#god. my tutoring program job changed my life. my coworkers changed my life. we went to disneyland two days after joking about going!

[lesmiserablol]

goodbye july 2023 you’ve been one of the best months of my life i’ll love you forever

[echodrops]

I was thinking of doing an English literature degree in university and was looking into the possibility of becoming a professor. I was wondering about the process of becoming a professor. As in, what type of further degree did you have to get and what was the course load like? Also what exactly does being a professor entail? Do you do research as well as lecturing? I’m sorry for bothering you with this, it’s just that you always explain things well and I don’t know any professors in real life.

Sure, I don’t mind answering these kinds of questions at all!

What type of further degree did you have to get and what was the course load like?

For reference, I have a Masters degree of Fine Arts (in Poetry) which is, for the moment, still considered a terminal degree in the creative writing field, although the Ph.D. is becoming super popular now.

In order to teach at the college level at any accredited institution, you must have a minimum of 18 graduate level credit hours in your chosen field. I.e., you would need at least 18 credits (about 2.5 semesters) of a graduate program in English in order to teach any English college-level courses.

In today’s market, it would be extremely difficult to get any full-time teaching position without having completed at least a Masters degree, so if you want to become a professor, plan on going to graduate school.

Some good news though: Many English graduate programs are generously to fully funded, which means that you’re a lot less likely to leave graduate school with crippling student loan debt than you would be if you went to graduate school in another field like business or medicine. Don’t go to a graduate school that isn’t covering a large portion of your tuition costs. If they don’t offer you good financial aid, just say no thanks!

In terms of what degree you should pursue specifically, that depends on your interest, but three degrees that feed directly into English professor positions, in order of most likely to be hired, are:

Master in Rhetoric and Composition (this is the most likely to get you a job, but personally I would have found a degree like this boring as dirt)

Master in Literature (if you like analyzing other people’s writing, this is where you go; this degree is a double-edged sword though. You can specialize here and get into some really, really niche stuff that you love to death–but if no schools out there need your niche literary background, you may be a less appealing job candidate than the Rhet/Comp person above)

Master in Creative Writing/Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (if you like writing your own stuff, this is the route to go; you will come out of this kind of program fully qualified to teach general English courses. Double-edged sword again though–EVERY school needs people who are experienced in teaching English 101… Not every schools needs someone experienced in teaching, say… Introduction to Poetry)

Course load in graduate programs is more tolerable than undergraduate programs. 12 credits is the minimum to qualify as full-time in undergrad, while 9 is considered full-time for most grad programs. You’ll take fewer classes to get a Master’s degree than an Bachelor’s.

That said, be ready for a completely different vibe and expectation level. People who go to grad school aren’t fucking around. Someone in my program got a B in one of our classes and that was enough to put her on academic probation. My friend, who also went to grad school for English, got an A- that she STILL feels guilty about to this day. So it’s less classes, but the expectation is that you will bring your absolute highest effort to the table in each class and engage fully with the material. (To be honest though, I feel like a lot of graduate-level professors are more chill than undergrad professors; there were “A” grades I worked A LOT harder for in undergrad than some of the “A”s I got in grad school.)

Also what exactly does being a professor entail? Do you do research as well as lecturing?

I’d say there are six general parts to the day-to-day job of a professor:

1) Prep. This is getting your courses ready: writing lectures, building activities, creating homework assignments, building your syllabi, picking readings, designing discussions, etc. This takes a fuck ton more time than you will ever want it to, and you always tell yourself after you get the class done once you’ll never have to do it again, but that’s a lie, because you will find yourself updating and changing things every single semester. Your mandatory “office hours” are basically just prep time since, no matter how much you beg them, students will rarely take advantage of your office hours unless you bribe or force them.

2) Actually teaching. This is your time spent in the classroom. The LEAST time-consuming part of your job. For every hour you actually spend in the classroom, expect to spend 154680060 hours doing outside stuff like grading. If you’re confident in front of crowds, this part is the easiest thing about being a teacher. If you want to get good at the actual “teaching” part of being a professor, take drama classes. Good teachers project confidence and energy at all times in the classroom, and drama teaches you how to do this much better than any public speaking class can.

3) Grading. Hell itself. It never ends. 9/10ths of your job as an English professor is just this. I envy the professors who are out of shits to give and just circle bubbles on a rubric, but I am not that person and so I comment extensively on every single one of the assignments for every single one of my students. If you’re up at 3am in the morning, it’s probably because of this!

4) Dealing with students on a personal level. The scariest part of the job. College is an extremely stressful time in a lot of young people’s lives, and especially if you are not teaching in a rich neighborhood, your students may be experiencing very significant personal, familial, financial, etc. difficulties that severely impact their mental health and well-being. You will encounter situations that you would never expect–students bursting into tears in the middle of class, students coming into your office and telling you they’re contemplating suicide, hearing graphic stories about the students’ abusive backgrounds, and being asked directly for help in situations that are completely outside of your experience level. Because there’s such an incredible stigma against therapists, many students will bring serious mental health issues to their professors long before they would ever consider going to the school’s counseling services.

5) Committees. Dear god. The committees never end. As part of your contract at most institutions, you will be expected to be performing service to the college, aka serving on committees and task forces to do all manner of things. If you’re lucky, you can get on committees you actually care about, with coworkers you like, and then they are fun. If you’re unlucky, you get “voluntold” (aka forcibly placed) on a bunch of committees that you feel completely unpassionate about and you’ll just have to deal until they complete their purpose or fizzle out. The amount of time you put into the committee has no correlation to the amount of work the committee actually gets done.

6) Research and professional development. In the .0002 minutes you have left each week, you will either be required (if you’re at a research institution) or highly encouraged to complete research, publication writing, and professional development activities. At my institution, research is highly encouraged and publication is a sure way to get in good with administration, but professional development is required, i.e. we have to participate in conferences or development trainings throughout the year to demonstrate continued efforts to discover and employ best teaching practices. This is usually a fun part, but you will never, ever have enough time for it.

The path to becoming a professor–some advice:

If you are not yet in college, pick your college based on a combination of three factors: 1) financial aid, obviously; 2) the robustness of their English department (i.e., do they have a Writing Center you could tutor at or other internship opportunities? Do they have a chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society? Do they send undergrads to conferences? Do they have department events like essay contests and/or writing clubs? Search the school website thoroughly for info on their department--or better yet, call and talk to them); 3) the courses taught (you should be able to access the school’s complete course catalog before applying. If you read over every course the English department offers and none of them interest you, then obviously that’s not the school for you).

If you are already in college, look for opportunities that will make your grad school applications stand out–try to get a job as a writing tutor, join the English honor society, join/sponsor a writing or book club, be on the staff of your school’s literary journal, submit your work (including essays, why not) to other literary journals, take part in any competitions you can, etc. Strong involvement in your English department will make your application to graduate programs shine.

Consider planning for a day-job after grad school, at least for a couple years. The more English experience you have on your resume, the more likely you are to earn a full-time teaching position. Landing a tenure track job right out of grad school is tragically uncommon. Plan on adjuncting for a few years to get some college-level teaching experience under your belt. It’s common for adjunct professors to teach a few classes as a side-job while they do other work, such as freelance editing, to bring home the real money. Then you can translate your courses taught as an adjunct into years of experience when you are applying for full-time positions!

Phew, sorry if that was longer than you expected!

[sending-the-message]

I Went Looking for an Adventure on the Dark Web by Sinister-Intentions

Hi, my name is Jacob. My life hadn’t gone the way I’d expected it or rather my future hadn’t been what I’d hoped. When I was in college my whole life revolved around school and work. If I wasn’t on the computer writing some program I was in class or tutoring. If I wasn’t doing any of those things I was helping out at the help desk of our school. Either way I had no life outside of class and work, mainly because I told myself that I would focus on the fun parts of life when I had a degree and decent paying job. Right now I needed to earn all of that.

When school finally ended I was in a panic to get a decent job because I knew not soon after uncle sam would come calling for me to pay back all the student loans I’d taken out. Suffice it to say that I wasn’t being very picky and really just applied for anything that paid a decent amount of money. I didn’t even care if it was related to my computer science major, just that it would pay the bills.

I finally found a job with a small web development company which seemed to be the big dream I was hoping for. It paid great, my coworkers were excellent, my hours were flexible, and work was fun enough. There was an itch in the back of my mind that I couldn’t quite scratch though. Was this it? Was this the life I had given up my early 20’s for? I got up in the morning and worked out. I’d get dressed and go to work. Then for 8 or more hours I would work on different code banks and polish up different websites, before sluffing off back to my new apartment to eat, sleep, and repeat.

I tried going out with friends, going to bars and parties, taking walks, all the things you are supposed to do with a normal life, but none of it brought any excitement to me. I started taking inordinate risks when I was driving, caring less about how people perceived me when I talked with them, and ignoring friends and family.

You have to understand some things about me to really know what I was going through. For the better part of my life I had been regarded as a pretty strange kid. I was interested in the more occult and obscure parts of life, didn’t really care much for rules, stealing from other, breaking into houses in my youth, and lying like second nature. As I entered my teenage years I realized quickly that I couldn’t get away with these things anymore if I wanted to get ahead and decided to change a lot about myself. In essence I learned to wear a mask and got so good at it that I seemingly forgot I’d been wearing it for all these years. I had even fooled myself.

With the boredom and mediocrity of life after college settling in my mask was starting to wear loose and the creature from my youth was peeking out from behind it. I started frantically looking for things to satiate my growing need for thrill and excitement and my numbness to social norms grew even more deafening.

Working in computer I had heard of and used Tor on many occasions, the browser used to access the deep web, but had never been interested in anything it provided. At most it masked your identity and sacrificed speed, but at worst it was where the dredge of society lurked and for all my social ineptitude I knew I wasn’t anything like those people.

On my way home from work one day I was driving down the freeway as normal, but suddenly a guy cut me off and dodged in front of me almost causing me to crash. I slammed on my brakes and turned my steering wheel as hard as I could causing me to run off the side of the road into a ditch. My brakes and wheels no doubt took some heavy damage, but in general my car was ok.

The whole experience made my heart beat like it was young again and instead of being mad I remember I was almost excited by the thrill of it all. That’s when it occurred to me that I may have a use for the deep web after all. Like I had said it was where you could find all the dregs of society and while I sure wasn’t one, perhaps I needed someone who was willing to stoop to that level.

When I got home I downloaded Tor, and started researching different anonymous forums where I might be able to score a little action. To the more experienced users of the dark web I likely came off as a newbie going around poking his head into places that he knows nothing about, but I didn’t care, all I really needed was for just one person to be interested in guiding me through the gates of this underworld.

I posted a little thread here and there on any open forum I could find. ‘Looking for an adventure and something that will get my heart pumping like I’m alive again’. I provided a recently set up email and waited to see if I would get any replied. Many of my threads were taken down by moderators and those that weren’t found unsolicited spam, obvious virus links, or disgusting images sent to the email I had provided.

After a few days of no success I learned of a few chat rooms that I believed might be more helpful with my search. These would be live conversations so I wouldn’t have to wait for replies and they would hopefully be more welcoming to someone who didn’t know a lot about this kind of thing. After posting my normal ‘looking for adventure’ most of the rooms booted me, either as a newbie or believing I was a cop, but in my very last one I received a pop up to talk with one of the chat member privately, which I was more than happy to do.

There I was at my desk, nothing lighting the room but my computer monitor. Sitting in the darkness I chatted back and forth with this guy about my life and how I wanted something more interesting, risky, and fun. He said he’d met many people who’d stumbled onto this chat looking for the same and that he always liked helping them out. We talk for days about the different adventures he’d taken his past acquaintances on, but how each of them always wanted to return to their normal dull lives after a bit which left him to continue his search for that one buddy who wouldn’t leave.

The whole this sounded incredibly sad and stalkerish, which believe it or not didn’t frighten me away but left me more interested. I’m not naïve or stupid. I was talking with someone I’d met on a random dark web chat room. At the most harmless it was some old fat guy sitting on the other end spinning me a web of lies, but at most it really was someone dangerous and I wanted to find out for myself. I wanted him to be dangerous….because therein lies the thrill, which was my vendetta from the beginning of this little adventure into the dark web.

I got up the courage to ask him if he’d ever want to actually meet and go on one of his little trips just to see what his reaction would be, and of course he was more than happy. I learned that that he was only about 7 hours from me so I suggested we meet the next week and that I didn’t want to know any of the details, just that I wanted to have a fun time for a few days.

The days passed by quickly and the night before I was planning on making the trip I packed up all the things I thought I might need. Clothes and travel stuff, but also a few self defense item, a flashlight, and several burner phones. Loading it all in my trunk I started to get a rush then and there of what I was about to do. I was meeting up with a complete stranger in the middle of the night, putting myself in danger, and had no idea what the morning hours were going to bring. As I drove down the dark highway road, my lights beaming in front of me, I felt as alive as ever. The dull drudgery of my job, the boring routine of my life, it all just slipped away. Night and the passing cars gave a kind of quite and peace to my racing mind.

When I got to the town of my new friends address I really started to feel the excitement wash over me. I had given him the number of one of my burner phones and he texted me ‘are you almost here’. I didn’t reply as I knew I was and pulling over would have just taken more time. I winded up a road near the edge of the town, but definitely removed from public and prying eyes until I seen a house a little way in the distance. Pulling into the driveway the reality of what I was doing started to hit me and more than excited I began to feel scared.

My car lights shown strong against a large metallic garage door and I seen a shadow move across the bay windows of what looked to be a living room. I received another text. ‘come on in, the doors unlocked’ it said. I took a deep gulp and opened my car door, the beeping startling me as I’d forgotten to turn off the engine. Pulling the keys out I put a few between my knuckles and stepped out the seat onto the dirt, shutting the door behind me.

My heart was racing and my breath getting more labored. Every instinct I had was telling me to turn around and I looked back at my car, but I just kept moving forward. I heard every footstep I took in the dark night air and I slowly reached out to turn the handle on the old door, cracked paint funning down it and a rusty handle. Inside the garage a large white light hung from a cord in the center over two pick up trucks muddle and rusted from head to toe.

The place was very cluttered and I had to step along a narrow path until I reached a screen door just above a few steps. I kind of whispered to myself ‘you can just turn around, just go back’, but my adventurous and apathetic nature took over and I took a few steps up and through the screen door as it squealed shut.

Inside the house looked fairly normal, and I started to say “hello” into the room. “is anyone there?” I didn’t hear anything. I said it a few more times and started to walk forward into the living room I’d mentioned before. “I’m downstairs, just fixing the water heater” I heard come from behind me. “There’s a wrench on the table, would you mind bringing it to me”.

I sure as hell wasn’t going to do that. I wanted adventure, but wasn’t going to willingly walk into god knows what kind of trap in a completely locked off room downstairs. All of those instincts that I should have been listening to from the get go came roaring back to my attention and I immediately turned around to get the hell out of there.

Running up to the door I turned the handle but it refused to open. I started panicking and turned it so hard that it broke off the door. Just then I started to hear creaking like someone coming up the stairs and my heart didn’t race, it just stopped and calmed down. I turned around and remember the wrench sitting on the kitchen table. I picked the heave thing up and prepared to fight my way out if I needed to. Those giant bay windows were another way out this house. Quick like lightening I ran passed the door to the stairs where the voice and creaking came from and slammed the door shut as I did. I hoped onto the couch and bashed the windows with the wrench climbing through the broken shards of glass.

Climbing into my car as if there wasn’t a tomorrow I shoved the keys in the ignition and screeched out of the driveway, laying my foot into the pedal as hard as I could. After hours of berating myself on the long trip home the sun was starting to come up and felt some twinge of relief come over me. I was so tired from the whole night of events and after slinking into my apartment and out of my clothes I crawled into bed wanting to forget any of this craziness had ever happened. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

A few hours later I woke up to a beeping on my computer, meaning I had a new message. I went over to the computer and seen that it was from my now former, never to actually meet, acquaintance. “why did you leave? We’d have had so much fun”. I didn’t reply, I just looked at the message and considered what my next move should be at this point. Another message came to the screen which left me shaken and cold. “your apartment looks so boring compared to what I had in store”. My webcam wasn’t on, so how on earth did he know what my apartment looked like? How the heck did he know where I even was? How did he ---.

That was the last thing Jacob told me before meeting a rather unfortunate accident. My basement really was much nicer than his apartment and I was so sad he couldn’t have stayed for long. All my friends always seem to leave me. I guess I’ll just need to find another. Tell me, have you ever thought of going on the dark web, I know somewhere you might like.

-Sinister Intentions

More...

[tophersong]

End of Year Reflection 2017

I’m always a sucker for writing reflections after long periods of time. For those who still use tumblr or have somehow stumbled upon my tumblr this past year, maybe it’ll give you a better idea of who I am. Maybe reading how someone else’s life is will give you inspiration to share your own story. Who knows? I just like writing to look back and see how far I’ve come. And here it goes.

This has been an interesting year from start to finish.

I started off last year with broken glasses, a very broken family, a broken heart and a confused soul. 

Broken glasses- A quick story. I spend every New Year’s Eve at church to ring in the year with my church. I was fooling around on the 4th floor with my friends. One guy wanted to test how strong he was so he wanted to punch someone LOOL, typical guy stuff. One friend said bring it on. The dude punched and the punch went through my friend and hit me right in the face LOOL. And that’s exactly how I started my 2017. 

Broken Family- If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll probably know this one already. My dad left years ago, creating big trouble for my family. Younger Chris grew to be a mediator between the storms of hell between my mother and sister who were very emotional and sensitive to everything. Fast forward 12 years, not much has changed. Sister moved back in and the fights started again. 

Broken Heart- I started off the year fighting to go abroad. I was super hungry to experience something new and I wanted to really live freely. The beginning of this year is when I found out legally, I’m not allowed to exist in Korea and also that I didn’t have anywhere near enough experience with teaching to teach anywhere else. 

Confused Soul- After finding out about the above, I felt lost. Wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue with teaching. Sure enough, I knew that everyone went through this phase but it didn’t make it any easier.

The first part of the year was extremely rough. After breaking my glasses and surviving all the fights at home, I decided to join the youth group staff at my church. A new pastor had come and I thought that it was finally the right time to join. Who knew that making that decision would really impact the rest of my year.  I joined a bunch of ragtag peeps who weren’t that connected as a staff. I certainly kept my distance because I didn’t want to engage myself in something too energy consuming.  As the days went on, the fights at home escalated to a breaking point. Physically, emotionally, mentally, I felt very broken. I meant to meet up with my best friend to share and just get things off my shoulders but I met with a new friend earlier in the day and ended up sharing my guts with the dude. I literally bawled in a restaurant and I was ok with that. The relationship that was built from that really turned into one of the stronger relationships that I hold onto.  In the middle of all this fighting, I also happened to feel the urge to come out to my mom. Talk about timing. I literally sat her down after a big fight and was like, here we go. Both of us being christian, she was probably very confused. I tried my best to explain my story but all it looked like she got was that I like boys. She didn’t talk to me for a week, which killed me in the that time. But sharing with her made life easier for me. One, it was a way to ask for prayer. Two, once she knew, that was probably the biggest hurdle before sharing with others. 

Here starts the second season of my year.  I found a job as a math tutor and working here has been a challenge of all sorts. Learning how to work with students of all ages and understanding where they’re coming from while also not being the push over. The people at work were incredibly nice. Having nice coworkers made the transition a lot easier. The students, although some are a pain, are fun to teach. Some are so eager to learn or help that it gives me hope for a better future.  My sister was able to move out. The fights didn’t necessarily stop but our family chemistry started healing. Family is still awkward with each other but it’s always something worth fighting for.  I was still trying to look for any opportunity to go abroad. In the morning, I’d search for jobs abroad and prep for interviews for Japan and I’d work from 3 to 8. My days went by very quickly in this manner.  Towards the end of this season, I said I’ll volunteer as staff for a church mission trip with our youth. 

Here comes summer.  This is where I started to get challenged to grow. I had to plan out my weekends to be filled with church activities and had to plan out a budget to make sure I’d have enough money to even go. (*I failed LOOOL) I worked during the week and I’d be at church during the weekend.  The first challenge was when sunday small groups were being changed as the new freshmen came up. I didn’t want any grade honestly speaking. I just wanted to be a background staff that helped wherever he could. The pastor originally wanted me with the freshmen but I hated the idea. If you’ve seen my past posts, there’s one with a student I’ve felt unnaturally connected to. Yeah, that kid’s a freshman and at the beginning of the summer, I was sure that he hated me. So naturally I cowered away in fear of being hated and didn’t want to take the responsibility. My heart felt like I should say yes to it but I ran from that. I guess the pastor saw where my heart was and she placed me with the sophomores.  The next challenge came with the same student LOOL. We had to make groups for the missions trip and I felt called to take him in mine but I ran away from that call too.  The missions trip came and went. The students were on a spiritual high and it was easier to connect with them. I started to feel more engaged in church socially. I made a close group of friends that I ate dinner with almost every Sunday. Honestly speaking, if this were me in 2016, I’d say that it wasn’t worth all the effort to meet these people. But boy do I love them now.  In the beginning of the summer, I also went to help out at my friends church for a one week program that they had. Maybe that’s where it started. A fresh hope for something new to begin happening. It was during that one week that I also came to peace about not going abroad. It’s where I came to understand that for the time being, my heart is already where it belongs.

As Fall approached, my life fell into a rhythm. It turned into study, work, sleep, church. I started looking towards future changes like heading back to school soon. I just went through cycle after cycle and not much changed. Things were in a good place.  I had a close friend of mine fall off the grid. Enough so that his brother contacted me because he hadn’t been seen in a couple weeks. I tried contacting him and he was fine. But after trying to contact him after that, he seemed to have changed. I still haven’t received an answer from him after several months and my heart feels very challenged. To let go of a friendship that’s not worth it or to continue trying because it seems like no one else will. This isn’t the first time it’s happened so maybe it’s time to change my answer.

As the year came to a close, a lot of other things did as well.  I really have this idea that my church is my home driven back in. These are people I’m not willing to let go of so easily anymore. My ragtag staff grew close to one another. I got a promotion at work. And I finally got some sense of closure with that kid from before. 

As this year starts and as a new season of my life starts, I wait in anticipation. There’s no saying whether there will be a good season or a bad season. But what I know is that God’s carried me through the toughest parts of this year and He is faithful to see me through more. My one real resolution for this year is to learn how to say yes when He tugs at my heart. It’s so easy to run away. But is it really worth it in the end? 

This year has been incredible. I hated the beginning of it. And as corny as it sounds, I feel like a freaking butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Maybe I just needed that time to break my cocoon so that I could learn to fly LOOL. 

I look forward to more growth this year. Wherever that takes me, let’s go. 

Thanks for reading this far. I wrote a heck a lot. And if reading this meant anything to you, I challenge you to do the same. It’s nice to know what other people are going through. It’s nice to share. 

*I also feel like I left out a lot of stories so feel free to stay tuned to hear more.