I completed my doctorate in June 2010. It is now June 2015. Five year after earning the doctorate, there\u2019s little to show for it.\u00a0I have taught, but at my last post I was not on the tenure track and that is unlikely now. I might be a lecturer or adjunct here and there, but that’s not the career I imagined. It’s also not the path my wife had imagined, and certainly not the path that we went into debt for, yet again.<\/p>\n
Yes, I\u2019ve applied for (low-paying) non-tenure-track (NTT) teaching jobs. No, I don’t really want them, but teaching is the only thing I seem to be able to do, in part because of the schedule. Unfortunately, my degree choices weren’t the wisest. The doctorate was an accomplishment, but to what end I don’t know anymore.<\/p>\n
My wife deserves and needs stability. She likes routines and order as much as I do. We both hate any reminders that we are powerless. We organize our spaces because that is something we can do. Unfortunately, we can organize books and things, but not my career.<\/p>\n
We won’t know for some months if I have another teaching job. I (might) need the job. I dread the job. It comes too late to transform our lives into what I dreamed of for her and for me.<\/p>\n
We have a decent life, but it feels incredibly incomplete. Empty. And I don’t have a good path forward right now. A path, but nothing certain and nothing stable. The lack of certainty and stability\u2026 that familiar dread that we have no security<\/em>.<\/p>\n I love teaching. I love learning. I struggle with the workplace aspects of teaching. It\u2019s exhausting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I completed my doctorate in June 2010. It is now June 2015. Five year after earning the doctorate, there\u2019s little to show for it.\u00a0I have taught, but at my last post I was not on the tenure track and that is unlikely now. I might be a lecturer or adjunct…<\/p>\n