autumn

Most consider autumn the season of decline...leaves start to turn and fall, grass browns and temperatures drop.  Yet for me, autumn, this one in particular, is all about a new start.  It's my spring.  Instead of lamenting my under-employment, I will be chronicling the whirlwind that is holding two jobs: one in academia and one in the non-profit sector.  Right up my alley.

Now, I can't exactly blog about the non-profit...if I choose to identify it, I'd have to follow a law that bans me from "proselytizing" or making political statements.  And although I don't consider myself much of an activist, I think I should allow myself the ease of anonymity where that is concerned.  Suffice it to say that it's a brand new chapter in the book of me, a challenge that will hopefully develop my management skills and make me irresistible to future employers.

The temperatures are still summer-like...jeez it was hot Monday during the 9/11 Day of Remembrance service project.  I prefer cool weather when I can wear scarves and cardigans and other layers.  Speaking of scarves,  the least complicated issue of the academic job is whether I should go full Manhattan mode with the wardrobe. It's what pops into my head when I think "art history professor," but then again, I'm teaching in Ohio, and I need to be accessible to the students, not aloof.  I already feel like the bad guy, expecting them to do incredible things like show up for class.  And I'm already on the path of disappointment, heading toward the realization that despite my words and images and best efforts, they won't love art like I do.

When I told the awesome people at the store about the class, they were surprised.  "You have a Masters?"  "Wait, how old are you?"  Seems I can still pass for a teenager in some people's eyes.  Well, gone are the days of shop-girl-dom.  Now my brain is fighting shifting into overdrive to get into this new mode of employment...a mode which requires and invites me to think.  It's what I wanted, but getting what we want can be scary too.  Come on, autumn.  And bring it on, winter.  Except for a lot of snow...a snow day or snow emergency would seriously wreck my course schedule.