Guest post by Sacha Siskonen. She currently exists somewhere between academia and the non-academic world in a nether region of teaching. She hopes to exit this realm in the near future, but she has been told she is overqualified for any jobs that pay a living wage. In the meantime, she blogs at The Saskatchewan Review.
When I first began my PhD program, a friend and I used to joke that the people who were ahead of us in the program—fifth and sixth years, the occasional seventh+ year—were afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome. When we chatted with them about the program or the faculty at department functions or social events, these otherwise vibrant, intelligent people suddenly became drones with dead eyes, parroting the party line. It seemed to us that some time around year three or four people in the program stopped questioning the program, and started repeating mantras of “that’s just how it is here” and “you get used to it.” I was told that faculty members who seemed incompetent or even cruel to me “were actually really helpful.” It was creepy and disconcerting. There were lots of jokes about drinking the Kool-Aid that first year.
By my third year, I’d started to exhibit some of this same behavior. I was bitter and angry, stressed and frustrated more of the time than I wasn’t. I felt dead inside. Studying for my preliminary exams was slowly driving me insane; “prelim brain” became the shorthand in our program for the confused mental state, inability to focus, and constant worry exhibited during the exam year. My advisor was unhelpful, dismissive and absentee. But worst of all, I could no longer see the goal at the end of the struggle. I didn’t want the degree anymore. The job market was, and continues to be, disastrous in my field (English/Creative Writing), a tenure-track position seemed almost impossible to get, and I was racking up student loan debt at a quick clip with little hope of a starting position that would allow me to pay it off in my lifetime. The people around me on the tenure track seemed miserable, and I feared becoming them. I was turning into someone I didn’t recognize and didn’t like.
I decided to leave my PhD program last fall at the beginning of my fourth year. The semester had already started and I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I stayed for the year, took a Master’s degree and made plans for my next move. At first this decision made me euphoric. I was finally free of all the stress and resentment I’d been holding on to for three long, hard years. I got a good six months of relief and excitement out of the decision. I was very happy to be leaving. I felt like I had taken back control of my life.
Now, I’ve been out for a little over four months. Emotionally, I feel unbelievably better. Even the stress of a job search outside academia cannot compare to the stress I felt while in the program. And I’m no longer taking on debt, which is great. But I have been surprised by how shaken I feel by the whole experience. My confidence has definitely taken a hit. I’ve got a case of PhDPTSD, self-diagnosed. [I say this partly in jest, but certainly don’t mean to make light of PTSD, which is a real and serious problem.] Leaving a PhD program where you felt abused, poorly treated, ignored, marginalized, etc. can have very real effects on your sense of self, your feelings of self-worth, and your ability to function in non-academic society. I believe these effects are temporary and can be overcome, but acknowledging them is certainly the first step to healing and moving forward.
My PhDPTSD mostly takes the form of a need to confess my status as a PhD dropout. As though mentioning that I left a PhD program recently will explain any erratic behavior or odd tendencies I might display: flights of criticism, rambling introductions, excessive citation. Being in academia was a huge part of my identity and it’s going to take some time to redefine myself. Like an addict in recovery, I feel the need to declare my problem. So when I run into a friend or acquaintance, or communicate with someone whom I haven’t talked to for a while, I find myself telling them, without prompting, “I just dropped out of my PhD program.” To their credit, no one in my life, family, friends, strangers, inside academia or outside it, has said anything unkind about this. I wish for everyone leaving academia the support I’ve gotten from everyone I’ve come in contact with. Even my dismissive advisor offered her help when I told her I was leaving the program!
I’ve been using the word “failure” pretty freely in the last few months. I feel like I’ve failed. I wanted to leave. I’m happy that I’m no longer in my program, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel like a failure. A few of my friends have been kind enough to say this isn’t true, and to reframe leaving academia not as failure, but as success, survival, self-actualizing, etc. I appreciate their reframing immensely. But I also never want to run from using the word “failure” or be afraid of failing. As a writer, hell, as a human being, failure is inevitable. For me, confronting that feeling of failure, letting myself feel it and saying it, is helping me move past it. There’s something freeing about failure. It’s a fresh start, but not a blank slate. Failure is how we learn. Failure is how we improve. Writers are fond of that Beckett quote: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
The part of my PhDPTSD that’s harder to admit is that I also still want credit for the years of struggle and work I put in. I made the mistake of looking at my transcripts recently. All the time and energy I sunk into this endeavor, and I don’t even have a degree to show for it. I imagine that people who did get their degree but are no longer working in academia might feel similarly. You invest so much in a program, in your education, and if you don’t tell anyone or people don’t know that you did all that work, then why did you do it? Maybe for some, who are more evolved than I am, just doing it is the reward. But I want some validation! I’ve been in school for most of my life; I still want the gold star, the “A,” the pat on the head. I want to be the best at dropping out of grad school. And that’s something I need to let go of too. Or rather, I need to let go of the need for that validation to come from an authority figure, some doting or dismissive professor.
Part of this need to confess, in my case, comes from my love of self-deprecation—a quality that was not appreciated in academe where pretention and self-aggrandizement are the norm. I love to tell my friends and family stories about the awful things that happen to me. So this failure is partly fodder for me, a way to entertain and connect to people. Likewise, telling my story is a way to free myself from shame and embarrassment. The more I tell it, the less power it has over me, and the less it hurts to tell. Leaving academia can be traumatic, but remember trauma comes from the Greek word for “wound,” and wounds heal. They’ll heal with or without help, but a wound that’s attended to leaves less of a scar.
Showing posts with label Humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humor. Show all posts
Friday, September 20, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
I'm In Love With the Cronk of Higher Ed, Our Very Own Onion!
Post-acers, why haven't you told me about The Cronk of Higher Ed?!! This is post-academic recovery gold!! The Cronk is our very own Onion, skewering higher ed practices and issues and I'm in LOVE with it. At HTLA we firmly believe that satire and humor that pokes fun at and reveal the flaws in higher education are crucial to our academic recovery. Laughter is the best medicine!
Here are a few Cronk highlights to get your started, but you should subscribe to their twitter feed and like them on facebook for a regular dose of reminders as to why you're OUT. After that, check out our other satire and schadenfreude resources for post-ac folks in the category links above.
MOOCS apply open philosophy to faculty recruitment. "Learn Today! Recruited Melanie Drake to teach advanced literature. “We discovered her ‘Twilight’ fan fiction blog and knew our students would love her,” said Pembers."
Small college steals and markets it's overworked adjuncts' home remedies for stress and exhaustion. "The remedies, grouped together under the moniker “Little Black Bag,” promises to revolutionize the floundering college’s fiscal health — and maybe its physical health as well. As adjuncts sign away their rights to privacy and intellectual property when they are hired, the college’s claim to intellectual property rights to 'Little Black Bag' felt consistent."
University requires adjuncts to wear ankle bracelets to keep their hours under 30 and thus avoid insurance requirements. “I put in over 50 hours on campus last week but really only worked about 23, according to my anklet,” said one instructor. “I’ve eliminated class discussions and I don’t call on students with raised hands anymore. The Provost says that I’m a model instructor and may even recommend me for another course next semester. If I keep this up, I might earn enough to cover gas money for my commute.”
Check it out!
Here are a few Cronk highlights to get your started, but you should subscribe to their twitter feed and like them on facebook for a regular dose of reminders as to why you're OUT. After that, check out our other satire and schadenfreude resources for post-ac folks in the category links above.
MOOCS apply open philosophy to faculty recruitment. "Learn Today! Recruited Melanie Drake to teach advanced literature. “We discovered her ‘Twilight’ fan fiction blog and knew our students would love her,” said Pembers."
Small college steals and markets it's overworked adjuncts' home remedies for stress and exhaustion. "The remedies, grouped together under the moniker “Little Black Bag,” promises to revolutionize the floundering college’s fiscal health — and maybe its physical health as well. As adjuncts sign away their rights to privacy and intellectual property when they are hired, the college’s claim to intellectual property rights to 'Little Black Bag' felt consistent."
University requires adjuncts to wear ankle bracelets to keep their hours under 30 and thus avoid insurance requirements. “I put in over 50 hours on campus last week but really only worked about 23, according to my anklet,” said one instructor. “I’ve eliminated class discussions and I don’t call on students with raised hands anymore. The Provost says that I’m a model instructor and may even recommend me for another course next semester. If I keep this up, I might earn enough to cover gas money for my commute.”
Check it out!
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Rebecca Schuman's Thesis Hatement
If you're on the fence about getting a PhD in Literature or considering leaving academe mid-PhD program, take a look at Rebecca Schuman's insightful article in Slate "Thesis Hatement." Schuman's article makes many fine points, here is a snippet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_dFpKZo54w
Don’t misunderstand me. There is unquantifiable intellectual reward from the exploration of scholarly problems and the expansion of every discipline—yes, even the literary ones, and even if that means doing bat-shit analysis like using the rule of “false elimination” to determine that Josef K. is simultaneously guilty and not guilty in The Trial. But there is one sort of reward you will never get: monetary compensation from a stable, non-penurious position at a decent university.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_dFpKZo54w
Friday, March 15, 2013
Tilting Windmills
This guest post was written by Ana M. Fores Tamayo. Please check out her project Adjunct Justice. You can sign the petition here.
I was going to begin my fourth year as an adjunct. The pay was lousy, but I loved teaching, and I loved the kids. When I thought about leaving, I could not bear it, because it really meant something to me: I was good at it. Not that I’m bragging. The kids told me so. They hated me at first, they always did. I was too difficult, I demanded too much of them. But in the end, they loved me, because I made them question; I made them wonder; I made them think.
So I began the semester without a hitch.
I always kept my activism off the radar, but that wasn’t hard to do. As an adjunct, teaching dual credit English at a high school, I was not part of the college campus. I was definitely not part of the high school either (I taught in a portable!), and I never saw anyone but my students: I was truly flying under the radar: I was invisible.
Beyond that, everything seemed to be fine. After all, they had finally cut down the student load, which I had campaigned for heavily last year, so our classes were down to 20-25 students. Life was good. I began teaching, handing out syllabi to little seniors who thought they were big college students. They were excited to begin their writing comp classes; I was thrilled to have an entire new set of minds to mold. One student, though, was a bit nervous. She came up to me at the end of the first class to ask about missing instruction; she had band activities (which are big in Texas!), and she was afraid the syllabus looked too difficult. I told her she needed to work hard, and be in class, as this was her first priority. If she had a problem with that, she should drop the class.
Turns out the student had also failed a placement exam, yet she was still enrolled in the course. I questioned this. But I could never quite grasp what I had started! Emails began flying between administration and faculty, accusing me of not wanting the student. The upshot:
Date: Aug 28, 2012, at 7:37:22 AM, CDT: (actual email to chairman)
ME: I have no problem with her at all. I just met her. I was going by what we were told about the AccuPlacer Exam, which was not this complete information you are now telling me. As long as she can keep up with her work, she seems like a perfectly fine young student, and hard working. Moreover, I commend her for her concern in going to the counselor in the first place, on her first day, to figure out what to do. That shows dedication. It shows me she's off to a good start.
I thought after a second tense day of classes and emails, the worst was over, and all would go back to normal. But, coming home that afternoon, I got a phone call, with no explanation …
Date: August 28, 2012 5:25:59 PM CDT (actual email to dean, chair, dual credit director, and “fixer of salaries”)
ME: And now, at 4:39 pm, I get a call from TCC firing me, effective immediately.
I was floored. Flabbergasted. Angry. Depressed. Hysterical. It seems they just wanted an excuse to get rid of me. They took this student’s complaint and blew it out of proportion, saying I had “negative interactions with students.” In plural! It took me a few days, but I finally began writing. Calling lawyers. Seeing what I could do. I reached out to my first lawyer, on the Internet.
Date: September 7, 2012 6:46:23 AM CDT
Dear Mark,
I have been trying to fight this battle alone. But last night, providence must have guided me to your page...
So, with this, I am up at 4:30 in the morning writing you, because you have given me hope. I begin by telling you I have no money, so this would probably have to be one of those pro bono cases. But I am also not in it for the money. What I want is to expose the fraudulent system that education has fallen privy to, and I want to call attention to the dire need of my fellow colleagues in need of living wages, who like me, are being exploited, much like migrant laborers, but of Academia. Out of the one and a half million instructors in Higher Ed today, one million are contingency labor; that's over 70% of today's professors. And many of those do not earn living wages. I myself was earning $1800 per course, no benefits, no healthcare. I do it because I love teaching. Many of us do. But we also need a living wage. And now, two days into the semester, I was fired, although they said they "were rearranging my classes." I had been working there since 2009. I am not particularly unique. A friend right now has been without a job for 3 months now. Another was selling plasma for the summer to make ends meet. A third is now homeless, though she began teaching on Monday... There are thousands of us…
I won’t bore you with the rest of the letter, written in the wee hours of the morning and finally sent at dawn, detailing the history and horrors of the marriage between college and high school, to everyone’s benefit: parents, students, administrators at both high school and college… but what about us? We were expendable. Are expendable.
Though I could never prove it, I am sure they knew about my petition for adjunct justice, which made it another reason they would want to get rid of me: http://signon.org/sign/better-pay-for-adjuncts.fb1?source=c.fb&r_by=426534. Right after they “dismissed” me, too, I kept getting weird email notifications from people looking me up on Academia.edu and other such academic sites, and as far as I could trace, they always led back to my college. Then I tried to get my materials back, or to get someone to call me back from either the college or the high school. The high school was completely silent. Though I wrote them, they did not answer. I contacted them again, nothing. A third note: I received a terse answer back from the director of the dual credit program stating she was sorry, she wished me well. Pontius Pilate washing his hands off the entire ordeal. On the other side, the college hid behind its draconian contract; you would laugh if it weren’t so sad. Saying its terms are harsh is putting it mildly. In any case, I went on fighting.
I found great friends through the New Faculty Majority; if it hadn’t been for them, I would have gone insane. While one colleague helped me write my first grievance letter against the college, the other stood beside me, still stands beside me (virtually of course!), so that I might get through the next few months.
In this at-will and right-to-work state, no lawyer will take my case. I’ve tried to set up appointments with over 30 of them. With my first, I was so naive; I actually believed he would help me. He made an appointment with me for weeks ahead, told me to pay up front, then we could talk about further payment —pro bono or contingency was definitely on the table— but when I actually met him, after 45 minutes or so, he began to frown at his watch, and I knew he was not seriously even thinking about taking my case. Though he feigned eyeing my petition, when I got up to show him details on his computer, he coughed and said, “Oh no, don’t bother, it’s ok. I can do that later. Really, I feel for you. It’s a sad case. But this is an at-will state. It’s a right-to-work state. We will fight for you, of course, but you need to pay us. We cannot take your case on contingency. We would lose money.” I looked around his plush office, his leather couches, one facing the other, very discreet and sophisticated. I glanced at him reaching for his iPhone once again; we really need to cut this short now, he mumbled. “I’m afraid I will not be able to take your case, after all; I have other appointments.” I stood up graciously, actually smiled at him, and thanked him for his time. Thanked him by God.
After that I told all lawyers upfront I could only pay contingency at most. No one called me back. Some wrote rejection letters, but it was all a failure. The first lawyer I contacted —my “4 am guy” I would say— did hang on the longest. I think he actually felt sorry for me. He actually cared because I flattered his ego in that first long exhaustive missive. But eventually he too decided it was too much for him, and in Texas? No, in Texas you couldn’t get anything done. After all, this was the state where a superintendent could make kids “disappear” from a school system, and no one would call him on it. It took years to get the law to finally take him in (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/education/el-paso-rattled-by-scandal-of-disappeared-students.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0).
So I am on my own now. I’ve gotten really good at writing these grievance letters. I’m on my 5th. When I write them, I go berserk for a few days, crazy whacked unapproachable cranky. You name it. I cry a lot. I scream. My husband stays clear of me on those days. Sometimes he tries to be supportive, but most times he leaves me be, as he knows I’ll calm down once the writing process is over. Or at least for a bit. But then I begin again, because I need to edit my first draft. And he is my editor, after all. It may be a bad idea to have someone so close share something like this with you, but what else can I do? I trust no one. He’s my worst critic but he’s the best too. He’ll tell me like it is and he’ll fight with me, but he’ll make it better. And so yes, we fight. We scream. I cry. But then, finally, after three, no, four, five, six drafts, it’s over. It is finally over. Complete. Time to mail it out.
Almost $70 later this time around, with a bulking file of return receipts requested, and letters from post offices because the college and the high school never signed the slips —so did they really get them? What else is in that file? Oh, the college never bothered to pick up the mail at all, so the envelope is stamped all over and returned to sender… Will I be slipping more of these unopened letters to my file, or will this time around be any different? Will this letter I just sent be so terse, so strong, so flagrant with indignation that they will finally have to answer me directly? After all, I did call them on the fact that they answered everyone else I placed on the correspondence, yet they neglected to answer the one person the letter was all about, the person who actually wrote to them… Maybe the fact that the Attorney General has a complaint file against them now might make a difference. I do give them the complaint number in the letter… So, what do you think? Well, if they do not answer, at least I will make them squirm.
And tomorrow, tomorrow I will go off like Don Quixote, to tilt my next windmills.
Tilting Windmills
I was going to begin my fourth year as an adjunct. The pay was lousy, but I loved teaching, and I loved the kids. When I thought about leaving, I could not bear it, because it really meant something to me: I was good at it. Not that I’m bragging. The kids told me so. They hated me at first, they always did. I was too difficult, I demanded too much of them. But in the end, they loved me, because I made them question; I made them wonder; I made them think.
So I began the semester without a hitch.
I always kept my activism off the radar, but that wasn’t hard to do. As an adjunct, teaching dual credit English at a high school, I was not part of the college campus. I was definitely not part of the high school either (I taught in a portable!), and I never saw anyone but my students: I was truly flying under the radar: I was invisible.
Beyond that, everything seemed to be fine. After all, they had finally cut down the student load, which I had campaigned for heavily last year, so our classes were down to 20-25 students. Life was good. I began teaching, handing out syllabi to little seniors who thought they were big college students. They were excited to begin their writing comp classes; I was thrilled to have an entire new set of minds to mold. One student, though, was a bit nervous. She came up to me at the end of the first class to ask about missing instruction; she had band activities (which are big in Texas!), and she was afraid the syllabus looked too difficult. I told her she needed to work hard, and be in class, as this was her first priority. If she had a problem with that, she should drop the class.
Turns out the student had also failed a placement exam, yet she was still enrolled in the course. I questioned this. But I could never quite grasp what I had started! Emails began flying between administration and faculty, accusing me of not wanting the student. The upshot:
Date: Aug 28, 2012, at 7:37:22 AM, CDT: (actual email to chairman)
ME: I have no problem with her at all. I just met her. I was going by what we were told about the AccuPlacer Exam, which was not this complete information you are now telling me. As long as she can keep up with her work, she seems like a perfectly fine young student, and hard working. Moreover, I commend her for her concern in going to the counselor in the first place, on her first day, to figure out what to do. That shows dedication. It shows me she's off to a good start.
I thought after a second tense day of classes and emails, the worst was over, and all would go back to normal. But, coming home that afternoon, I got a phone call, with no explanation …
Date: August 28, 2012 5:25:59 PM CDT (actual email to dean, chair, dual credit director, and “fixer of salaries”)
ME: And now, at 4:39 pm, I get a call from TCC firing me, effective immediately.
I was floored. Flabbergasted. Angry. Depressed. Hysterical. It seems they just wanted an excuse to get rid of me. They took this student’s complaint and blew it out of proportion, saying I had “negative interactions with students.” In plural! It took me a few days, but I finally began writing. Calling lawyers. Seeing what I could do. I reached out to my first lawyer, on the Internet.
Date: September 7, 2012 6:46:23 AM CDT
Dear Mark,
I have been trying to fight this battle alone. But last night, providence must have guided me to your page...
So, with this, I am up at 4:30 in the morning writing you, because you have given me hope. I begin by telling you I have no money, so this would probably have to be one of those pro bono cases. But I am also not in it for the money. What I want is to expose the fraudulent system that education has fallen privy to, and I want to call attention to the dire need of my fellow colleagues in need of living wages, who like me, are being exploited, much like migrant laborers, but of Academia. Out of the one and a half million instructors in Higher Ed today, one million are contingency labor; that's over 70% of today's professors. And many of those do not earn living wages. I myself was earning $1800 per course, no benefits, no healthcare. I do it because I love teaching. Many of us do. But we also need a living wage. And now, two days into the semester, I was fired, although they said they "were rearranging my classes." I had been working there since 2009. I am not particularly unique. A friend right now has been without a job for 3 months now. Another was selling plasma for the summer to make ends meet. A third is now homeless, though she began teaching on Monday... There are thousands of us…
I won’t bore you with the rest of the letter, written in the wee hours of the morning and finally sent at dawn, detailing the history and horrors of the marriage between college and high school, to everyone’s benefit: parents, students, administrators at both high school and college… but what about us? We were expendable. Are expendable.
Though I could never prove it, I am sure they knew about my petition for adjunct justice, which made it another reason they would want to get rid of me: http://signon.org/sign/better-pay-for-adjuncts.fb1?source=c.fb&r_by=426534. Right after they “dismissed” me, too, I kept getting weird email notifications from people looking me up on Academia.edu and other such academic sites, and as far as I could trace, they always led back to my college. Then I tried to get my materials back, or to get someone to call me back from either the college or the high school. The high school was completely silent. Though I wrote them, they did not answer. I contacted them again, nothing. A third note: I received a terse answer back from the director of the dual credit program stating she was sorry, she wished me well. Pontius Pilate washing his hands off the entire ordeal. On the other side, the college hid behind its draconian contract; you would laugh if it weren’t so sad. Saying its terms are harsh is putting it mildly. In any case, I went on fighting.
I found great friends through the New Faculty Majority; if it hadn’t been for them, I would have gone insane. While one colleague helped me write my first grievance letter against the college, the other stood beside me, still stands beside me (virtually of course!), so that I might get through the next few months.
In this at-will and right-to-work state, no lawyer will take my case. I’ve tried to set up appointments with over 30 of them. With my first, I was so naive; I actually believed he would help me. He made an appointment with me for weeks ahead, told me to pay up front, then we could talk about further payment —pro bono or contingency was definitely on the table— but when I actually met him, after 45 minutes or so, he began to frown at his watch, and I knew he was not seriously even thinking about taking my case. Though he feigned eyeing my petition, when I got up to show him details on his computer, he coughed and said, “Oh no, don’t bother, it’s ok. I can do that later. Really, I feel for you. It’s a sad case. But this is an at-will state. It’s a right-to-work state. We will fight for you, of course, but you need to pay us. We cannot take your case on contingency. We would lose money.” I looked around his plush office, his leather couches, one facing the other, very discreet and sophisticated. I glanced at him reaching for his iPhone once again; we really need to cut this short now, he mumbled. “I’m afraid I will not be able to take your case, after all; I have other appointments.” I stood up graciously, actually smiled at him, and thanked him for his time. Thanked him by God.
After that I told all lawyers upfront I could only pay contingency at most. No one called me back. Some wrote rejection letters, but it was all a failure. The first lawyer I contacted —my “4 am guy” I would say— did hang on the longest. I think he actually felt sorry for me. He actually cared because I flattered his ego in that first long exhaustive missive. But eventually he too decided it was too much for him, and in Texas? No, in Texas you couldn’t get anything done. After all, this was the state where a superintendent could make kids “disappear” from a school system, and no one would call him on it. It took years to get the law to finally take him in (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/education/el-paso-rattled-by-scandal-of-disappeared-students.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0).
So I am on my own now. I’ve gotten really good at writing these grievance letters. I’m on my 5th. When I write them, I go berserk for a few days, crazy whacked unapproachable cranky. You name it. I cry a lot. I scream. My husband stays clear of me on those days. Sometimes he tries to be supportive, but most times he leaves me be, as he knows I’ll calm down once the writing process is over. Or at least for a bit. But then I begin again, because I need to edit my first draft. And he is my editor, after all. It may be a bad idea to have someone so close share something like this with you, but what else can I do? I trust no one. He’s my worst critic but he’s the best too. He’ll tell me like it is and he’ll fight with me, but he’ll make it better. And so yes, we fight. We scream. I cry. But then, finally, after three, no, four, five, six drafts, it’s over. It is finally over. Complete. Time to mail it out.
Almost $70 later this time around, with a bulking file of return receipts requested, and letters from post offices because the college and the high school never signed the slips —so did they really get them? What else is in that file? Oh, the college never bothered to pick up the mail at all, so the envelope is stamped all over and returned to sender… Will I be slipping more of these unopened letters to my file, or will this time around be any different? Will this letter I just sent be so terse, so strong, so flagrant with indignation that they will finally have to answer me directly? After all, I did call them on the fact that they answered everyone else I placed on the correspondence, yet they neglected to answer the one person the letter was all about, the person who actually wrote to them… Maybe the fact that the Attorney General has a complaint file against them now might make a difference. I do give them the complaint number in the letter… So, what do you think? Well, if they do not answer, at least I will make them squirm.
And tomorrow, tomorrow I will go off like Don Quixote, to tilt my next windmills.
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