2006-01-25

letters, ridiculous letters

About a month ago, in a moment of weakness, I contacted a professor that I used to work for as a teaching assistant to ask him for a letter of recommendation. I had told him that I was interested in applying for positions at local junior colleges. He finally responded today, over a month later. If I were truly interested, I would have missed the deadlines for teaching during the summer and would have maybe two weeks to get my letters to colleges for next fall. His response reminded me why I hated being in grad school. He said that he could write me a letter saying that I was competent, but not one that was superlatative and went on to say that I didn't have enough time to put into his class. Perhaps he forgot that he only hired me at half time, meaning that he was only paying me about 350$ a month. So he is probably right, I wasn't willing to devote all of my time to his course. In true academic style, he took a few more jabs at me under the guise of honesty. It reminds me of this time that Di and I were at the grad pub and some people we knew were discussing the merits of a friend of theirs: "well, she's smart, but she's not brilliant." As if brilliancy is a requirement for an academic! Because of the absurdity of the comment, it became something of a joke for Di and I.
All I did was ask for a simple letter to get a job that I don't particularly want. Now I remember all the better why I don't want it. Granted, he probably wasn't the best person to ask, even though he had assured me on a couple occasions after the course was over that I could always go to him for a letter. I thought the man was an idiot, and it probably showed.

xanthium at 6:10 p.m.

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