Saturday, October 16, 2010

Teacher Research

Out of curiosity for a possible career path in the future, I've been researching what it would take to become a college professor. I'd be most interested in either an English or Medieval Studies path, although I've also thought about getting an MFA and teaching creative writing. I'm remembering why I didn't pursue an advanced degree and teaching in the first place - I was burnt out after getting my undergrad degree, and wanted to work on creative endeavors at the time rather than any further academic ones. I also wanted to make money, and couldn't face grad school immediately for that reason.The last thing I wanted in my early twenties was more debt. I'm not sorry I pursued what I did, but I do rather wish I'd been able to go back to school before now. After reading what I would still need to achieve in order to teach at a university, I'm not sure if I have it in me. I'd need to get a Master's and a PhD, and master at least one other language. I've studied three, French, Italian and Latin, but I would need to pick one and intensify my application to it. I'd need at least 5 more years of school and would graduate with a lot of debt. It might be worth it - I love learning, and I can think of worse ways to spend my time than submersing myself in studying the Middle Ages, but I also know how demanding my creative writing is. That's the main reason I never did seriously consider grad school before now - it took all of my spare energy to finish my two books, and I'm still editing them. I've got four more started that I deeply want to finish, and I was afraid that attending school would pull me away from them, which it probably would for a few years unless I could work it so that one of them counts as class product. I've also had a lot of other problems to solve, like helping my family after my mother's stroke, and dealing with 9/11 and Katrina. If I'd wanted to teach, I think I probably should have gone back to school at least ten years ago. I'm going to keep researching it and pondering it, but I'm also just going to go ahead and keep studying on my own, too. I've given myself a curriculum of material that will keep me busy for a while and that's suited to providing structure and inspiration for my books as well as a possible foundation for formal study. I figure if I never go back to school formally, at least I will have studied what I loved, and if I do pursue another degree, I'll be in a lot better shape to approach it. I definitely plan to at least take some courses in digital media, like enhanced e-book production and more electronic music studies. I think I really am fundamentally more of an artist than an academic, which is what I've always come back to in the past, but I want to make sure I explore every avenue in life that holds even the slightest interest for me.

Friday, October 15, 2010

From Bad Seed to Summer Isle

I haven't updated in a long time because I kept having terrible problems with my Apple laptop, and lost a lot of motivation while I was dealing with that. It kept having one kernel panic after another, complete with crashing, freezing and screaming, and nothing would fix it. Finally this month, after having reinstalled the OS twice and replaced the RAM, the hard drive and a video card that was a main component of the motherboard, the Apple Genius bar threw in the towel and gave me a brand new machine, in the current model. I was a little surprised they voluntarily did that, but I'm very grateful. Enough is enough. I was about to ask them to, anyway, it's been such a nightmare. My Apple was a lemon. I didn't lose any work except for a few photos because I have never trusted that machine and never used it for much. Hopefully, now I can move on. I've lost so much time to it that I've actually been mired in despair lately, but I soldiered on meanwhile in other areas and hopefully I can make up for some of the lost time. I named the first Apple laptop, the one with so many issues, Adam, thinking that naming it after Adam Kadmon, the primordial man closest to the divine image, would be lucky, but maybe the archetypal energy of the Fall was too much for it. I've chosen to give this one a positive, goddess-oriented name also associated with apples: Avalon.

I'm also no longer writing for the Mid-City Press. I did seven or eight articles for them, including some reporting to bring public attention to the funding problems at the Los Angeles community arts centers. I'm proud of my work there, but I decided that ultimately we weren't a good fit for each other and I resigned. I'm very glad to have had the experience, and leaving actually helped free me up to move on with my other projects. I've given up on pursuing arts journalism in the future as anything but a possible sideline, and I'm okay with that. It never was lucrative at the best of times and it's just nearly impossible to find decently paying jobs in it at this point, and I've got bigger fish to fry. When I first moved out to L.A. in 2006, I was still contemplating studying journalism formally via UCLA extension to supplement the education and experience I already have, but it's just not worth it anymore. I'd do much better to allocate my education dollars to learning e-book publishing, LogicPro, and saving some towards possible future endeavors in medieval studies. I'm still working on book edits for The Flower of Knighthood and Parsifal and those are actually going pretty well. I've taken a short break lately to read some books, Foucault's Pendulum and the Illuminatus! Trilogy. If I can get organized enough, I'd like to write an essay at some point comparing and contrasting those two books. They have amazing similarities of themes and structure - both incorporate outrageous conspiracy theories and use the kabbalistic Tree of Life for their structure, and both have a computer that plays a central role symbolizing consciousness. I requested a hold at the public library on another book by Umberto Eco, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, and I'm looking forward to it.