Where the money is

I am less than two weeks away from the end of this contract and have done very little about it. In a way I really don't believe it is going to end; the content we are reviewing now is in rough shape and there is a lot of it. I could see at least another month. There was a faint hint at a permanent position for me. And I really don't even know what else they have coming down the pike.

I have a couple directions I could go with this. I could talk about the changes in education that I don't agree with, and how hard it is to work in a field where I feel like my colleagues and I have no voice in the conversation about what good education does. I could talk about how I need a break. I could talk about wanting to explore some future directions and being at a job 40 hours a week is holding me back because it takes up time and takes away the sense of urgency.

Or I could talk about the deep depression I felt last summer and my inability to do much of anything, the futility of sending out resumes, and the day I realized I had been something like asleep all summer and the garden had weeded over in my absence.

I hope for security, but I need to work for it more than I hope.

Henry Rollins says hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated. I guess I've held that to be true for a long time. But maybe there's another way of seeing it. Maybe it's the only thing to do when you've done all you can. But I haven't done all I can, not yet.