Author: altabeth

Best-laid Schemes and Strange Machines

Posted on by altabeth

Many of you may be familiar with one of Robbie Burns best known poems, “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough.” This is the poem with the oft-quoted lines “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/ Gang aft agley.”

I find this poem, especially the last two stanzas (see below), particularly apropos to my current underemployed condition.  I suspect it also speaks for many other over-educated musicians, and in fact for many students just out of grad school whatever their field of study.

So many of us spent years preparing for our chosen path in life, only to find the world changing around us.  It may seem like the world has no place left in it for us, but as I mentioned in my first post, I plan to adapt.  Burns has a point about the advantages the mouse has in our shared situation. It would not hurt to borrow some of the mouse’s advantages-  the future which seemed so certain may now be a complete a complete unknown, but it will not help to fear it.  The unknown can hold good just as easily as bad- in my case, it now appears that it holds a lot of computer science, which for me is a very good thing indeed.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,A mouse driving a piece of heavy machinery made for grabbing cheese. Another mouse watches.
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

 

Oops!

Posted on by altabeth

Apologies to everyone who is subscribed to this blog!  I recently moved my site to a different server, and somehow managed to spam everyone on my subscription list with a repeat of the first post (picture non-functional).

So far as I can tell, the issue should be fixed now.  Please let me know if you see anything else weird, and very sorry for annoying you all!  Just as a reminder, if you need or want to, you can always unsubscribe (there’s a link in any email you get from the blog).  I hope you don’t have to, of course 🙂

pile of spam with puzzled cat

Aesop Animals

Posted on by altabeth

At least some of you have probably noticed that I haven’t posted anything new for a very, very long time.  The reason is that I got a job . . . but not a “good job.”  As you may recall, I define a “good job” as fulfilling three criteria: provides the basics of survival, allows the possibility of retirement at some point, and relates to music. [1]  Well . . . one out three isn’t bad?  Or maybe it is; I now have an adjunct teaching position.  The pay would not keep Dumbo in peanuts[2], there are no benefits, and it eats my entire life.  But it’s a college teaching job, in MUSIC!  Hooray. . . ish.

My dilemma is one of fables.  Specifically, is the operative fable here “a bird in the hand . . .” or “monkey with its hand in a jar”?  Should I cling tightly to my actual teaching job (attractive, since I absolutely LOVE teaching), hoping to use it to somehow gain a better (possibly even survivable) position eventually?  Or do I accept that it is preventing me from doing, well, anything, let go, and step into the great unknown?

I’m getting the impression that I’m the monkey in this fable.

Professor looks to the future with hand stuck in jar labeled "Adjunct teaching"

[2] assuming Dumbo eats only peanuts (about 2000 calories per pound), eats about 30,000 calories a day (African elephants eat about 70,000, Dumbo looks maybe a quarter that size, but flying animals tend to eat more), and I got wholesale prices on peanuts (about $1.30 per pound)  this is literally true.