fuck this job.com

So anyway, I have realized that parents can fuck up their kid's education more than any other factor.

I am back in Asia teaching ESL - a decent job where I drive around all day doing one hour sessions at community centers and such for kids in the day and adults at night.

Wow, just listening to the Talking Heads as I finish off my thesis and stare down the barrel of another job search.

Heard their song, "Found a Job":

"If you don't like what you are doing
Then something isn't right."

Gold dusts of wisdom in that. If your job pisses you off, search this song out. You can listen at

http://hype.non-standard.net/search/talking%20heads/1/

Here I am, in grad school where we are all supposed to be adults.

Well, it doesn't work that way. My friends would say I am one of the most positive, happy people they know, so why am I being such a bitcher and complainer?

Imagine you enter grad school, everyone is friendly and welcoming - that is because they are still sharpening their knives for when you turn towards the buffet table - they need a clear back shot.

First, you have arrogant fellow grads who know every writer ever born and all their work. Here is a sample of conversation:

Me: "I have to read some Richler this semester..."

I teach ESL - English as a Second Language - and I returned from Asia to hopefully support myself while continuing my education at my hometown uni. on a small, nacho-chip shaped island on the east coast of Canada.

My first move was, obviously, to apply to work at the university where I was to study, and I was treated like pure pond scum. It was the most belittling, infuriating job hunting experience I ever had.

First off, I called back from Europe where I was doing a backpacker's honeymoon with my wife of 2 months, and the response was decidedly ambiguous. The person in charge of the uni. ESL department was critical of my credentials (note - ESL credentials are largely unregulated, so there are TONS of different licencing outfits trying to cash in on Asian students with $$), and used terminology different from where I had picked up my ESL certificate to downplay my knowledge.

Worse than teaching, the internship was the bane of my very existence. First off, $10, 000 of my money was spent for the privelege of being stuck in a sweaty, stinky university with ass-tasting water fountains, no $$ making capacity for a full year, and courses taught by goofball profs who couldn't cut shit as teachers and fled to higher education!!

Then my internship - with an (un) cooperative teacher so fucked up the university administration warned me before I took the position. A veritable Ilsa of the SS who metphorically gouged out students eyes, extinguished cigarettes on their naked flesh before engaging in lesbian sado-orgies.