The Wily Filipino

Transitions.

My last three years have been marked by various transitions -- some huge, with no small amount of trauma. One is easily Googleable, and I have no doubt that I'll be posting more about it in the months to come; the others can be read between the lines. Actually "transition" is a euphemistic way of putting it; it's been, for the most part, sheer hell.

So there's really no explanation for why I've been unreasonably happy the last month or so -- okay, certain burdens like my manuscript have been lifted, but the fear of unemployment and rejection still looms large -- but there you go. My brother teases me about living the life of a teenager with all my carrying on -- absolutely not true, but if it resembles a pre-midlife crisis (or the lingering aftereffects of being rudely kicked out of the 18-to-34 demographic), let it be known that it comes at a great, great price. And if there's something in all of this that resembles callow, adolescent bravado in my manner (especially if you've been out with me lately), you're probably interpreting it correctly as well.

I have recently started a glorified data-entry job at a financial institution which shall remain nameless for now, if only to allow me to post snarky blog entries in the future. It's my first non-academic job -- let's just say my parents made sure that summer jobs were unnecessary -- and I should be feeling apprehensive, out of my depth. Instead I am enjoying -- again, unreasonably so -- its repetition, the fascinating cubicle dramas, the fruitless debates over grammar, the regularity of lunch hours. And now I know the answers to the most amazing questions, like, Can condo homeowners associations prevent you from sunbathing naked? (The answer: depends. If someone has to clamber up a tree to actually see your ass, the answer is no. But if your balcony opens up to the parking lot, that's a different story.)

There is something liberating about this nine-to-five job -- I get home and I'm not worrying about work; I don't have to grade papers or quizzes; I can read anthropology books simply for enjoyment, and not because I have to write about them, or I have to meet a deadline. And shit, I can read fiction again! The job allows me to savor the texts, to allow not just for the pleasure of acquiring nebulous theoretical knowledge but also the delight of ethnographic detail. It is an odd feeling, working at a job for which my years of higher education did not prepare me, but there is nevertheless something comforting about this ability to bounce back from the brink of unemployment. (Note: maintaining this blog actually had something to do with the new job, believe it or not. I'm amazed that it's actually good for something.)

I have also had the opportunity to be on the other side of the classroom for the first time in something like 12 years, yet another disorienting but enjoyable experience. Last month I took a couple of classes in marketing basics and brand strategies. (This was not because I was planning to earn a Certificate in Marketing, but looking for a chance to parlay my ethnographic skills into something more corporate.) So there I was, actually collaborating with classmates -- even the term "classmates" seems so unfamiliar to me -- on homework (homework!) and quick-and-dirty presentations.

(One of the projects was on the demographically-possible but somehow culturally wrong Starbucks boba tea, which my classmate Naoko and I thought could survive a pilot release in selected branches but would fail miserably everywhere else. Another group presentation was on a so-wrongheaded-it-just-might-work vitamin-infused vodka. Our group called it Vitamin V. Our classmates were skeptical, but I think the antioxidants won them over.) But there was also something reassuring about the passivity of sitting behind the desk, taking notes, wincing whenever the teacher would assign homework (homework!). And no, all this is not unrelated to the adolescence mentioned earlier.

Sometime last week I finished a summer class at City College, and did something I'd never done before: I wrote them an email message telling them how much I enjoyed the class. This was absolutely true: it was a class I'd taught many times before, but I would literally walk into the classroom at the beginning of the class with a big grin on my face, looking forward to the next three hours. Sometimes I'd buy them Krispy Kremes (okay, I'm cheap), again something I'd never done for students before (yes, I already said I was cheap), which I can only attribute to a kind of fondness.

And once again, there was no logical reason, really, for such odd affection towards the class: part of it may have been the relative brevity of the session; the class only ran for a month, but we also met daily for a rather concentrated time period. One other reason, I think, had to do with how handily the students pulled off the required project -- only in a matter of three weeks, certainly the shortest deadline I've ever given -- and how a couple of the group papers were some of the best, most thoroughly researched and ethnographically detailed projects I'd seen in eight years.

And, of course, there were the students: a scrappy bunch of incredibly motivated, perspicacious, adventurous, intensely interested and interesting kids who could have lain on the beach all summer, but didn't. (Okay, they probably did some of that too.) But teaching this class was an utter delight. I see it as a kind of validation, too; that teaching will always be in my blood somehow, and that pedagogical satisfaction is indeed its own reward -- meager, perhaps, in remunerations in the usual sense of the word, but immeasurable in its little everyday gifts.

Posted by the wily filipino at August 6, 2007 11:23 PM