The View From Kalamazoo

I got this joke from a 20-something with ADD. It’s very funny if you live with ADD/ADHD in some way. It’s Emma dead-on.

Q: How many kids with Attention Deficit Disorder does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Let’s go ride bikes

I’ll post more about my last week later – it’s time for a little catching up with commentary and more navel contemplation. For those who are following along at home the result of my ingesting many empty calories and suffering under the yoke of fried foods in the caf was my weight holding steady despite my brief interlude last night with Ben & Jerry. I’ll write it up, call it the Guinness diet, make millions. Considering where I am and where I’m not it may be a viable career option, hm?

I already posted a bit about the recent and dire Village Voice warning and acknowledged the departure of IA from both academe and her oft-read blog. Since the point I stopped having much time to catch up with the blogs I read IA has been joined by Erin O’Connor of Critical Mass. Lots of discussion all over, including Easily Distracted responding to last Wednesday’s entry at In the Shadow of Mt. Hollywood , and a reaction to it all at CM. Lots more out there, I assure, you, I’m just not linking to it all.

This all doesn’t begin discussion of the Issues Within the Profession – the same problems invoked in the last week are the same blogged about for months and months before at these linked, and other, academe-focused blogs. I admit I had reacted sharply when Erin O’Connor commented in her announcement “It is agreed that there is a massive overproduction of Ph.D.’s, and that departments that are contributing to this massive overproduction of Ph.D.’s are grossly irresponsible toward grad students even as they serve their own needs very well (they get the cheap labor they need to get freshman comp taught, and they get a pool of smart, interesting students to whom faculty can administer narcissistically gratifying graduate courses).” The academy is a mess. Tenure is clearly (no argument from me, at this point, whether this is a good thing or a bad thing) on the way out. Michael Drout at Wormtalk ain’t kidding when he responds: “Sometimes we should be a little Foucaultian about ourselves: reducing the “overproduction” of Ph.D.s makes guiltless 22-25 year-olds suffer the loss of their dreams for the benefit of other people. Fewer Ph.D.s would make for better lives and better remuneration and better prospects for those who already have them: as Foucault points out, self-interest dressed up as humanitarianism has a particularly bad record, historically.” I am feeling the pain of being crushed between that particular rock and that particular hard place. Does my drive to move forward in the face of this mess, in the face of a job market that’s truly heinous, despite advice (or veiled commentary) to [insert scary voice here] “Go Back Before It’s Too Late!” and witnessing the jumping ship of a lot of sharp folks a heckuva lot more brilliant than I a sign of dedication or stupidity? Is it sadism to read regularly about the abuse I will suffer and still have sent out all of those (fruitless, in hindsight) applications?

I read Should you go to grad school? by Tim Burke . His short answer is no, and his long answer sounds a lot like no, as well. He’s happy, he’s successful, he’s certain that grad school leads only to despair so please ignore the man behind the curtain.

Square one.