The terminal degree is the one that kills you

Today I sat in a meeting, looking out the window at an old cherry tree covered in white blossoms, and wondered if I'm going to survive this dissertation... I want to use the word fiasco. Debacle. Nightmare. Train wreck. I'm beginning to understand the true meaning of the phrase terminal degree. The terminal degree is the one that makes you stronger—unless it kills you first.

Now I see that earning a doctorate is not about acquiring knowledge, or even about honing researching and writing skills. I've written hundreds of papers, large and small, and read a thousand articles by hundreds of scholars. I've forgotten 90% of the knowledge I gained, and, six years into this journey, 99% of everything I studied is obsolete anyway, replaced by new theories and technologies. What will I have when I finish this degree? A smattering of mostly useless knowledge, the ability to research a topic and write about it... Is that all there is? Is that all I've learned after six years and $42,000?

No, I've learned something else of value. Pursuing a doctorate is not about learning a subject; it is about developing survival skills. That sounds melodramatic, doesn't it? What kinds of dangers could possibly threaten a doctoral candidate? It's not like I'm lost in the woods. I'm not talking about bears, lions, or escaped felons. The dangers that threaten me are the internal monsters that lurk in my mind: boredom, doubt, anguish, impatience, resentment, and despair, to name a few. I'm sure there are more. On a good day, my mind is trying to kill me. Pursuing a doctoral degree is like giving my internal saboteur a grenade launcher and hanging a target on my back.

Now I understand why so few people do this. How did they know, I wonder? How come I didn't get that memo? Why did I think I could do this? Why did I think this was going to be a good idea? What a complete and utter delusion. Don't tell my mother I said that. My promise to her is pretty much the only thing that keeps me going.

Survival skills for me consist of going to meetings, showing up for work, writing this blog, telling the truth (at least to myself), drinking water and eating clean food, cuddling my cat, and staying in the moment. When things get really tough, there's always hot baths and Janet Evanovich or Kresley Cole.

Maybe I'm not completely passionate about my dissertation topic. So what. I can survive boredom as long as I've got a paperback to dive into. Maybe I get impatient that this committee process isn't more efficient, maybe I get resentful at times at having to wait for flakes and incompetents (my opinion). Maybe I do despair at times. So what. A large percentage of the human population would be quite happy to trade places with me. I'm not so self-centered that I don't recognize that what I have is a luxury problem. Lucky me.

Abolish the fences: give me your tired, your poor...

We have an abundance of fresh water here in the Pacific Northwest. Right now, as the meteorologists proclaim the wettest month on record and rivers and streams are flooding, it's hard to imagine there are places on the planet that hardly have any rainfall. Ever. If I lived there, I'd try to get here.

Which inspires me to wonder what it would be like if people were allowed to move freely about the surface of the earth. I sometimes wish there were no fences, walls, or boundaries, that people could be free to come and go as they please. With only natural boundaries to hinder them, would most people eventually wander to the temperate zones, where usually there is enough water, where usually the land is arable, where usually the weather is not out to kill you? Political boundaries are imaginary. What if we all imagined them gone? Well, I guess even though they are man-made, not natural, they are real enough to get you killed or imprisoned if you crossed one, even accidentally. So maybe my imagination has a death wish.

When I am lucky enough to teach Verbal Communication, there are usually a half-dozen or so students in the class. I often assign a group exercise in which the class must work together to choose a topic of vital concern to the entire world, propose a solution, and present it to the audience (me and anyone else I can wrangle). The topics usually are environmentally related, but one particularly memorable class stands out in my mind. As I recall, there were three young male criminal justice students in this group. Two of them I was rather fond of: we instructors called them Frick and Frack, two oddballs that became friends by reason of close proximity. The third was loud, opinionated, and oddly charismatic, despite his buzz cut and security guard uniform.

The students chose the topic of illegal immigration. Their contention was that illegal immigrants were taking over America. Their solution: build a 30-foot tall, 30-foot deep fence along the entire border between the U.S. and Mexico.

One of the things I try to teach students in Verbal Communication is to know the audience. If they had taken time to ask, they would have discovered that I am probably the only person in the U.S. in favor of immigration. I support everyone who seeks a better life for their families, as long as they abide by basic principles of human kindness and decency. This group of students failed to ask me my views, and so I was regaled with a litany of selectively chosen and obviously mangled facts, ethnic stereotyping, and offensive recommendations. I sat there and took it. I focused on the delivery, not the message, not the messengers. I listened. And I felt sick.

Truthfully, even if they had asked, and had I been brave enough to answer, they would probably have done their best to convince me that my position was untenable, if not downright insane, and that, after listening to their presentation, I would be persuaded to change my humanistic beliefs for something a little less humanistic. But more American.

You could say I'm not a very good American. I don't fly the flag on holidays. After September 11, I didn't put little flags on the four corners of my Honda CRX and prowl the streets like an embassy diplomat. I don't go to parades, baseball games, or eat apple pie. Don't misunderstand me: I am glad I was born here rather than the Ukraine, Afghanistan, or Somalia. It was just blind chance, though. A geographical blip that put me here rather than there. I don't take my good fortune for granted. (Although I wouldn't mind a little less rain.)

Rather than patriotically proclaiming my fortunate status as an American, I favor the moniker global citizen. Is there a flag? I would put it in my window if there was one. Citizen of the Planet Earth. When the day comes that we have colonies on the moon and Mars, and those colonies rise up, fighting to be free from Earth's evil tyranny, I suppose I'll be required to fly that flag. Or emigrate to the colonies.

I know I'm just barking out my butt on this one. If you knew where I lived, you'd probably have to kill me. Can I claim in my defense that I read too much science fiction? Well, it really doesn't matter, does it? We're all going to hell in a hand-basket sooner or later, if we don't stop destroying our habitat. And in terms of geological time, my life is a speck. In another earth breath, in another earth heartbeat, I'll be dead and forgotten.

My life is the unfolding result of many small decisions

I went on an adventure this evening to downtown Portland. I seldom go downtown, although I used to spend a lot of time there. I went to Portland State University from 1974-1977. For a few months I lived in an old former hotel, the Marabba West student housing building (long since demolished), until I got mono and had to move back home. I loved being 19 and living in downtown Portland.

Tonight the city looked clean and new. I took the bus there and back, and marveled at the efficient transit mall with its light rail and streetcar tracks, part of the transportation web that connects the burbs to the core. The air was fresh. The rain was warm. The people kept their distance. I didn't get run over by an errant taxi, nor did I get accosted or shot at, and I managed to escape being pinned by a fallen tree. All in all, it was an excellent adventure.

Small decisions create my life. All the choices I've made are strung out behind me like fake pearls on a string, a trail of crossroad moments in which I chose a path and blazed a new step into the unknown future. I can look behind me and see the wreckage that got me to this moment. Where the path goes from here is anyone's guess. Actually, anyone else's guess is probably worth more than my guess. I see the path going over the side of a cliff into the swamp I fondly call You Fail At Life.

It just occurred to me, if I really cared about building traffic to this blog, I would probably write a different blog title. Something to bring people in and keep them here. Maybe something like, "How an introvert can live in an extroverted world." No, that's lame and impossible, how about, "How to be a natural woman." That would bring in some eyeballs, I bet. Except I have no idea what the post would be about. No, I know: "The secret to making a hundred and twenty dollars and fifty-three cents writing a blog about nothing." I'll try that on the next post.

Speaking of many small decisions, every day I check my NCU email for some sign that my chairperson is still alive, that I haven't been abandoned in dissertation limbo. Yesterday marked the end of the two week period the committee has to review my concept paper and give me feedback. I sent an email to my chairperson to that effect. I always copy myself on the emails so it looks like something is happening, even though it is just me sending emails to myself. At least I know the email system is working.

And suddenly, there it is. Between the last paragraph and this one, I logged in to the learner portal, and there was a message in the inbox: in the course room, the paper, returned, with comments. For a moment, my heart fluttered. My face flamed hot. I tried to prepare myself for the worst: bad news, lousy concept, inadequate method, stupid learner, hopeless case, give up, abandon ship. I downloaded the file and opened it, skimmed it.... that's it? There are seven comments. No comments on my method, just a few suggestions to make the concept of academic quality more clear. Wow. I'm stunned. I don't know what to think. Could it be that I might actually be allowed to pass this hurdle? The skeptic in me says there must be a catch.

Look, here's another one of those decision points. I'm ready to drive off the cliff into the swamp, even though it looks like I just received good news. The chronic malcontent has the last word.

Dissertation limbo and a diatribe about the Gainful Employment rule

My dissertation chair forwarded me a short, but positive comment about my concept paper from someone on my committee: "I found this easy to read and follow." That seems like good feedback, right? I'm delighted she found my paper easy to read and follow; however, what I really want from her is a thumbs-up on my concept. Does the fact that she found my paper easy to read and follow mean that she approves it? Or is there a big HOWEVER coming my way, followed by the dreaded PLEASE RESUBMIT?

Don't misunderstand me. I'm grateful. It was nice of my chair, after two weeks, to flip me this little crumb. I think the mentors and chairs have a finely developed sense of how long they can keep a student waiting for feedback before the student complains to the advisor. According to the syllabus, they have two weeks to turn around my submission. The longer they can keep me on the hook, waiting, the longer this course will take, and the more money they and the school will make.

Northcentral University is a regionally accredited online university. Regional accreditation is the highest accreditation an institution can earn. However, the fact that the institution is fully online is a red flag to many people. (How good can the education be if the students never interact in person or even in synchronous real time with each other or the professor?) NCU is also a for-profit corporation. I have some experience with the for-profit higher education world. Besides "attending" a for-profit university, I work for a for-profit career college. I often think about the uneasy tension between academic rigor and the profit motive.

When I look around our campus (three floors in a pumpkin colored rented office building surrounded by a busy retail hub the size of a small city), I see shabby carpets, old whiteboards, shoddy chairs, out-dated dilapidated textbooks, and weary instructors. The energy of former days is long gone. We don't offer the latest computer simulated learning environments. We don't have smartboards and projectors built into every classroom. Even our toilets don't work. I know we are losing money now, but at one point, our parking lot was bursting with cars, our hallways were bustling with students. Where did the money go?

I have mixed feelings about the new Gainful Employment rule recently adopted by the Department of Education. (The rule is designed to protect consumers and taxpayers from the predatory practices of for-profit institutions.) I want students to be recruited by honest admissions representatives. I want students to be presented with meaningful and challenging learning opportunities. I want students to have successful outcomes: graduation, employment in their fields, and the ability to pay back their student loans. I want all that for them, and if legislation is the way to "encourage" for-profit institutions to provide it, then I am in favor of it. And if institutions are not able to meet the new standards, then they should be encouraged to change or to close their underperforming programs.

But it's my job we are talking about. As a former artist and consummate under-earner, I fear joblessness more than just about anything. Even though sometimes I think calling myself a teacher is a gross misnomer, I don't have the integrity to quit my job quite yet. Maybe after I finish this Ph.D. Although at the rate I am going, it isn't likely to happen soon.

The 14th day will be tomorrow.

If it's not one thing, it's another

I'm enjoying how smartly the water swirls down the drain of my kitchen sink, newly reopened thanks to landlord George's relentless assault on the basement pipes. In my previous post I described some of the unclogging process. What stuck with me, though, was the off-hand question I posed to George while I was sitting at my kitchen table, sipping my cold tea and watching him laboring under the sink.

"How well do you think this place would do in an earthquake?"

I live in a 1940s wooden, flat-topped triplex. Like an old lady removing her girdle after a hard decade, this place has settled. Despite a new coat of taupe paint and snazzy blue doors, the place is definitely showing signs of wear. The aluminum-framed windows, added in an upgrade, are etched with condensation that has been trapped between the panes. The windows that raise vertically are off their tracks. They have two states: open or closed. I open them once in the Spring and close them once in the Fall. During the winter, I tape clear plastic to the inside of the window frames to help keep out the east wind.

George's response was not exactly reassuring. "About as well as any other building in the neighborhood," he said. Apparently, it's not a question of if, but when. Portland sits on some recently discovered fault lines, and the granddaddy of local fault lines, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, lies 84 km off shore. According to geologists, we have a 10-14% chance of a large earthquake in the next 50 years. Portland's infrastructure will be critically damaged, destroying our local economy. What they mean is, all the bridges spanning the Willamette River will crumble. The on-ramps to bridges and freeways will crack apart and fall down. All the brick schools and public buildings built before about 1990 will shake to pieces. The city will basically be destroyed. I was in Los Angeles in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. This will be worse.

But this hill I live on probably won't move. This building sits on the shoulder of an extinct volcano. No worries. I will probably survive if I'm at home. Then again, the foundation is marbled with cracks, some serious. If there were an earthquake, it's possible my unit would end up in the basement. Maybe I should get a tent and a propane stove in case I have to camp out in the park. But what about my cat? Argh. This is starting to feel rather dreary.

It's possible I won't be at home when the earthquake hits. I could be at my mother's. I could be at work. I could be driving across the Fremont Bridge. (Game over.) I could be visiting my brother who lives in Seaside. We will have 15 minutes to evacuate to higher ground.

There's no point in worrying, is there? Experts can't predict when it will happen. But there is a point in trying to be prepared. Am I prepared? Not hardly. I have some tuna fish, some cat food, and a package of toilet paper. It will be a long time before someone comes to rescue me. I guess I'll be getting to know my neighbors.

The archaeological wonderland under my kitchen sink

Loud noises are coming from the basement under the Love Shack (the 1940s triplex I live in). A minute ago, the landlord George pounded on my door and cautioned me not to run the water into my kitchen sink, which has been well and truly clogged since last week (see previous rant). Now he is in the basement banging on the pipes. I'm hoping today he will be able to remove the clog, although I fear that it will take more than pipe-banging to do it.

The clog-busting endeavor began on Thursday. George interrupted my after-work nap. He's an middle-aged white-haired guy, but I imagine his work as a contractor keeps him fit. He looked pretty svelte in his loose faded jeans, old mud-colored wool sweater, and hiking boots. He hesitated a split second on the threshold, eyeing my carpet. Then he strode past me toward the kitchen. In that tiny moment he had discerned that I am house-keeping-challenged and walking on my rug with dirty boots would not be an issue.

He took command. First he ran water into the sink. Within seconds the sink was filling. We stood and watched as the water swirled around and came to a calm standstill. Nope, definitely not draining. He stabbed a plumber's helper over the drain and leaned into it, shooting water all over the kitchen. I stepped back. When he stopped, I moved back in, and we peered at the water. Still not draining.

"Do you have a bucket?" he asked me. I quickly provided a cheap blue bucket, which he placed under the drain. While I hovered nearby, George contorted his middle-aged body in front of the under-sink cabinet and began to unscrew the pipes under the drain. Water went in the bucket. Wow. What a pro.

He took apart the pipes. We were both hoping to see one easily-removable clog of cat hair, olive oil, and dirt, stuck in the curved part of the pipe. Well, I know I was. But no, the pipes were all clear. I could see his shoulders deflate a little.

He went out to his truck and brought in a coil of metal rope: a snake. On one end was a little whisk device, presumably intended to scrape the muck off the sides of the pipes. There was some kind of a sliding gizmo that he could tighten and untighten as he forced the metal rope into the hole in the wall. Donning rubberized gloves, he shoved the metal rope into the hole, twisting it with his hands, grunting with the effort. After a couple minutes, he took off his pullover sweater and handed it to me. "Now I see why plumbers get paid the big bucks," I said.

He worked the snake into the hole, but I could tell it was slow going. "I can't get it past the bend by the floor," he said. He didn't sound angry or frustrated. He sounded like a scientist working on a challenging experiment.

He yanked on the snake, bringing out blobs of gloppy brown muck. We contemplated the blobs. He poked at one with a screwdriver. "Looks like hair," he said. I thought of my constantly shedding cat and grimaced. "I try so hard to keep stuff out of the drain," I whined.

He went out the back door to the basement, leaving a pile of tools, the snake, and glops of goopy brown gook around the sink, the counter, and on my handwoven Ikea rag rug. After a couple minutes, I heard a loud ratchety sound. "Yay," I said to myself. "He's brought in the power tools." I hovered around the sink, waiting for a miracle. Suddenly the water rushed down the drain. Success!

I trotted down the steps to the basement to tell George the good news and saw that he had cut the drain pipe in half at about eye-level with a cordless chain saw device. Radical solution! There was a spray of water all over the cement wall, across the washer, and on George. That's one way to get the sink to drain, I thought. That would never have occurred to me.

He pulled off one section of the pipe and shone a light into the end. At first, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Around the inside of the pipe was a one-inch layer of gloppy brown muck. Down the center of the entire three foot section of pipe was a tiny opening, maybe a half-inch across: the water channel. "Did I do that?" I asked in awe. George shook his head. "Fifty years of grease did that." Whew. I felt a little like an archaeologist looking at the remnants of a long-dead civilization. I bet they cooked with lard, I thought with smug superiority. How primitive!

He didn't have the supplies to finish the job on Thursday. He replaced the pipes under my sink with lovely new white plastic tubes, but told me not to run much water, because the pipes in the basement were clogged and needed to be replaced. Yesterday I became ultra conscious of how much water I use. I toted dirty dish water and vegetable rinse water in my little blue bucket the fifteen steps from the kitchen to the bathtub, and thought about people who walked miles carrying their drinking water back to their villages. My little personal plumbing problem pales in comparison.

At a little after noon today I went to a meeting and when I returned, George was gone. My drain is now unclogged. The secret life of plumbing is once again hidden from view. Life goes on. I washed some carrots for my salad, thinking that the next fifty years of cat hair, olive oil, and carrot shavings begins today, something for the next tenant to contemplate when I'm long gone.

Down the rabbit hole: What happens when you go off the food plan

Today I met my colleague and now friend for tea and talk. Let's call her Braceletta, no, how about Bravadita. It is hard to choose a pseudonym for her: she's a subtle soul, deep with winding turns like a Colorado desert canyon. Brava and I met in a tall light-filled cafe and talked about our blogs, our half-written and non-existent writing projects, and our dreams for our creative futures.

I put a tablespoon of half-and-half in the bottom of my tea cup, and poured in the Morning Sunrise tea. Or was it Mountain Sunrise, I can't remember. It sure gave me the jitters, though. Great stuff. We talked for three hours. The time went by in a blink. I wish I had taken notes. We were in the meta mode, where the moment seems like a work of art. The intermittent sunlight, her oatmeal scarf, my delicately flavored tea, my too-tight jeans, her big brown eyes... it felt like we were in a painting. Or a documentary about artists who were talking about making a documentary about artists who... Or a sitcom, minus the laugh track.

When I got home, I cooked and ate breakfast, the usual four eggs and pile of gelatinous onion, zucchini, and beet greens. The combination of food at an unusual hour and that little bit of dairy put me into a drugged fugue. Despite the sunshine and my compulsion to update my blog, I went to bed and slept for two hot, hazy hours. I dreamed the silly things you dream when you are too hot: finding shoes that turn into skateboards, driving roads that change in mid-block and toss you into a new unfamiliar neighborhood, walking on the top deck of the Marquam Bridge, you know, the usual.

Was I drugged by dairy or overwhelmed by the roaring creative demon inside me? Much easier to blame the half-and-half than admit that I was prostrated by the pressure of my creativity. It's not a muse sometimes; it's a monster.

It's so much easier to listen while Brava bemoans her creative blocks. It is easier to offer lame solutions to help her bring her art to life than it is to actually sit down and bring my own art to life. Why is that? When I'm too busy to work at my art, all I do is dream about what I will do when I finally have time. Then when I finally have time, I do nothing. Now, while I'm waiting to find out if my dissertation concept has been approved, is a perfect time to write and make art. And what am I doing? Updating this stupid blog. Again.

I often say I'm a dreamer, not a doer, but watching myself ignore my creativity is like watching the self-centered parent ignore the demanding child. Ignore her one too many times and she becomes a serial killer.

One of my former sponsors would suggest I get over myself. Get a life and live it, Carol. The world doesn't care about my angst. Nor does it treat dreamers kindly, not when they are 55, female, and chronically malcontented. People expect artists and writers to make art and write. Otherwise, why not just call us what we are: bums, wannabes, and whiners. I'm going to peruse my vast library of silly drawings to find one to go with this post, and then I'm going to use the rest of the evening to work on one of my many unfinished writing projects. Progress, not perfection. Here's to us, Brava, the few, the proud, the creatively challenged.

How do we evaluate the value of a college education?

The thought-provoking subject of NPR's Talk of the Nation radio program today was an all-too-brief exploration of the challenge of using standardized tests to measure college student outcomes, which we presume are indicators of academic quality. The three guests on the program discussed the difficulty of designing tests to measure qualities like critical thinking skills, communication skills, and reasoning skills.

The discussion echoed concerns I often feel as I study the topic of higher education academic quality. As I listened, it occurred to me that before designing methods to evaluate quality, we need to spend some time defining quality. Many definitions of higher education quality have been proposed; however, the panorama of higher education includes diverse institutions, each with a unique mission, purpose, and definition of acceptable student outcomes. In other words, agreement on a definition of quality is unlikely if not impossible.

A popular conception of academic quality in the U.S. views quality in terms of fitness for purpose. Quality assessment objectives are evaluated based on how well the institution meets its stated purposes, as described by its mission and institutional objectives. To see this in action, review a school's mission statement for clues to understanding how the school defines quality. For example, one local career college promises to be "uncompromisingly dedicated to helping people improve their lives through high-quality, college-level, career education." The purpose of education at this institution can be found in the word "career."  Because education at this school is all about job placement, success or failure can be measured in terms of job placement rates.

But wait. Is it possible there is more to a college education than just obtaining employment after graduation? Before we can define quality we need agreement on the purposes of a college education. What is a college education for, anyway? Is it solely to provide practical job skills, such as computer literacy or high-temperature welding? Is it to teach those difficult-to-measure skills like critical thinking, communication, and reasoning? Is it to do both? Can a college education do both?

The U.S. Department of Education has decreed in its recent Gainful Employment Debt Measures rule that academic quality in higher education consists of providing value to consumers and taxpayers by meeting minimum standards: students graduate, students get jobs, students pay back their student loans. Considering that taxpayer dollars subsidize public institutions in the form of grants and for-profit institutions in the form of access to student loan funding, it should not be surprising that the government wants to ensure institutions are in compliance with these standards. The DOE has enlisted the accrediting agencies to motivate compliance. Compliance is the new buzzword at career colleges, where great sums of money are spent paying people to figure out how to comply with government regulations.

Another definition of quality would have us measuring how well we meet the needs of the students—the so-called customer satisfaction model. Anyone who thinks that buying an education is similar to buying a toaster has been shopping online at the diploma mills. Student evaluations of instructors and programs are collected every term at at least one career college I know of. Faculty live or die by these evaluations. Are students really the best judge of academic quality? The instructors who are "nice" and "easy" get higher evaluations from students. Does that mean these instructors provide better academic quality? Probably not.

The radio show got me thinking. I've barely scratched the surface of a deep, vast topic. I felt like I had something to add to the radio conversation today, but I would never be brave enough to call in to TOTN. The mere thought of speaking to Neal Conan in person sends me into a hot flash. He's like the Tom Jones of talk radio. So I sent an email. Of course, it wasn't read on the air, but I felt a bit more like a valuable contributor for having sent it.

Eat, poop, complain: the chronic malcontent shares again

Spring is here, but you wouldn't know it. Typical Pacific Northwest spring. Snow, hail, rain, wind, and the occasional fleeting sunbreak just to taunt us into leaving the house without an umbrella. Actually true Oregonians don't bother with umbrellas, did you know that? Umbrellas just blow inside out, or get left in cafes and buses. I had a really nice one when I was in college (the first time around), huge and striped yellow, red, blue, and white like a loud golf umbrella, the kind of umbrella that would belong to a golfer who would step right in your line on the green and laugh about it. Left it on the 19 bus, I think, or in the Portland State library. Now I don't bother, who cares, it's just water. On some level, I must deserve to get sopping wet. Otherwise I would drag up and move to Palm Springs.

There is more than just the weather to complain about when one is a chronic malcontent. This week, while I wait for the mysterious committee to reject my concept paper, I'm back to bitching about the basics: I'm female and 55. Need I say more? Every stupid stereotype about aging females is true. I won't dwell on the particulars except to say that I expect to show up to work in the very near future sporting a luxurious mustache on my upper lip. Be sure to watch for that.

More of my life lies behind me than lies in front of me. I'm feeling pretty inadequate. Most people by the time they join AARP can reel off a list of accomplishments: a career, some real estate, an SUV or two, maybe a couple of mostly grown kids, a spouse or two or three, a 401K. Soon, they will be enjoying retirement in a 40-foot Winnebago with their significant other/soulmate, heading for an all-amenities-included campground in Sedona. These people did everything in the right order: college, career and family, then retirement. They zipped through time like a speedboat, crossing the ocean of life in a straight line. They didn't dawdle, they didn't detour. They got the job of working done, and now they get to live the American dream.

I didn't cut through time like a speedboat. My path has been more like an old lumbering wooden trawler, weighed down by barnacles and bottom feeders (AKA my relationships). My career boat wandered from port to port and foundered any number of times trying to steer around the rocks of commitment. Each time I abandoned ship: When you don't have a career, every job is a temp job. When I look back at my wake, I don't see a graceful symmetrical fan spreading out behind me. I see a wobbly, wavering path littered with the flotsam and jetsam of my erratic life.

When I look ahead, the only RV I see in my future is a broken down bus or conversion van, parked in some  dusty campground where it ran out of gas. Actually, as long as it is warm and dry, that doesn't sound too bad.

Organized religions are marketing machines run by hucksters seeking market share

My last post probably sounded like I was softening up. Do I sound malcontented now? I am beyond malcontented. I'll tell you why, not that you care. I'm past malcontented, verging on infuriated. My Internet connection evaporated 20 minutes after it started snowing, and has been cutting in and out every few minutes ever since. I'll probably be cut off before I finish this post. Even after Century Link came to my house on a Sunday to hook me back up, I'm still disconnected. Argh.

If that isn't enough to make me gnash my pearlies, eight years of olive oil and cat hair have finally choked my kitchen sink drain into paralysis, leaving a stinking pool of fetid water undrained. If my kitchen drain was my lungs, I'd be purple and dead on the floor.

And to top off this wicker basket which is heading rapidly toward hell, I just realized that I am incapable of making a commitment. I can't commit to a relationship, I can't commit to a career, I can't even commit to a religion. I seem to be constitutionally incapable of making a commitment. (Oh, how the nihilist is laughing.)

Let me explain how I came to this realization. Yesterday I was paging through some random blogs (I am beginning to suspect they aren't actually random, Google, you scamp), I saw over and over the cutest-on-the-block blogs presented by proud wives and mothers (never husbands and fathers). These smiling women praised their husbands, bragged about their children, (posting umpteen photos of the insides of their homes—have they no care for home invaders and burglars?), professed undying devotion to their marriages, and thanked God for their gloriously contented lives.

Herein lies my beef, leading to the provocative and as yet unsubstantiated claim in my post title. I am positive that if I were to corner all of these women and ask them about their religious beliefs, they would to a woman say they were devout Republican Christians and proud of it. Moreover, if I were to tell them I am not, they would no doubt look at me in horrified pity and ask how could this be? I would have to shake my head in resignation. They have something I lack. Somehow they have the enviable ability to choose something and believe in it. They have commitment, to their relationships, to their families, to their religions, to their beliefs.

I can always tell when I am angry. My writing tone gets really snarky. (I love that word, snarky. I'm sure it is out of fashion to use it, sort of like bling, cool, and you go, girl, but I don't care.) Sometimes I don't know I am angry until I actually read what I've written.

Back to my rant. I missed out on the commitment gene, it appears. I don't know how else to explain it. There is something wrong with me. (Damn, my Internet connection is... no wait, now it's back on. Jeez.) This lack of commitment is what drives me to say things like organized religions are marketing machines run by hucksters seeking market share. If I had been raised a good Christian, or Buddhist, or Mormon, or whatever... no, I don't think it would make any difference. I would still say it. I just don't have the commitment gene.

I think organized religions are marketing machines bent on increasing market share in a bid for world domination. It seems obvious to me. They use every marketing tool in the book, plus the good old-fashioned tried-and-true you-are-going-to-hell messages to persuade customers to commit to their brand. Most people seem to be looking for some sparkling edifice to hide behind, some altar to kneel before, some set of rules to follow, so they can finally feel safe. Commitment is no problem for them. Just offer them the best deal and they will sign up for life. Like those happy blogger gals.

Not me. If I believed in hell, which I don't, I'd say to hell with all you religious believers. Except, I already know I'm in the handbasket, heading toward hell on earth (AKA increasing hatred and violence, destruction of the ecosystem, and unbridled self-centered obsession). Maybe those blogger moms don't realize it yet, but they are in here with me. Here we go, wheeeee.

What would I do if I knew I could not fail?

Whenever I feel backed into a corner by life, I ask myself this question. It's the key to my self-made prison door, at least for a few magical moments. What would I do if I knew, beyond any doubt, with total certainty, that no matter what I did, I could not fail?

When I ask this question, two things happen. First, the pressure on my chest lifts a little bit. I have given myself permission to make "bad" choices. The question promises me my choices will not lead to failure. That means there are no mistakes. All paths are valid, all paths lead to learning. Some paths may be less painful than others, but none can be considered a total loss.

Next, with the pressure off my chest, I begin to breathe more deeply, and with oxygen, my creativity begins to flow a little less sluggishly. Possibilities start to burble to the surface of my messy bog of a brain. The fear recedes. The prison walls fade.

For a few brief moments I am suspended in the great What-if. Through a haze of creative possibilities I see another version of myself accomplishing remarkable feats, creating fantastic images, bringing light to the grim twilight world, and being abundantly compensated—financially, emotionally, and spiritually. For a few heady moments I'm not me, I'm someone else, someone with creative power and fearless productivity, making art, writing stories, expressing my certainty. For a few moments, I am positive that everything I do will be a satisfying success.

Then my normal fearful self grabs the wheel and steers away from the cliff. Whew. Close one. I almost took a chance on myself. I almost let go of my chronic malcontentedness. What would I do if I knew I could not fail? That question is deadly. Asking that question can lead to change. And we all know what happens when we allow change to happen. Things aren't the same anymore.

I've been sent to committee

It sounds ominous, but being sent to committee is a good thing in this case. This means my concept paper is making the rounds of my faceless, nameless committee. This terse message, "Sent to committee," from my Chair indicates one of two things: Either she thought the paper was good enough to warrant the next step toward approval, or she couldn't be bothered to read it and she is expecting the committee to do her work for her. Considering the unsteady relationship we have, I assume the latter. But I could be wrong.

It may not matter soon anyway. My illustrious university is changing the way it handles the dissertation process. After numerous complaints and a few withdrawals (frothily documented in the discussion folders), the administration has decided the process needs revising. Instead of letting any old flaky adjunct be Chair of a committee, they will now endeavor to ensure that only full-time faculty are allowed to be Chair. The adjuncts can still be members of the committee, apparently, just not Chair. Of course, I know from experience that full-time status does not preclude flakiness.

I hope this will affect my process positively. In other words, I hope my Chair is replaced by someone who will actually show up, be committed, and give me timely feedback. Actually, at this point, any feedback at all would send me into a tearful frenzy of gratitude.

I've stopped filling out the post-course surveys. As soon as I finished all my course work and embarked upon the research phase, I realized that I would quite likely encounter some of these mentors again. And that has been the case. I am not stupid. If I rate my academic experience honestly, and describe my disappointments in detail, that information will eventually be shared with the mentors. It won't be difficult for them to identify which malcontent submitted such eloquently negative feedback, thus jeopardizing any harmonious working relationship I might have had with them if they should end up appointed to my dissertation committee.

Students at the college where I am employed are asked each term to fill out evaluation forms to rate their instructors, courses, and the school overall. When I was a new adjunct, lo, these many (eight) years ago, I remember I was given the results of some student evaluations before the end of the term. I was appalled. I knew the evaluations weren't going to be complimentary, but that isn't why I was shocked. The point is that they were given to me before the end of the term, before I turned in grades, while I was in a position to retaliate against the students that gave me negative feedback. This class was divided into two armed camps: the students who loved me and the ones who wanted to lynch me. I could have really let them have it.

For a brief moment I considered what I could do to punish those students who dared to write negative feedback about me. Give them extra writing assignments, make them give an oral report, or just knock ten points off the top, whoops, too bad you didn't do so well on that last test. Then I thought, wait, what a gift. When I took off my angry teacher hat and put on my marketing hat, I realized I had been given a golden opportunity—or as we say in higher education, I had encountered a teaching moment. First of all, those students were a mirror for me, reflecting back what they thought I did well and what I needed to improve. That's valuable information that can help me learn and grow. Any serious student of marketing knows the value of customer feedback. Second, I was being given a chance to connect with them, person to person, to build a genuine connection, even with the ones who hated me.

And that is what I did. I stood in front of the class, told them I had received their feedback, and thanked them for being honest. Then I told them never to do it again.

"I know who wrote what," I said. "I know your writing style, I recognize your voices. You have given me power over you now. I can make your lives a living hell for the rest of the term."

They stared at me, round-eyed. A few guilty ones quickly looked away.

"I'm not going to do anything with this information except try to do a better job." I said. "But you all need to protect yourselves. If this school has a habit of giving the evaluation results to instructors before the grades are in, then you place yourself in a position of danger. Normally I say tell the truth, give honest feedback. But this time, I say, don't."

We made it through the term. I don't recall that I flunked anyone, and I didn't get fired. In fact, I got hired on full-time.

At an in-service some time later, I asked why I had been given evaluation results before the end of the term. That question, and others like it, have never been satisfactorily answered. Over the years I have come to realize that the institution I work for is as dysfunctional as any mom and pop business can be, run by pompous ignoramuses masquerading as educators and administrators. The fact that I've been "sent to committee" means I am one step closer to joining their ranks. Tra-la-la. I can hardly wait.

Another day in the life of an Access instructor

Today I watched my group of seven Access students struggle through their first test. They are a motley bunch of unique individuals. Four paralegals, and three business students, all women. The paralegals sit together in a row. The business students sit alone, far away from each other and the paralegals. I'm not sure if that is significant. I stood at the back of the room, trying to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut.

Today, J., a heavyset girl with porcelain skin, was hunched over in pain from a gall bladder attack. Drama being her middle name, I'm not sure how much of her ponderous movements and expression of suffering was for my benefit and how much was actual pain. Next to her sat her friend, dark-haired M., blazing through the test at a fevered pace. (Later I discovered she didn't do half the work. I heard from another teacher she is planning to drop out to get married and live on an army base. I hope she won't need any job skills there.) Next to M. sat K., tall, heavy, immature, and on probation for cheating. It's difficult to think of anything else when I see her: cheater, there goes the cheater. By the window sat A., the best student in the group, possibly in the entire cohort, maybe in the entire school. She certainly has the best attitude. If every student were like A., what an effortless pleasure this job would be.

In the back sat C., alone in more ways than one: the obvious lesbian, wearing men's shirts, and carrying a huge head on her tiny thin body. She is my favorite in the group, although we rarely speak. An older gal, R., sits in the back on the other side by the printer, bashing her way through the test as if to demonstrate her competency. I'm standing behind her. I can see what she is doing. She finds her way eventually, but competency isn't the word I would use to describe her process. The last business admin, the blonde M., is a forty-ish round apple-shaped bubble of energy perched on stick legs.

Blonde M. finished the test early. She trotted up to me, waving her printouts, and said, "Our other instructors always let us leave after we finish a test. Can I go?"

I'm not sure what rankled me, the fact that she felt like she was exempt from the request at the end of the test that students stay to work on their lessons, or that she thought I should knuckle under to the pressure to let students leave early because other instructors apparently do. I could have said, sure, go forth and prosper, grasshopper, but I didn't. What I said was, "You need to be here for a certain amount of time in order to get credit for the class period."

"I have to take my son to a doctor's appointment," she protested.

"What if the test had taken you the full two hours?" I asked. "Would you have stayed to finish the test?"

"Well, yeah!"

"Well, then why can't you stay now?"

She gaped at me, looking a lot like a goldfish I used to have, except less orange.

She trotted off to have a cigarette, slightly miffed. I leaned against the table at the back of the room, silently urging the rest of them to hurry up and finish. One by one, they did.

If you don't bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you

I believe this is paraphrased from a Biblical reference. Not being a Biblical scholar, or even a Christian, I have no idea whether that is true. It sounds ominous enough to have come from the Bible, but what do I know. I'm just a poor white trash atheist. What appeals to me about the concept is the somewhat comforting affirmation that it's okay to acknowledge my creative urge to self-express. More than okay, it's imperative.

Nothing can stop me from expressing who I am!

Lately I have been feeling an upswell of creativity. It seems to have reawakened during the time I spent waiting for my Chair to respond to my first concept paper submission (only to discover she didn't actually have access to the paper, another story, see previous rant). All that time on my hands waiting, what to do, what to do. I know. I'll create something.

When I was a kid, I was always writing, painting, drawing. It was my natural state. All kids are creative. I was no exception, but I think I might have been more intense about it than my friends or classmates. I felt the urge to express like a physical wave coming over me, forcing me to sneak away to be alone with my tempera paints and Prismacolors.

In the beginning my creativity was like breathing air. Had to have it. But over time, things changed. I changed. As I grappled with the painful realities of survival in Los Angeles, my desire to create got entangled with my urgent need to earn money. I fell into the trap of believing that my art was obligated to support me, instead of the other way around.

My mantra was: I am willing to earn doing what I love. As if it were simply a matter of mind over reality. Sadly, it is not that simple for me. In my experience, this is not a society that supports artists, unless you follow the party lines and make acceptable art (see previous rant on Thomas Kinkade).

Artists are subject to the same laws of supply and demand as other producers. I'd like to think that art is exempt; it goes against the very definition of art to condemn art-making to the whims of the market. The truth is, I'm just cranky that the demand for art never included the kind of art that I made. My art was acceptable—I was acceptable—when I painted landscapes and flowers. When I graduated to painting lush images of nude females, the titillation and embarrassment in the family manifested as ridicule and feeble pleas to paint something "nice."

My desire to force my art to support me led me down the dark path of art "made-to-order," which isn't art at all, but a perversion perpetrated upon dreamers by a cruel and unsophisticated society. Well, I'd like to blame pretentious collectors and creators of "art," but truthfully, I lost my sense of self and sold out to the almighty dollar. Yes, I did paint a canvas for someone to hang over her couch. Yes, I drew pictures to go on greeting cards. Yes, I sketched space costumes of transparent vinyl for topless Vegas dancers. Yes, I drew a pen-and-ink caricature of my friend's daughter's chihuahua wearing a basketball uniform.

Art made-to-order, also known as commissions, spells doom for an artist like me. My art is self-expression. I can't express someone else's self through my art. It is psychically and physically impossible. When I succumb to the siren call of money and make art to get some, I can't call it art, and I can't claim to be an artist. It feels odd to recognize that, in these days of "all but dissertation," I am feeling strangely creative, and more and more inclined to arrange my life to support my art. More to be revealed on that, I'm sure. And oddly enough, the more I write in this blog, the more I want to create. That old feeling of "must express" has started to return at odd moments. After I write a blog post, I want to keep expressing. It is like something I thought long dead is opening its eyes and stirring its wings.

The art I make now is for me. As pure as it has ever been. And now I know my job is to bring forth what is within me, no matter what. I don't care if you think it is in bad taste. I don't care if you are offended. I don't care if you would rather see butterflies, mushrooms, and fairies. Go buy a Thomas Kinkade. Go buy a velvet Elvis. Put any stupid thing in a frame and call it art. You'll be in good company. But you cannot have what is uniquely mine. I'm closed. The sign says Shut. Not for sale, not at any price.

It's always something

One of my favorite movie lines is from a movie called Elizabethtown:  "If it's not this, it would be something else." That pretty much sums up my malcontented life these days. Just when I think I've cleaned up every scrap of paper on my big plank of a desk, made every phone call, responded to every email, washed every dish, the temperature drops and it snows.

It's not enough snow to cause a problem for me, living in the city, but my feet are constantly cold. I can't get warm, not even with socks rated for forty below. I hate being cold, especially my feet. I'd rather be drenched in warm rain than be dry and freezing. Right now, of course, we get the worst possible combination: wet and cold. It's (almost) spring in Oregon.

People sometimes accuse me of dragging around my own little gray raincloud. I can't help it. On cold, wet days, I am genetically predisposed to avoid seeing the bright side of life. If the sun comes out even for a brief moment, my head shoots up like a dog scenting a squirrel.

I have a lot to be grateful for, but I'm not feeling it right now, because my feet are so cold. I should be thanking the internet gods that I'm back online. (I guess those infant sacrifices finally worked). I should be heaving heavy sighs of relief that I finished revising the second draft of my concept paper (truthfully, it was 95% new material) and got it successfully uploaded to the course room, where it becomes my Chair's problem. Speaking of my Chair, I should be praising fate that she came back from her week to god knows where and actually responded to my email. I should be prancing around singing, "She's alive, alive!"

There is a theory about malcontentedness. Picture two tanks of water. In one there is a floating island. In the other, there is not. Picture two sets of mice, swimming for their lives in these two tanks of water. The mice in the tank with the island find the island and can rest there. Whew. The mice in the tank without the island swim until they are exhausted. As they are going down for the third time, they are rescued by the scientists. This process takes place over and over again. Finally, in the last experiment, the scientists take away the island, and set all the mice a-swimming together in one big tank. You may not be surprised to hear that the mice who were trained to find the island swam longer than the mice who never found an island.

Think about your family? Did you grow up in a family in which there was an island? In my family, there was no island. Thus, my malcontentedness. No hope. I'm always swimming, always drowning... even if you put an island in front of me, I won't believe my eyes. I will walk around it, stumble past it, tell you I can't see it.

It's hard to think. I'd write more, but my feet are cold.

Wallowing in the messy bog

For the past week I have been valiantly struggling to revise my concept paper. Here's what I think I have figured out.

I'm on my own. The Chair of my committee (do I still have a committee?) has informed her learners on her faculty webpage that she is out of the country. I think she'll be back today, but who knows? She did not tell us where she went. She did, however, inform us that she has been receiving phone calls from learners at "all hours of the day and night," and from now on we must email her to set up an appointment if we want to talk with her on the phone. Yes, this is the same person who called me "Sweetie."

Nobody cares. It does no good to complain to anyone about this whole mess. I've been complaining about being in dissertation hell for so long, I might as well be yelling, "Wolf! Wolf!" People who ask how I'm doing are just being polite. They don't really want to hear my whining. What they want is the same thing I want: for this nightmare to be over. Of course, we want this for different reasons. I just want the pressure and anxiety to end, so I can get some sleep. They just want me to shut up.

I can't control anything. There is nothing worse than feeling out of control. (Nothing?.... Nope. Nothing.) My entire existence depends on being able to control my environment. People, places, things... I constantly labor under the delusion that I am in control. The image that comes to mind is the ant riding on top of the log that is floating down the river. Yep, I'm driving this log, look at me go! The truth is, I can't control anything. Not time, not space. Certainly not people. Nothing. Most of the time I can't even control myself: my feelings and behaviors are unpredictable at the best of times. This is not the best of times. I am completely and utterly without control.

I can create wreckage. Just because I have no control over anything doesn't mean I can't create some serious wreckage. All I have to do is look behind me to see the trail of chaos and destruction in my wake. So, although I have no control, clearly I am not without influence. If I could harness some of that destructive energy and turn it to work for me, what could I accomplish?

It's easier to play small. I willingly put on my cloak of malcontentedness everyday. It is an old familiar friend. It helps keep my life manageable, helping me maintain that illusion of control that keeps me going. It also keeps my life small. I am a dreamer. Sometimes I dream big dreams, dreams that involve me taking chances, talking to people, actually making phone calls, actually telling the Universe what I want. When I imagine myself doing those things, I want to curl up in a ball under the covers.

It would be easier to just quit on the whole dissertation thing. What do I have to lose (besides six years and $45,000?) I mean, all this learning, it's mine now, no one can take it away from me, whether I have a degree or not. At least, the knowledge is mine until Alzheimer's claims my poor tired brain. But I'm just stubborn enough not to cry uncle. Not because I want the degree. I doubt I'll actually do anything with it anyway. No, I want to finish because I'm not a quitter. So, let her call me "Sweetie," "Stupid," and "Grumpy," I don't care. I know my internal dwarves. I'm in good company. We are all in this messy bog together.

A ritual is just a desperate habit

I'm baaaaack. Online, that is. See previous post. The phone company came out on Sunday (yes, they do actually work on Sundays, who knew?) and got me back online. The phone guy, tall and rangy, has worked through at least four incarnations of the phone company. Pacific Northwest Bell, then US West, then Qwest, and now Century Link. What must that be like? If I had to guess, I'd say his loyalty is to the brotherhood of phone repair guys, rather than to a specific company. Companies come and go. But communication snafus are forever.

Speaking of snafus, my communication saga isn't over yet, apparently. I'm happy to report, there is improvement. The phone guy replaced the phone jack in my apartment (full of old paint, gunk, and cat hair), and got me back online, but at about half the speed I'm paying for. Some phone company magic has to take place with a large device called a bucket truck, and then maybe I'll be able to stream video. But I'm not counting on it. When I got home from work today, the connection was down again.

I have a ritual for getting re-connected. Disconnect everything from the modem. Wait five minutes. If that doesn't work, then I plug and replug the phone line, wiggling it around, hoping to hit the sweet spot. That didn't work today. So, today I unplugged my telephone, which is in the bedroom so as not to interfere with the all-important modem line. After that, the modem lights all came on. Eureka! I replugged my telephone and the lights stayed on. I guess my ritual worked. I'm really glad, because the next step would have been to sacrifice a Christian baby. (Kidding! Any baby will do.)

I'm hurrying to upload this post before the ritual magic fades and I am once again disconnected from the cyber world.

So, I guess this post is about rituals. Now that I think about it, my life is full of rituals. My getting-ready-for-work process could be called a ritual. I do the same things in the same order pretty much every day. I hit the snooze button three or four times before I roll out of bed. I worship in front of my light box for a few minutes while water for my tea is heating. I make breakfast and eat it—the same food everyday: four eggs and a pile of over-cooked vegetables. (The vegetables vary somewhat from day to day, but the pile is roughly the same size and flavor.) I brush my teeth, get dressed in one of my black or gray thrift store suits, and walk out the door at the same time every day. Is this getting boring? Ho hum. Maybe this isn't a ritual at all, maybe this is just a habit. What's the difference? Hmmm. I think a ritual is a habit with desperate overtones. A habit fraught with drama. (A drabit?)

Well, maybe my morning routine is a ritual. When I imagine changing it, or not being able to follow it, I feel really anxious. Go without my tea? Not hardly. Go to work without eating breakfast? Terrifying thought. Maybe it is more than a ritual. Maybe it has crossed over to becoming a superstition! Maybe bad things will happen if I don't follow the ritual. Like I'll be really mean and grumpy all day. Hey, wait. I'm mean and grumpy anyway. Maybe rituals have nothing to do with it. I am, after all, a chronic malcontent.