A Week Became a Month

Last updated on November 26, 2023

November 23 was my last blog post, and I was sure then that I would revive the blog and podcast on a weekly basis. That didn’t happen. As the weeks became a month, my frustration increased but my free time did not. I slept less and less, trying to keep up with my teaching responsibilities. Only tonight, on December 23, did I finish (most) grading for the semester and file the final grades.

The workload for adjunct instructors and full-time lecturers at many colleges and universities is insane. It’s an abuse of the employees, made possible because there are so many doctorates out there still dreaming of the tenure track. We take this low-paying posts because we don’t want to have gaps in our résumés (“CVs” in academia, yes). We let ourselves be exploited, dreaming of those great tenure-track posts that every newly-minted Ph.D. will also seek.

I sacrificed sleep, time with family, my mental well-being, and my physical health all to remain a professor for one more year, in case we would be able to relocate in 2019. I made a calculated bet the adoption would clear and I’d be on the job market by November. That didn’t happen. Now, any move in 2019 looks unlikely, so I never entered the job market for 2019–20.

As foster-adopt parents, my wife and I cannot move until the adoption clears. We need to remain where we are, so I cannot search for academic posts outside the region. My career was less important to us than our daughters, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother me to end this career path.

Higher education has been a struggle for me. Maybe all jobs would be a struggle; we had hoped university positions would somehow be different. They weren’t.

The blogs and podcast are important to me because they offer some chance of future publication, speaking opportunities, consulting, and other work. Setting aside The Autistic Me and my other online work was a high price to pay for the teaching position.

I am going to try my best to stick to the schedule I aspire to. Since 2015, I’ve had an “ideal schedule” for the blogs and other projects. Now, with teaching coming to an end in May of 2019, I cannot allow this last semester to interfere with future plans. The future is all my wife and I have — I must dedicate myself to what is best for my family.

In an ideal world, I would have a different set of degrees and professional experiences. What matters now is that I need to get into private industry for at least 15 years and earn a living to help out my family.

If you know of any opportunities, let me know….