the educated serf

Remember when email was new and exciting and you sent it to everyone all the time and then sometimes people didn't write back immediately and you got annoyed and swore off email, but then, well then you were back again because it's how everyone communicates, even though there are still those people who never, ever, ever bother to grace you with a simple "I got your message and I'll get back to you later" kind of response?      And then there's Facebook, where it's not really clear how much you really should be telling all those folks you friended because they were friends of your friends or you sort of recognize them from college but even then you weren't so sure what you had in common.    And now it's blogs, where we write and write and sit dejectedly waiting for comments or followers or some sign that it's not just a lost diary in an attic that no one will ever read unless you have a kind uncle or an aunt who's a literary agent or you wro...

definition: you have applied for so many jobs that you forgot what your core competencies are. (source: http://artataq.wordpress.com ) I would like to say a few things about core competencies, but I am having trouble.  I don't know if I've forgotten (so I'm not sure you could say I have destinesia...) but I definitely can't be sure they're functional.  I did walk into a classroom of 40 people yesterday and manage to teach a whole session and no one ran from the room screaming, so I suspect it was fine.   Some of them even talked to me after class, so I stand a chance of remembering their names.  It isn't their fault that some of their professors are only tangential to the larger workings of the institution, so I do feel the usual (and entangling) pang of responsibility for their intellectual well being while they are in my care.  Perhaps this is my core competency?  Lately it has felt more like a big anchor tying me to something I love to do but which offers ver...