Tomorrow I have to go back to work. I have been off for 6 weeks, and I am not sure that I am ready for the vacation to end. The last 6 weeks have been tough. Since I cut ties with the EDD program, I have been trying to figure out what is next for me. The community college Gods are smiling on me and there are an abundance of full time English positions opening for the fall of 2015. There are 250 people applying for each of these positions, but I am hopeful that my application will stick out to someone on one of the hiring committees at one of these community colleges.
Of course, talking to a lot of my friends who are also applying for these positions, I am starting to worry a bit. A lot of them have great relationships with their professors and with the people that they teach for now. I do not have this. I have a very strained relationship with the college I last attended, and I am too new in my job for anyone to really know my name. I’d much rather that my application was judged based on my skills, qualifications, and relevant teaching experience, rather than what someone who I worked for a couple of years ago. This further showed me that I am not good at the game of politics that exists in the field of higher education. I just want to be in a room teaching students how to write and help them progress in their academic career. The application process, the way I have to “sell” myself is very hard for me.
This whole process, and the last 6 weeks has caused me to utter two words over and over: What if?
As Romcom Letters to Juliet notes:
“What” and “If” are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: What if? What if? What if?”
-
1.asking for information specifying something.“what is your name?”
-
2.the thing or things that (used in specifying something).“what we need is a commitment”
-
1.asking for information specifying something.“what time is it?”
-
2.(referring to the whole of an amount) whatever.“he had been robbed of what little money he had”
-
1.to what extent?“what does it matter?”
-
2.used to indicate an estimate or approximation.“see you, what, about four?”
-
1.introducing a conditional clause.
synonyms: on (the) condition that,provided (that),providing (that),presuming (that),supposing (that),assuming (that),as long as,given that,in the event that “if the rain holds out, we can walk” -
2.despite the possibility that; no matter whether.“if it takes me seven years, I shall do it”
The Scamp Abroad 