when i finally arrived at orientation--frazzled and a bit melted--i sat in a circle of hopeful faces listening to stories (warnings?) about how difficult and rewarding grad school would be. and then a small quip. now i wish that i could remember the exact wording but i was a bit overwhelmed at the time and so i will just give you the best that i can remember.
the new dean of graduate something important said, "you need to be here to become immersed in the graduate community or grad school isn't worth it. you have to decide if you are going to be a real professor or the walmart variety professor."
now, bearing in mind that this may be slightly misquoted, i was stunned and yet, somehow, not completely surprised. i have been warned by friends, faculty, mentors, etc. that i shouldn't count on getting a job. i have seen the numbers, i know my chances, and i know that i further limit those chances by choosing a field of study that isn't always in demand and by not being able to relocate to accept a position. i always appreciated that people were honest, but i knew that this was the career i wanted. i couldn't imagine doing anything else.
here's the catch though. it seems to me that within this academic choice there are many prejudices. i feel like in order to be respected i can't accept that my career path may never go further than adjunct positions at local colleges. (i am lucky to have three or four within an hour commute.) i doubt that i will ever teach at one of the bigger schools. does that make my research irrelevant? does it make me a "walmart variety" professor? i don't want to paint a poor picture of the staff at orientation. i don't think that they meant anything by that remark but it was telling of the prejudice that exists whether they intended it or not.
top this off with the pressure i feel to choose something "important" to study. i know this may sound foolish. maybe it is foolish. i chose medieval because i love it. and i still do. but, and you knew there would be a catch, there are times when i wonder what my other choices are. this is good since i am at a point where i could change my mind. i doubt that i will, but part of me not changing is this nagging fear that some of the other areas that i enjoy are not "academic" enough. and yet, there are people out there happily doing research in these areas. even within medieval, there are areas that i feel are more important than others. i know that this isn't a fact. i know that this is something that i absorbed hanging around with mentor/prof. (i adore him, but he can be a bit pretentious.)
maybe i am just rambling or this is just my way of unpacking all the choices that need to be made, but i don't want to feel that i have to choose something simply based on other people's reactions. however, the truth of it seems to be exactly that.
if i teach at a local school am i less of a prof? should i always be unhappy because i am not at hoity-toity school teaching grad classes? am i unsuccessful if i know that that is where i may land and still choose to pursue this as a career?
i know that this degree isn't going to make my getting a job a simple task. i know that i may never get a TT position. i know that i still want to do it. and i also know that i would be happy teaching slayer slang: a buffy the vampire slayer lexicon as well as my research on polyphony and the destabilization of character: music in chaucer. i hate being limited. and i hate being poo pooed when i mention a topic of research that might be "fun."
i know that i want to be an english prof. i can't imagine doing anything else. i love being around the stale, smelly, english department and being up to my ears in books and post its. i love when i get an idea for a paper in my head and i know i have to rush to write it down without stopping before it flies away and then pick it over until i get it just right. but there is a lot of pressure for those ideas and aspirations to be "academic" enough.

done rambling for now. just wondering how anyone else felt and if, perhaps, some of this is tied into me not being a "traditional" student.