Career Plans

I realized today that I only have about 3 more weeks of class before finals. Yikes! My first semester is finished! I learned a lot, but not nearly as much as I could have. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I've done all that much in the past 10 months. I've been a little depressed recently, but only because I'm letting myself drown under the weight of the next 30 years until I can retire. Unlike normal students, I'm not worrying about the classes or the tests (which I know I can handle very well). Instead, I'm worrying about the kind of professor I will be, what kind of job I will get and if I'll enjoy it, where I will live, in what country, whether to buy a house or not, how much I can expect to save...

It's just too much, of course its crazy. I have to live much longer before I can think about retiring. Besides, the reason thinking about an academic career leads me to existential angst is that it isn't really fulfilling any of my life goals. I don't want to be a professor. I want to be a writer - but in the meantime, I should be 'doing' something for money, and teaching at a university seems like a pretty sweet gig. I'd much rather be talking about Jung's archetypes of Lacanian symbols or Postmodernity than teaching grammar to children. (So I think...but now I wonder, could I fill up three hours just talking about a novel the way my professor's can? Will I ever be able to? At least teaching kids you have structured materials and lesson plans.) I have a part-time job right now teaching adults which I thought was absolutely perfect when I got it. I can talk about anything I want. But I have to spend about an hour to prepare the lesson plan, and it seems I'm always anxious because its something else I have to do - one of the dozens of things I'm juggling. Teaching bushiban (cramschools) you just walk in, teach, and walk out. Nothing comes home with you.

At any rate: I'm allowing myself to be intimidated by the very highest examples, but the truth is there are lots of professors who aren't great teachers. And although I often feel like I'm not smart enough to be an "expert", I'm able to figure out what's going on most of the time - I can even read Derrida if I try hard enough. Which makes me feel that I'll always feel at home in a University.