Maybe not.

I just got out of a tenure workshop. Blah. Nothing makes me feel less involved, less a part of things, or less interested. I always come out of the damned things feeling even more disconnected and more depressed than when I went in.

There are lots and lots of things I love about working in academia, but the pressure of the tenure track often makes me wonder if it’s worth it. More and more lately I’m thinking the answer is “maybe not.”

So hell, now I’m just depressed.  Phooey.

My best exam story

It’s the last day of finals here at the university, and every year for the last day of finals in December I’m reminded of one of my best college-days stories ever. So, what the hell, I’ll share it with y’all.

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During my senior year I lived in a dorm apartment with a bunch of sophomores. Fall semester, I had my last final at 8am on a Friday. I planned to stay until Saturday and leave Saturday morning. My last final was pretty easy. (History of Physics, Galileo to Einstein if I recall.) So, I stayed up Thursday night with my roommates, playing Monopoly as a drinking game. (Every time you had to pay rent, you had to take a drink.)

Long story short, my California native roommate (I’ll call him Rob) is swigging my Jim Beam. One minute he’s fine, the next minute he’s rolling on the floor screamin’ about “WOO! Fuckin’ 49ers!!!!” The girls next door drop by, flirt a little, have a little giggle at Rob’s expense, and go back across the hall. Rob decides that the chicks are gone, he’s going to bed. On the way, he staggers down the hall, falls, and hits his head on the door hasp to the bathroom door, making an inch long cut on his scalp. He bleeds like a stuck pig. He then proceeds to pass the fuck out.

Okay, so we’re all drunk to a greater or lesser degree. It’s a little after midnight. I run down the 4 flights of stairs (we were on the top floor) and over to the building across the quad where my girlfriend lived. I got her to agree to drive my car to the ER. We ran back UP, and while my girlfriend escorts us, three of us bodily carry Rob’s unconscious ass down the 4 flights of stairs, across the quad, into the parking lot, and into my car, all the while keeping a towel on his head and ignoring the stares of the people who saw us and probably thought we were disposing of a body.

Rob, of course, comes to long enough to puke in my car. Then he passes back out.

We get him to the ER and into the receiving area, where they whisk him away and leave us to answer the triage nurse’s questions as best we can. Does he have insurance? any allergies? Uhhh…

At about 3am or 3:30, a nurse comes out and says “We’ve got him stitched up, but because he was intoxicated we have to hold him overnight to make sure that it’s the alcohol that has him so disoriented and not a bad concussion.” I immediately volunteer to stay the night in the ER while the other guys went back to get some sleep for their exams. The nurse says, “You should all just go home. He’s not going to remember you being here. Just make sure there’s a number he can reach you.”

I went home, crashed for about 3 hours, and went for my exam. When I got back, Rob was awake and feeling pretty sheepish. He apologized to everybody, and said on the way back from the hospital he went and got a big pack of steaks. So, for lunch on Friday, we all grilled steaks on the big grill in the quad between the dorms, and had a kickass meal. Then the poor guy had to fly back to Monterey and explain to his parents why he had a big frickin’ bandage on his head.

I got a B on the exam and an A in the class.

So, see, even if you pull an all nighter, as long as there isn’t blood AND puke involved, it could be worse.