I am currently wrestling with my application to teach at the local community college. I used to apply for jobs all the time, when I was working outside of academia. But I�m definitely feeling a little rusty and awkward about the whole cover letter thing. After working for a while, I�m always ready to crawl under my bed and wave my C.V. in the air like a flag of surrender. But I must press on.

I have been waffling over whether or not I should do this, but my mind got made up for me while attending my department�s picnic earlier this week. One of my fellow doctoral students was saying his goodbyes before moving to take his first tenure track job at a university in Texas. He came up to the faculty member I�d been conversing with and thanked him profusely for urging him to take a community college teaching position last year, saying it made all the difference. �People see [insert name of fancy-schmancy research institution here] on your C.V. and they think you only do research and don�t know how to teach. But when they that I�d taught at [insert name of local urban community college here], they were much more interested: �If he can teach there, he can teach anywhere.��

Meanwhile, in a fit of industry and sheer perseverance, I got my grades posted online and emailed my class a final message. I am now completely done. At least until the grade-grubbing begins. My husband sent me this link yesterday, which brought home why I was warned repeatedly not to give my students my phone number. Still, I feel a little sorry for the students alluded to in this article. They do deserve to know up front what the expectations are and how things are graded. It shouldn�t be a total mystery. That said, I�m sure there will still be a complaint or two from my own students, but most of them genuinely did well. The few people who did poorly did so in such a dramatic fashion (flunked exams, failed to turn in assignments), that I�m hoping they won�t have the temerity to argue about it. I�m not going to place any bets on it, though.

The heat wave continues, but it�s cloudy enough this morning that we have thrown caution to the wind, turned off the AC and opened up the house, so I am once more being serenaded with bird song. The peonies burst suddenly into bloom yesterday after a brief rain and are currently nodding their pale pink heads, sending wafts of heavenly fragrance through the open front door. And now the trick will be to keep my own head from nodding off over the computer as I try to figure out how to tout my assets to the hiring committee.

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