BackStage

Blue and I spent the weekend at the new U. We went around the town. Saw what there was to see (and what there wasn’t — this place is small, ya’ll). We looked at some houses. Mostly we found that the houses we found online were in terrible locations (like two houses down from a frat house or an obvious party house — you know, the ones with deck chairs on the roofs or soggy couches on the lawns). But we found a nice neighborhood or two that we would like. We found Blue a coffee shop. I bought a university t-shirt (I am now again the same mascot I was in high school and my first college, and similar colors to the college I got my BA from… weird). It was generally good.

But, stepping onto that campus again, KNOWING that I was a professor there in the fall, was beyond surreal. How do you wrap your mind around it? That’s why I bought the t-shirt. I figure I can start wearing my new identity? Try to ossify myself (ossification-i-on).

I find myself not really believing it. Mostly, I don’t have time to think about it. I need to finish this class I’m teaching and try to finish the dissertation. Those thoughts take most of my time. But, every once in a while, I start thinking about my impending professorhood. What will it mean to be faculty? What will it mean for my life? How will this change the way I think? How will it change the way I live my day-to-day life?

I have already noticed some changes to my thinking. I go to the faculty meetings at my current U to report to the other grad students. I no longer find myself strongly identifying with graduate student concerns. I am still concerned for them, but it’s removed from me and I’m more able to emphasize with the other side. It’s slightly annoying, but at the same time it is fascinating to watch my self change with the adaptation of a new identity. I know I wouldn’t be aware of all of these changes, but every once in a while I catch on and am mesmerized (not by myself, but by watching these processes I study happen in myself — though, of course, I am mesmerizing… ahem).

I guess, stay tuned. I know my posting has been spotty. Hopefully that will be corrected when I’m allowed to think about more things than teaching/dissertation dissertation/teaching dissertation/dissertation/teaching… sleep. I imagine my experiences should be interesting, once I have them anyway.