Community College Confidential Part I

As I write this essay, I am looking at my high-school graduation tassle, which I have draped across the corner of my laptop. I found it the other day when I was looking for an old usb wireless antenna. I wasn’t surprised to see it. The faded red and white strands with their telltale “90” in gold colored plastic turn up from every now and then to remind me of how much time has gone by and how little distance I have travelled in the years since “90”.It’s funny that I should find it today though, as I have this very day decided to strike colors on my campaign to become a full-time college English instructor.

 I have begun instead to look for more “conventional” work. Though, when I embarked on this campaign, it was particularly because the idea of teaching college English seemed like a fairly conventional one. What I mean is, I should think that any mother would be, if not proud, at least satisfied, to hear that her son had grown up to be an English professor and, honestly, if you went back in time to 1990 and told my friends and family that I would eventually become a college professor, I’m sure that the consensus would be something like “yeah I could see that”. And yet, said career has not been forthcoming. 

In order to be truly fair here, I have to cop to the fact that this is partly my own fault. I am a born contrarian. More than once I have, like Christopher Hitchens, found myself vehemently defending positions in which I truly have no interest, just because everyone else believes differently. Coupled with that is the fact that I bristle any time somebody tells me what to do. I have ended friendships over such phrases as “Drive me to the store,” or “Don’t do that” (Not officially ended, mind you, just left to die on the vine like the big passive-aggressive wuss that I am. 

But I never shoot first. I’m not an asshole, I merely turn into one when some other asshole gets uppity. And, even then, I’m usually pretty cool on the outside. For example, when I was teaching at a certain community college west of Dekalb Illinois, I once taught a section of English 104. My class was immediately followed by another section of the same English 104, taught by a different instructor. This fellow was a full-time professor at the college and was somewhat revered in the hallways because he had published a work of “Christian fiction”. He had a nasty habit of standing in my doorway as I finished my lecture and storming into the classroom immediately upon the end of class, obstructing my own students’ exit. This was annoying and completely uncalled for, but, in the nature of his personal savior, I forgave him (actually at first I thought he was a noobie because he seemed incompetent and nervous). I never commented upon his actions one way or the other, despite the fact that my students were annoyed by the way he would begin fiddling with the projection screen while I was still fielding after-class questions. 

One time, near the middle of the semester, I decided to engage my fellow instructor in some chit chat and get to know him better. So, as he was fiddling with the projector, I queried him with “So what’s on your agenda for today’s class?” He replied by informing me, in front of my students, that “I’d rather be setting up than talking to you.” This Christian needs his face pushed in, I thought to myself. But all I said was “well, ok. As you like it.” Later, some of my students offered to beat the shit out of him for me, but I declined this and I don’t really think their heart was in it. Still, I probably should have beat the shit out of him myself. But I was trying to get along.