End of a Blog
Invisible Adjunct has renounced the end of her adjunctery and her blog:
A few months ago, I made a vow to myself that this would be my last semester as an invisible adjunct. Since I̢۪ve failed to secure a full-time position in my final attempt at the academic job market, what this means, of course, is that I made a vow to leave the academy. Six more weeks of teaching, and I head for the nearest exit.
Though I must inevitably feel a sense of loss and sadness, it̢۪s thanks to this blog and its readers that I don̢۪t feel the kind of life-twisting bitterness that I might otherwise have experienced. I̢۪ll take with me, among other things, a knowledge of XHTML (which I never thought I could learn!), an undiminished passion for the Scottish Enlightenment, and a heightened sense of life̢۪s possibilities.
In the meantime, I̢۪ve decided to give up the blog.
I do so with both a good deal of reluctance and a certain sense of relief. Writing blog entries and reading and responding to comments has become such an integral part of my regular routine that it̢۪s very difficult to walk away. For the next few weeks, at least, I̢۪m sure I won̢۪t know what to do with myself (novel-reading? I just finished rereading all six of them). But this weblog has always been a labour of love, and lately I find that my heart is no longer in it. I think the time has come to focus my energies elsewhere. Anyway, I guess I̢۪ve pretty much said most of things that I wanted to say, and then some.
She had an interesting site, although the topic was rather arcane to all but those of us who have toiled in academe.
As I note in her comments, I’ve found it possible to have an intellectually challenging life outside the academy. I miss interacting with my better students and with a handful of my colleagues but, oddly enough, I’ve managed to find bright people to chat with in the “real world.”*
One suspects IA will return to blogging at some point, although presumably with a different blog name. Running even a reasonably active one is fairly addicting, especially for the type of people drawn to the academic world to begin with. And, indeed, I probably have more interaction with bright academics as a blogger than I ever did as a professor. Of course, my main colleague at Troy State followed me into this racket, creating something of a continuity between those worlds.
*This phrase always reminds me of a classic line from Sean Connery’s character in Just Cause: “Why the f*** is it that everything but teaching is ‘the real world?'”
