The opening block on this morning's iTunes lineup (Good Karma)

Pixies: Subbacultcha
Shins: St. Simon
Rasputina: Hunter's Kiss
Lyle Lovett: She's Already Made up her Mind
Sloan: Life of a Working Girl
Peggy Lee: Fever
Violent Femmes: Blister in the Sun

Definitely an auspicious day on the musical front. On the train heading to school, I'm finally feeling like I'm enjoying the multiple lives of parent, dissertator and teacher. I'm finally starting to feel like I can do this. Borogoves left me an incredibly nice note in my guestbook last week (for which I, ahem, still have not thanked her, as I�m very behind on my correspondence) saying that my comments on the class I'm teaching remind her of her favorite teachers in college. It was really nice to hear, but I�m not certain I'm communicating my thinking and enthusiasm to my students as much as I would like. I still get nervous every day when class begins. Although last week, when the professor (tenured) who teaches the class after mine came in, he was all fidgety and confessed nerves about teaching. I told him how nice that was to hear, that we grad students think we're the only ones who get nervous. He said that for him, anyway, the nerves never go away but he has learned to deal with it better and that also it's the nerves that make the class go � it's what drives him and keeps things lively.

I hadn't considered my nerves as a possible advantage. But I do need to manage them better. I am, however, finally getting over my tendency to think of a class as a presentation. I'm a great improviser as a conductor � in fact, it's the thinking on your feet aspect of conducting that I really love. If I can learn how to import the same kind of approach to teaching, I think I�ll start having more fun. And then, I think, I�ll have a job I really love. If I can find one, that is.

Feminist scholar Elaine Showalter has a new book out on novels about academia (if that�s not a self-serving subject for a book, I don't know what is. I don't know what horrifies me more � the fact that such a book exists, the fact that Elaine Showalter is the one who wrote it or the fact that I want to read it. Pure narcissism.). The wonderfully cantankerous Joseph Epstein reviewed it for The Weekly Standard, pointing out that the genre wouldn�t exist if academics actually liked their jobs. He basically tells everyone to stop whining. You've got it good � you've got tenure, you've got summers off, you are well paid. You get sabbaticals. What have you got to complain about? He seems to have forgotten about the 7-14 years of hard labor for low pay in the untenured trenches. The hours suck. You get stuck with all the labor-intensive and less intellectually challenging courses. By the time professors get tenure, I think, they�ve been working so hard for so long that they think it should be more than it is.

Tenure is a life changer for many people. Just among my own acquaintances I've seen tenure result in weddings, babies, divorces, changes of career and changes of sexual orientation. Not to mention the many small nervous breakdowns that are less visible along the way. Perhaps the angst is due to the feeling that one has finally arrived but you�re not entirely sure you want to be here after all.

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