There used to be a time when I could clean the house, do the laundry, and run errands during my lunch hour, complete 15 tasks at work, and then come home and yell at Peter, “Why aren’t we living? Seize the day! Let’s walk to Coolidge Corner!”
Gone are these days. Today I managed to waddle down the street, convinced Peter to buy me a ridiculously overpriced Fenway Park hot dog, and then was so tired when we to the grocery store that I almost threw myself on the ground and wept when Peter didn’t think we should by the 25 dollar a gallon ice cream.
“But it’s the kind I WANT,” I wailed.
The third trimester is starting with a bang, friends.
It has not been helped by this whole “holding down a full time job” thing. Or, I should say, it is not helped in holding down a job where so much hate is directed towards me. I am hated for hiring practices. I am hated for housing lottery. I am hated for the weather in Fiji and, I’m pretty sure, sunspots disrupting television coverage of a cricket match in some far flung fjord in the East.
The hate, it is tiring. And I’m trying to make all parties happy, but apparently that this just can’t be. So much so, in fact, that I received the following email the other day.
“Dear Adrienne, I am a resident on your floor and I need a room change now. My room is hot, dark, and barely leaves any room for me to stretch my legs. I am forced to share it with a nervous, loud woman who constantly wakes me up for her own amusement. I can’t get a decent stretch of sleep and I think she is stealing my food. Please do something immediately.”
I didn’t recognize the email address, so I wrote back, “I’m very sorry that you are having such trouble. Would you consider a mediation? In what room do you live?”
The reply came. “There is no reasoning with my roommate. I depend on her to let me be and then she drinks soda and everything gets even crazier. I live on the first floor in 113.”
“That’s impossible,” I immediately wrote back. “I live in 113.”
Then I received a swift kick to the ribs and a jarring head-butt to the bladder.
“Oh.” I thought. “My bad.”
So I sat down with my unborn child and we made a deal. She can have a room change to much bigger accommodations as soon as she can breathe, unassisted, on her own. I agreed to stop pumping her full of sugar and poking her until she moves, and she agreed that she would continue to do whatever the heck she felt like. I’m not sure it’s the best arrangement, but like I always say, it’s about what works.
I’m pretty impressed at my school’s wireless connectivity though. And I guess I deserve this for eating that laptop too.
In the future, I don’t think I’m going to look for employment as Head of the Department Where You are Most Hated. I hope to upgrade to Middle Management Employee in the Department that is Usually Ignored.
It will be better for all involved.
I’ve returned from the land of my youth, and I’m still a part of the warm Wesleyan fold. The spring committee inquisition, as it turns out, is far more low key than the one in the fall. Thus, I had only to answer one “sacramental theology” question and the rest were just checking to make sure I hadn’t taken up ritual murders. My mentor had warned me that there might be questions about sacraments, and I was prepared.
“So, you know about sacraments, right?” My long-suffering mentor asked.
“Oh sure. All seven of them!”
“Uh . . .”
“Ha ha, just kidding. I know Methodists only have two. Oh, well, three if you count bapticonfucharist.”
“Adrienne . . .”
“No, really, just kidding. HA! Is this thing on? But seriously folks . . .”
Honestly, how can they not want ALL THIS?
Speaking of “all this,” I am beginning the long, arduous process of moving my belongings out of my childhood home to my dorm apartment. Among the items I retrieved this trip was a “dossier” my father compiled of pretty much everything I’ve ever produced in my life until about age 21. I will have to put my early writings here because truly they are Pulitzer material. However, along with literary gold is photo documentation of what I like to call my “unfortunate period.” Or, alternatively, “my youth.” I look at these pictures with a mixture of amusement and a burning desire to put my face in my hands and scream. My favorite one, shown below, comes from my 8th grade “diploma,” a certificate given to me because I had made it to the ninth grade and didn’t have to take time off to have a baby. My favorite part about it is the embossed words, “The Look of Success” above my eighth grade pose from picture day.
I would like to point out my large red glasses, a look that I thought truly flattered me. Also good to note is the look on my face, one that confidently screams, “I AM a winner.”
Currently I am in Pennsylvania, the where the internet connectivity is as slow as the dairy products are fabulous.
Tomorrow I will meet with the Church Committee, the Committee Who Thinks God Does Not Want Me As Methodist Clergy, the Committee of White Men. I have copied my psychological profile, gotten a credit check and have practiced prefacing every sentence with “I feel God is calling me towards” because if I am going down, I am going down fighting, thank you very much. If they throw me out of the ordination process, security will have to be called, and I will be dragged out singing hymns by Charles Wesley.
Meanwhile, the Other Committee, the Committee of Smart People Who Need Women and Minorities To Be Represented Because They Couldn’t Sleep Otherwise, hath ordained news of my dissertation prospectus upon me. The verdict is . . . “Pass with Revisions.” This is a good thing, great even, because it means that I don’t have to resubmit and now may frolic wildly in fields of Narrative Theology texts, pretending I have any idea how to compose a 200 page academic paper.
On the other hand, it wasn’t just a “pass.” It was more of an, “Eh, okay. We guess it’s good enough.” And they were a little fussy in their comments, I think. Some examples of revisions I need to make (verbatim, from my Committee report):
* the preposition “into” appears as “in to” in two places
* on page 5, books are listed without authors
* on page 7, authors are listed without book titles
* on page 7, there is a superfluous apostrophe in “god’s”
Being the mature, confident academic I am, I immediately had the cerebral impulse to respond, “Oh, who used ‘into’ as ‘in to’ and put a superfluous apostrophe in god’s? Oh, that’s right, YOUR MOM!!!”
I decided instead just to start a band called the Superfluou’s apostrophe’’s. We cover heavy metal ballads. Our lead singer is named, of course, Ba’al.
So I’m cool. One Committee down, one to go. And I am content if all of these people think me “just good enough.” Because one day I will say to my detractors, “That’s the Reverend Doctor Just Good Enough to you, sir.” (Or, well, maybe, “You know who’s just good enough? YOUR MOM!!!” But you get my point.)
And it all will have been worth it.
I started my career in Student Affairs as a Resident Assistant in 1997. I applied on the last day and wasn’t sure I’d really take the job. But my hobby is accumulating part time jobs, so adding a position that included free room seemed like the thing to do. None of the cool kids were doing it. So I knew it was for me.
Peter was my resident. Did I ever mention that? You’re not supposed to date your residents because you will break up and it will be an awkward power differential and it will destroy the community on your floor. I’ve tried to tell him this for the last eleven years, but he refuses to listen to reason.
When I came to graduate school, I stayed a Resident Assistant because a) The School of Theology orientation, or as affectionately remember it, “out come the freaks,” convinced me I’d have no friends in my classes; b) I moved to a large city from scenic Pennsylvania and was afraid to leave my room for months; and c) dude, free room.
I married my former resident Peter and they moved us to the Nicest Residence Hall Known To Humanity (TM). We will never live anywhere like that apartment again, for all it’s 750,000 dollarly appraised value. By now I couldn’t leave residence life. It was what I did. But with all good things, my time at my former employer began to wane. It got back to me that bosses I thought were my friends kept saying I had a terrible attitude and should just leave, as I had been there too long.
The irony is that I had a great attitude and only ever begged to help make things better. But when you dare question those above you, (and everyone is above you when you are merely an RA), you’re labeled as a threat to the team. An instigator.
So off to another pasture I went. It’s more rustic here, my happy home with frolicking mice and many-segmented friends. I am a Resident Director, which means I am afforded slightly more authority than an RA, with a disproportionate amount of hate directed my way. I don’t mind. All I want is for students to remain alive under my watch. Alive and, ideally, happy.
An odd thing has happened though. I was in this place at such a time that many people left. And I was the only one left sitting around, twiddling her thumbs, thinking of creative ways to program around sock puppets. “Adrienne shall lead us,” those above me said. “Really, what else has she to do?”
And the People in Power, they had a point. Since the Committee Who Controls My Academic Fate need time to render their comments about my dissertation prospectus in an oil painting (I don’t know what else would take three plus weeks), I really don’t have anything else to do. So, due to this series of unfortunate, er, fortunate, events I am at the moment a Director of Residence Life.
And it’s an odd thing. Being a “Director.” Being a “Mid-level Administrator.” Because I have to get up at a respectable hour and dress like a grown-up and answer the phone without singing the collected works of Barry Manilow. The buck stops here. Mostly because the buck is lost and wanted to find the registrar but gave up because it’s in the administration building? What? Can’t this office just take care of it? We pay 36,000 dollars to be here, just take the buck and make it stop because I am not going to yet another office despite what it says in the student handbook in large, bold face type, thank you very much.
And I thought that this job would mean, as the bard sayeth, “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.” But resident Peter usefully pointed out that this differs from what would have been my fate had I ignored the dearth in staffing, “no money, mo’ problems.” An asset to my first floor community, that one.
So off to work I go. To try to figure out the great mysteries of room changes and seek enlightenment through parent contact.
Or maybe to hide under my desk.
We’ll see how the day goes.
