Adobe acrobat keeps crashing my system. It took me several hours tonight to uninstall it and get the new version (it wouldn’t just update – I had to pull it out by the roots and plant a new one). I’m a little afraid to touch anything as I seem to have that breaking things vibe happening for me right now.

I keep having lousy conversations about my career. The job market for those with a Ph.D. in English is shitty. If your academic record isn’t perfect, and mine isn’t, you really aren’t in the running for the better jobs – and even if I got one of those jobs I’d have to spend the next few years fighting hard to keep it. My current experience is teaching me that the high schools aren’t broken – the culture is. The fights, the indifference, the gangs, the drop out rate, the teen pregnancy (I have several pregnant fifteen and sixteen year old students), are all systemic and more than can be overcome without a radical intervention – just imagine what America could be like if one fiftieth of the money spent on wars in the last few years could have been diverted to education. I’m having some doubts about fighting this uphill battle.