#school stuff

[torao4577]

Giggling and kicking my feet

[willczek-art]

NPMD Tarot - The World

Others from the series: The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Devil, The Star, Strength

[cordspaghetti]

why did i say any of this

[avatarchai]

Cover illustration and design for Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla 🦇❣

[qqueenofhades]

For creative writing purposes, can you go into what a typical day is for a professor? Like what their teaching schedule looks like, when most fit in their research time, etc?

Ahaha, well. I don't want to just say "you can completely make it up," but also.... you can pretty much just make it up, and what is the case for one professor is definitely not going to be true for another. I have known people who will send emails at 1am and/or 4am, and actually finding and fitting in research time for most academics is also "lololololol what." So I can give you a roster of typical daily academic tasks and categories, and then let you know if that if you want to throw them up in the air and scatter them around in literally whatever-the-fuck order, there is probably a beleaguered academic who has done that, but with an even worse sleep schedule. So:

Most permanent faculty at a university are hired as assistant (tenure-track) professors. Once they pass the tenure-committee review (usually about 5 years into the job) they are appointed as associate (tenured) professors. Full professors are considerably senior and/or have been in the field for a long time and have a distinguished service record, excluding various wunderkinds who get it early (but are not common).

If the faculty is just teaching one class a semester or has an irregular appointment, i.e. they step in to teach when the university needs them, they are adjunct professors. You can gain a lot of cred and/or commiserating groaning in your AO3 comments by complaining about how little money the adjunct faculty makes, how erratic their schedule is, and how there is generally little-to-no actual career advancement possible in that position, unless they manage to reapply to a permanent post.

There are also a lot of Visiting Assistant Professors (and similar title), for 2- or 3-year/non-permanent appointments. Many institutions now also offer 1-year VAPs with only a possibility of renewal for 1 additional year or not at all. Those institutions should go straight to hell.

Most professors have 3/3 teaching loads, i.e. they'll teach 3 classes per semester (assuming winter/spring semester). Others have 2/2/2 loads for trimesters (also known as quarters). It can be more, i.e. 4/4, but that's for sucky entry-level teaching-only positions and someone in that role would be unlikely to have any research or service (i.e. institutional committee or internal college) commitments. They would probably also mostly be teaching introductory or freshman-year general survey courses. It depends on how much you want to torture your fictional academic.

Free food? Yes. You will see a healthy amount of the department there, whether faculty or student.

Please remember to have your fictional academic receive approximately 50 student emails a day wherein they ask something that is clearly answered in the syllabus or on the course website, and to see how polite they can possibly be in telling said student this.

Most grading is now done online, so the red pen is only metaphorical, but you can leave SO many Pointed Comments on Canvas Speed Grader. But if you want to torture Dr. Blorbo, you can have the e-grading system suddenly stop working, so they have to grade three classes' worth of introductory freshman history essays by hand. Not based on real events.

Likewise, there will be endless bullshit with the dean's office and/or central university administration, wherein there will be so many Urgent Budget Updates and Breaking News From The Chancellor and We Regret To Inform You We Cannot Hire Someone For That Position.

Related to the budget woes: they will ask you to do things like "make sure you print on both sides of the paper!" or otherwise "economize." Contemplating murder is acceptable and encouraged.

The administrative assistant in each department holds the entire department together. They will be extremely indispensable. Your fictional academic, if they know what's good for them, will befriend that person and/or grovel at their feet. Said person is also usually responsible for scheduling classrooms, which can cause all kinds of juicy drama in the academic fandom if there is One Particular Classroom that everyone hates and lo and behold, Dr. Blorbo is stuck there yet again. They will then probably also fire off multiple passive-aggressive emails attempting to correct the problem. The administrative assistant can grant and/or ignore these requests at their discretion, depending on how much beef they have with Dr. Blorbo and/or how motivated they are to solve their problems.

Department meetings! Who asked for them? Nobody! Who has to attend them? Everybody! They go on for two hours every other week (possibly more depending on how meeting-happy your department chair is) and you will wish for death!

Likewise, the department staff sending out passive-aggressive emails about how they really NEED one more volunteer for (insert university event here). Dr. Blorbo, if they are smart, will delete these emails and pretend they never saw them, but sometimes it may be unavoidable. Bitching and moaning will follow.

For research: it really depends on what academic field Dr. Blorbo is in, since the hard sciences, etc. look quite different and I, as a humanities person, can't speak to that. Most academics aim to fairly regularly publish a piece in a peer-reviewed journal; you can check Dr. Blorbo's field to see what journals they might be trying to submit a journal article (usually max. 8000 words, sometimes more) to.

This will go through a process called Peer Review, wherein two anonymous academics review your work (also anonymized to them) to make sure that you are not talking out of your ass. It is a running joke that Reviewer 2 will always, ALWAYS be more grumpy and critical and otherwise annoying. Invoking the specter of Dr. Blorbo receiving a peer review evaluation for their article will send a shiver down every academic's spine.

If Dr. Blorbo has recently finished their PhD, they may be working on converting their PhD thesis into an academic monograph. The most horrible part of this process, hands down, is reviewing proofs to make an index. Don't ask me how I know this.

However, academic monographs take a lot of time and work and most academics are mostly focused on publishing journal articles, book chapters (in collected volumes) or editing/working in collaboration with other projects.

Likewise: Dr. Blorbo will have to write book reviews. This is accomplished by the very scientific method of subscribing to various industry publications and/or email lists that will sometimes send out lists of books that need to be reviewed and solicit people to sign up. You will then receive a hard copy of the book (usually) and have 3 months or so to read it and write a review. The first 2 months of this, give or take, will consist of the book sitting untouched on the academic's desk as they remind themselves that they still have plenty of time to do it.

There can, however, be INCREDIBLE beef in book reviews, and while the standards of professional courtesy dictate that you don't go great-guns-flaming calling someone else in your field a moron (in more technical language), sometimes it is unavoidable.

Do they get paid for any of this extra intellectual work? Lol. No. No they do not. They don't get paid enough for their actual job.

Dr. Blorbo will inevitably hear some Hot Gossip about what nonsense has recently happened at which field-specific conference (where academics go to present research papers and network with other academics and make regrettable decisions at the open bar). They will then rush to secretly text all their other academic friends with OOH JUICY ACADEMIC DRAMA. Their friends will do the same whenever the opportunity arises to reciprocate.

Removing the coffee machine from the break room/faculty kitchen is grounds for mutiny.

Anyway. I am sure there are many, MANY more, but if you want an authentic slice of long-suffering academic life for Dr. Blorbo, this is all a good place to start.

[naomiknight-17]

Class was running long tonight and I didn't know how to interrupt and be like "Yo it is past 8:30 I am OUT" when the teacher was lecturing nonstop

Then Tim climbed on my chest and I was like. Ah, the perfect excuse

Turned on my mic and was like "Hey, sorry, Tim says class is over" and the teacher laughed and said he had very pretty eyes and ok ok we'll pick this up tomorrow

Saved by the needy cat

[smellroy]

My phone camera SUCKS but I finally did critique on these paintings uuuuugh. Both are self portraits. Theyre like 22x30” or so.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[touch-starved-lurker]

ok i know at least one of yalls need to study for smth rn

(yes im writing this solely for me)(halp)

GO STUDY!!! RN!!! I MEAN IT!!!!! YOULL REGRET IT IF YOU DONT AND ITS REALLY NOT THAT BAD!! (YOU JUST HAVE A MASSIVE WELL OF HATRED FOR THAT CLASS, ITS OKAY BABY, I KNOW) PUT ON THAT MUSIC THAT MAKES YOU NEED TO DANCE AND LETS FUCKING GOOO!!!! YEEHAW!!!

[junkdyke]

I have officially graduated from college, bitchesssss!!

[cupcakeshakesnake]

Oh to drag your beloved children to the slaughterhouse every week

(The professor looks at our hard work and verbally rips it to shreds)

[willczek-art]

NPMD Tarot - Strength

Others from the series: The Star, The Lovers, The Devil, The Hierophant, The World

Alternative version under the cut C:

I didn't want to repeat the blood stain motif from The Devil, but I tested it and happen to rather like it, so here it is C:

[cordspaghetti]

HEY here’s my thesis exhibition!

show is called “static in warm places” and the work is from the past 3 months. in order the five pieces are the terms of the agreement, continuous monitor and benign growth, haserot, sweet,yesterday, and transmitter

the video shows @thrashbeatles using transmitter, which includes two audio channels playing simultaneously that gallery visitors transcribe into the television. i’ll probably share the full text document at some point, very excited to see what everyone typed up :)

[lovelyymeq]

[qqueenofhades]

The Fall Welcome Back Faculty Staff University Retreat, which persisted in giving me so much unfortunate Academia AU fic fodder before it even began, is in fact about to begin. Pray for me.

(If I continue to appear sporadically, kvetch about this or similar topics, and then vanish again for an extended spell, forgive me. I am currently in the middle of Welcome Back Week with multiple orientations to plan/attend as both faculty/staff and student; am preparing to apply for a promotion in my current job while simultaneously continuing to fight with HR/the central university admin; trying to get my apartment leasing office to fucking fix multiple maintenance issues; preparing to start said mmmth graduate degree; and otherwise having Way Too Much Shit To Do. Thoughts and prayers, etc.)