I’ve finally completed my first week of teaching, and the first week of my second year of the doctoral program.

Teaching is great. I love my students. The first class I teach is at night, but they try to stifle their yawns, and they ask questions and engage with my lecture. The second class is a four hour once a week class, and although we have only met once, I have a feeling that I will get a lot of great work out of them. I like being in front of the class, and it has been awhile since I actually enjoyed my job. While I miss two of the women from the library, I do not miss the drama there. So far, teaching is a drama free environment. I can’t wait to really get into the teaching and the discussions with the students.

Being in the grad program has really changed the way that I view my students. I understand boring classes, and as someone who spends a lot of time looking at cat videos on the internet during the lectures, I have decided to be a little more relaxed about my phone and laptop policy. So far the students have respected it.

The second year of the program is off to a rough start. The results of the qualifying exam didn’t go well for a few people, and I do not like the way that it is being handled. If someone looked really closely at this program, I am not sure that it would be allowed to continue. It is clear that race plays a part in who gets to succeed int he program, and since I still have two years left, I am going to just bow  my head and keep silent.

I didn’t do well keeping silent on the first day, but I will be trying a lot harder from now on. I have never been in a place where racism was so rampant and blatant, and people who claim to hate racial stereotypes and labels applied to them place so many labels and stereotypes on white people. It is very clear that if I was struggling in classes, or having a hard time with the program that I would be on my own to figure it out.

We have a new professor this semester, and when he wasn’t talking down to us, or telling us how he wrote Achieving the Dream, he spared a few seconds to ask us what we wanted to do with this degree. After each of the cohort members talked about their end game, he had some comment about how he had done it, or how he could make that happen for us. He was so arrogant and  annoying. What was even more annoying was the plans for a lot of these people want to be deans and presidents of colleges, yet, they only want to help a certain group of students. These people are not going to work to make the educational system a better place. They are going to perpetuate the stereotypes and color focused system we have in place now.

But being on this soapbox gives me a headache, and it is a losing battle.

85 days until Thanksgiving vacation.

Thank the sweet baby Jesus I love my job.

If I didn’t need the fancy letters after my name to move overseas and start a life, I would have already quit the program and saved myself the aggravation.