150 days

Today is the start of Fall Semester 2010, exactly 150 days before January 21, 2011 which marks the end of my contract with LSU.  Here's what we know about the situation:

*  We were told nearly 400 instructors received pink slips back in January 2010.  If they are all released, it would be nearly a third of the faculty. (Later we learned that only 238 letters of non-reappointment had been sent).
*  An email, carefully calculated to arrive on the day when most of the faculty and students had officially begun their summer vacation, announced that the University was seeking to eliminate several programs, including degrees in Latin and German.
*  On July 16, the Board of Supervisors met to discuss the proposed program cuts.  The motion was evidently tabled but there has been no official report of that meeting.

So where does this leave me (and the other 300 instructors in the same boat)?  We can only assume that we have no job as of January 21, 2011 and must plan accordingly.  In other words, there are exactly 150 days for me to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  I've got many irons in the fire, including writing academic articles and applying for teaching certification in Austria, along with non-academic writing projects, ideas for self-incorporating and Plan B.

I do not mourn the loss of my job.  I see it as an opportunity to spread my wings, both professionally and individually.  But it galls me that the humanities-based education on which the modern university was founded has been devalued to such an extent that these courses, which foster cultural communication and understanding, are the first on the chopping block.  I feel like someone has told me that everything I've studied since I was 13 years old was just a waste of time -- and I'm too young to be put out to pasture!!

Assignment - Labor Day!

For all my writer friends out there, here's a challenge! Select one of the photos below and use it as inspiration for a poem, or short story, or character sketch that you write over the Labor Day weekend. I'd love to read what you write (pocketjoey@gmail.com). And feel free to pass along the challenge. Who knows? I might be able to come up with some sort of reward for your LABOR!

Grimming in Snow

Advent

Dear Friends and Family,

Advent greetings from upper Styria! I've been busy the past couple of weeks going to Christmas markets and getting used to cold and snow. Above is a picture of Pürgg, a very romantic town very close to my home in Irdning. I went to an Advent Market there a couple of weeks ago, where they had craft demonstrations and sales. They also had the obligatory "chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

Everywhere there is mulled wine and Punsch (any hot fruity alcoholic drink with fresh fruit) to wash the chestnuts down with. In Vienna last weekend, I drank lots of Punsch at a Christmas market with friends Kurt, John and Christina (not pictured). And I had Schilcher Glühwein which tasted just like Sturm and strawberries!Then I went to the Austrian Open Air Museum (Freilichtsmuseum) in Stübing. They had all sorts of crafts and also folk music and poetry readings in original 18th-19th century houses. Lots of mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, Krapfen, gingerbread to eat too! Here, a veteran lace maker shows a young girl how to make lace:

And here a club for the preservation of Austrian dialects reads Peter Rosegger! Check out the Herrgottswinkel (household shrine) in the right top corner!
P.S. Today is my name day, and the birthday of my friend Marilyn!