So I’m going up for promotion. What a giant, unnecessary pain in the ass.

I can say this because work is work and my blog is my blog, and ne’er the twain shall meet. I have reasons for that. First, I don’t even open my web page at work. I work for a university, where there is no such thing as your own intellectual property. Whatever you do there is partially theirs. Money that you make from it is partially theirs, especially if you’re using their resources and equipment. So I just don’t. Never mind that I use my own resources and equipment for work.

So my department chair announces on January 12th that I have to have my complete, perfect, impressive dossier ready to go by January 25th. At this count, I have 5 days. This is in addition to making sure all the website services and databases are working properly (a bigger and bigger job every year), all the new scripts people are whining about are written, and, oh yeah, making sure my classes are taught in an excellent manner. I simply don’t have time to get promoted. Not that I wanted or needed to…it’s just another typical academic hoop jump.

Someone who didn’t have anything more important to do (like, oh, research and teaching) decided it would be a good idea to force full-time non-tenured appointees (lecturers) to do some hoop jumping so that we could have no particular raise in pay and no other new benefits; the honcho’s benefit is that they don’t have to write a contract renewal every year. Rather, they just have to write one every five. Woohoo! So I get a name change, and a five-year contract. I will be so proud.

This is just like tenure, except you don’t get tenure. You simply put together all the stuff that proves you’re worth keeping around and then sweat for a few weeks while they decide if you’re worth keeping around. Never mind that they’ve been keeping me around on a yearly basis for over 7 years. The scary thing is, this could be it. It’s just like tenure (except it’s not tenure) in that if you don’t get the meaningless promotion and name change, you’re no longer employed there. Period. Who thought this was good and necessary? So far, no one has really used the option of ridding the department of the chaff. Everyone who goes up for promotion seems to get it. Moreover, other campuses of this university have done the smart thing. They have lecturers working there for years…when the requirement came up for a promotion the departmental powers said “OK, you’re promoted” and left it at that. Let new appointees worry about the ‘up and out’ policy after 5 years. Haven’t the old appointees paid their dues and proven themselves, over and over again? I didn’t finish my PhD for a good reason. I had no interest in putting myself in another pressure-cooker situation (like the doctorate itself) where I had to worry and sweat for 6 years, all the while compiling a dossier and kissing ass, and waiting for them to tell me I’m good enough to stick around. I really just want to teach, do classroom research and development, and I want to do it with young adults. And last time I checked, I’m good at all of it, a useful employee, and I do tons more for the course I teach than just teach. I support its delivery, provide services that expedite the other instructors’ feedback on projects and make it easy for students to get their materials. I also save trees. (Sorry, Clay, but that’s one of the things I use on the FSR to make my work ‘sound’ socially responsible—the website course materials delivery saves trees)

So this is what I’m procrastinating about. I have to start printing stuff, rewrite the CV yet AGAIN, and put this gorgeous document together. My chair tells us (the three that are going up for promotion this time) that we’re a ‘slam dunk’. Slam dunk THIS, pal. OK, off to work.

As a gift to myself, I ordered a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet. Worth EVERY PENNY and I’m still amazed at how sensitive it is, how much art you can really do with it, and the variety of brush strokes and other effects you can do with it.

I wanted the 9×12 tablet, but ordered the 6×8, which is more than adequate for my needs. The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis also provided a good beginning. But within minutes of plugging it in and installing Photoshop Elements and Corel Painter Essentials, I was painting a watercolor! While the painting sucked, I was still amazed at what I could do right out of the box. As with any new medium, you need to practice. So far, all I’ve done really is the header graphic for this blog and my website, and this nasty little experiment.

Had to show it off. Loved the way it did watercolor effects, pencil and chalk effects, etc. I don’t think I’ve been this enthralled with a new gadget since I got my very first computer… which is saying a lot. I have a ton of painting supplies that I don’t work with because I don’t want to have to clean up the mess, clean brushes, smell the turpentine… That’s mainly my excuse. No excuses here…nice, clean painting possibilities! I’m going to play with sketching and charcoal effects next. That always was my favorite medium.