

In Every Cloud A Silver Lining

I thought today was going to be a crappy day. Not only did I not get the New York TImes for the second day this week, but instead of the Old Grey Lady I received instead a copy of that excrescence otherwise known as our corporate-owned "local" newspaper. Then my car almost got towed (as we have not yet renewed our neighborhood parking sticker) except that I ripped out to the sidewalk, partially dressed, and got it started before it was hooked up to the truck. Then the lawnmower broke, so half the lawn is sticking up at crazy angles and the other half looks like a neat little Marine.

But things are getting better. I have just been notified by Fiona King, of Online University Reviews that the Tenured Radical has been named one of the top 100 blogs written by liberal arts professors.

Since I have just been roaring around the house complaining that I can't get to work, I'm going to make this short, but let me say that it has been a bumpy but pleasurable ride in the past eighteen months, and I look forward to the future. Thanks, Fiona.

Random Thoughts to Fill the Time Before Writing (But Not Too Much Time Or Today Will Be Just LIke Yesterday And No Writing Will Be Done At All)

One of my favorite writing books is Ann LaMott's "Bird By Bird: Random Thoughts on Writing and Life." I like it in part because she is so forgiving of the many things we all do to avoid writing that she actually incorporates them into the writing process. For example, cleaning your desk and eating lunch. I also like it because it is clear from reading the book that she procrastinates mightily and yet still publishes a great deal. She doesn't publish as much as Robert B. Parker or Stephen Ambrose, but she finishes enough books and articles on a regular enough basis that she actually has a lunch to eat from money she earned writing. Of course, part of what allows academics to procrastinate is that we get paid whether we write or not, and I at least am constantly being served lunch at the various meetings I attend. OK, maybe the free lunch stops that you procrastinate right into the sixth or seventh year of your appointment as an assistant professor, but *you know what I mean.*

As part of today's writing, therefore, I have compiled a list of additional activities that can, in my experience, usefully be worked into the writing routine.

1. Paying the bills. How can you write if you fear that the telephone company might cancel your account any minute?

2. Sorting accumulated mail. There might be bills to pay in there, and all the unsolicited offers for credit cards and home equity loans have to be shredded to avoid identity theft. You don't want identity theft, do you? I thought not.

3. Drive to Staples and buy shredder. Win brownie points by sticking head in door of partner's office and asking if *she* could use anything at Staples.

4. Sort books waiting to be read that are sitting in piles in the study. Which books are for a project you wanted to do five or six years ago, but which never panned out? Get rid of them, either by selling at the handy-dandy used book store downtown or returning to the library, whichever seems appropriate.

5. Spend money earned from books on a nice lunch.

6. Do the five things your accountant needs you to do in order to file your taxes on time. You do want to file your taxes on time, since if you don't the whole house of cards might crumble. It's too awful to think about.

7. Go through email inbox to discard messages already answered or messages so old even you can't imagine answering them at this point.

8. Go to this procrastination website.

9. Send check from the Village Voice to Vanguard Roth IRA account, and calculate compound interest so that you know this modest check will actually be worth six times as much when you draw it out at age seventy.

10. Read this month's Women's Review of Books, paying particular attention to a fabulous cartoon about blogging, in which the blogger loses her job because she can't stop blogging..............