hippoglyphs

from horse to horse

[hippoglyphs]

Once again humiliated – Job interviews in academia

fine – no, not fine! Nothing is fine. Nearly two whole weeks, over 300€ and some nerves wasted for being humiliated That can only happen in academia.

But I’ll start where someone can follow. I had a job interview for a position I already forgot I had applied for in January in a fit of fearing unemployment (it’s July when I get the invitation). So I am reading the announcement again (fortunately I save them). And I am confused. There is no hint what they really want and what position they are offering. It only says for „teaching XML“. But for what term and how many hours, with what chance for postdoctoral qualification? I can’t believe they only need someone who teaches XML (XML!? I thought of it as obsolete) –

So I switched back to the invitation mail. The real shock was when I realized that they wanted me to be there at 8 a.m. sharp to give a teaching example about „markup languages“ (why ever that must be taught enlarged). As a convinced night worker nothing seems to be worse than speaking before 9 o’clock. I thought I’ve found a loophole. They didn’t write anything like „we can’t pay travel costs“. And over 300km away from my hometown, I had to spend some more money on hotel costs, that other applicants. So I wrote them in the hope they would transfer my interview to lunchtime or later. I also added some questions to the technical situation in the room the interview would be placed in. „For teaching computer code you need computers for the students“ I thought. The answer came view days later. They replied that there would be no computers to make the teaching situation more „natural“ (whatever that means). Concerning the payment for the hotel/train the answer just said, that they have to discuss this internally (I never got an answer). A shift with other candidates wouldn’t be possible because of the schedule of the other candidates.

So good. I tried my best to prepare myself for teaching markup languages (with an overview of their possibilities and an outlook forprogramming languages. Five days before I recognize that in the Mails they didn’t give the exact timepiece they would give me for the teaching example. So I wrote them again. The answer came on the day before the interview and it also contained some irritating and vague sentences concerning the content of the teaching example. I got tensed. Thanks for that.

After waking up at 6 a.m. for 8 days I managed to be there in time and not that much brain-dead as I normally am at that time. It was the most awkward interview I ever took part in. No one was introducing themselves to me. I know one was the dean of the faculty and one was a professor of computer science. But who where the other tree? There was no equal opportunities officer, nor a staff council. They just wanted me to start the teaching. … so I thought.

Afterwards, in a round of questions I found myself and the scope of markup languages misunderstood. They alleged I would only focus on text production (with LaTeX) and didn’t see that I mentioned HTML, XML, TEI as much as LaTeX. And they seemed being disappointed that one can do so little with markup languages. For more you need programming languages I said. One of the unknowns (the only women in the room) really sounded aggressive and disappointed. Another one of the unknowns criticized that my example of a cluster analysis wouldn’t work with Japanese – how to deal with stupidity? – Why on earth shouldn’t it work with Data from, Japanese? I felt estranged.

In the end, I got the chance asking them. So I asked about the perspectives of own qualification. The answer was: of course they want me to qualify. I asked further what would happen if one of my submitted applications for research projects would be accepted. If they would willingly incorporate them. The answer didn’t soundenthusiastic. „I would have time for this during the semester breaks“ – that was the only answer I got. I thought now would be the best time finding out what position I was currently about not to get. I was surprised as I heard that it would be a tenured position. Who on earth would install a tenured position for teaching markup languages to students of the arts?

Leaving the place, the next candidate got welcomed. A skinny and insecure guy and I thought „I am definitive the tougher one“.

What happened next was something between sleepwalking and feeling something like hope for a normal, quite live growing. I was very tired and nearly missed getting on my train two times because I felt so tired. And then I tasted the sweet thought of having a tenure position.

Two ours later I searched their Web pages to find out who all those present ones were. I didn’t wind answers on this, but I found how the candidate after I was: He is still working at the institute, teaching XML, has utterly no knowledge of informatics and a bad list of publications (nothing really scientific). So everything becomes clear and all the hope died suddenly:

– The Reason why it took them so long to process the announcement: Their candidate wasn’t fully graduated by now.

– Why 8 a.m. sharp? (Their candidate shouldn’t have trouble coming early when he lives there): That's a simple one. If I am the first and he is the second, the interviewer knows my benefits and disadvantages and can direct the interview of their favorite much better.

– Why didn’t they give full information about the position (tenure)? To diminish the number of applicants. There was a comparable position open at a library. They wrote me in the rejection letter, that they had over 100 applicants. With little competition their candidate wouldn’t get into serious trouble.

And there was me. Just the perfect victim. A woman in tech – like a joke itself. I just can’t compete with their master of markup languages. Because I don’t to preschool coding.

The sad thing: It wasn’t the first time something like this happened. The other time the candidate who got the job was present during my interview. And there were only two interviewers...

[hippoglyphs]

Buying worthy stuff gives me the feeling of being worthy myself.

Wisedom

[hippoglyphs]

Let the games begin

Lately I am feeling a sort of dying - getting really sick from the feelings inside of me.

I see colleagues at the same age and academic level like me (or even undergraduate) that get all support from their supervisor - and I see me facing my incubus 👹 when I see my boss. There are no differences between my colleagues and me. I have own thoughts and ideas and don’t follow blindly what my boss want’s me to do, and I am no man. It sickens me feeling so alone, and excluded, and featureless.

I need a battle plan. I can’t fight like this is nothing in my hands. I want to get a job? I want to get a job at the University? I want to do science? I want to give my life just to achieve knowledge? I like rhetorical questions? But I wont get what I want from others. No one - except me - seems to be interested in working we me together. So I have to become a one wow-man show 🙆 (Do I make it too easy for myself coming up with the gender theme?) I have to make it all alone - the battle against mills goes on.

But what can I do? - submit my own project! Do it my way - just as I did it the last 5 years. Don’t hope for anybody’s help! There will be none. If I want to live an honest and brave life I have to do it on my own. No one will ever help me with getting up on my fed - never. When you are down, everyone avoids you just like you are Ebola infected. And when you are at the top, everyone wishes you to get Ebola. It’s a sad and lonely world 🌍 - life is no pony ranch, even for a horse 🐴

What counts aren't the number of friends you made at your faculty, but the number of papers you have in peer-reviewed journals.

The only problem now will be which of all the ideas I've will be my next project...

[hippoglyphs]

let’s talk about savantism

Why does academia promote savantism? No one needs allrounders in academia – if you are one, you are highly suspect. Do academics are so afraid of others solving their problems? what is btw not how a scientist should think.

[hippoglyphs]

THE PETRA PRINCIPLE

The Peter principle is one of the commonly known concepts of management theory. It’s the scientific definition of street knowledge. It says “managers (means: men) rise to the level of their incompetence.” So at one point you reached a point over your competence. The most interesting point is that the Peter principle does not say that you will lose the position you are failing in but that you are keeping it (because of your incompetence!). So that sounds strange and highly illogical – well, but there is a principle the (most) economists are silent about: I call it the Petra principle. It means when a woman is stuck in a job position she is under-qualified but can have little success without any risk. Men don’t want a woman taking a risk (may be that would be too risky, even for men). They want to foozle thinks of their own.

I am tired with that! I spend my whole life taking risks that no one even noticed. Being a woman in this world is a risk… but have you ever seeing a woman failing in being taught? It is time not being kept small as a Petra (or a Barbie)! A sad thing a woman can to is to come to an arrangement with the position men gave you, but in which you don’t have any power – but the worst thing is trying to be a Peter. Why do women in leading positions have to act man-ly, wearing pantsuits, having short hair and act like assholes, just trying to imitate the assholeness of man? This Donald trumps asshiliness is not what a free society needs! What it needs is intelligent people in leadership positions that don’t fail all the time. Woman are not the better humans, but they aren’t willing to take risks so easy men do. That is indeed a good thing, but not if you are not in a position you can’t even try any risk.

So let’s change Johnny Chashs song (https://vimeo.com/8501464) “A risk taking woman!”

[hippoglyphs]

don’t put a label on me

today I have to come up with a phenomenon that really confuses me. Lately when I am talking about my work – which has indeed some interdisciplinary anspects – people start labeling. 

It is not the labeling what I can’t understand, it’s the way they do it. I know people need labels to put their world in order. I by myself need labels; without them my music library would be a mess. But the way I got labeled is not the ordering, sorting type of labeling – it is the outlawing type of labeling. They do not label my work to understand it, they label it to say “my work has nothing to do with your work” or in other words: “even if it sounds interdisciplinary, it is a study from the type B but I am working on type A”. That really saddens me!

And it is absurd. In my first job-interview for a Post-Doc (senior scientist) job the argument was “but it is mainly literary studies”. On my second interview the accusation was “it is to much syntax – could you imagine working in the field of literary studies?”; An other “funny” recurring strategy is labeling my work as 'sociolinguistics'; for some linguists this seems to be the most un-scientific linguistic discipline. For example: "This isn’t really a work on language contact – it’s more likely a sociolinguistic work“ or “OK, that’s a sociolinguistic work, but don’t you work on the grammatical structures?”.

First: Why can’t you imagine that someone would make the best use of all linguistic worlds (there are so many! but them together!) It is possible to ask sociolinguistic questions by analyzing grammatical structures – an effective study of language contact has to deal with sociolinguistical questions and for the rest: LITERATURE IS MADE OUT OF LANGUAGE!

Second: Why are you always underlining how important interdisciplinary science is but when it comes to interdisciplinary you hide yourself behind stupid labels.

[hippoglyphs]

the moment when you realize the Käsestange (cheese straw) is filled with bacon – and you are a vegetarian...

[hippoglyphs]

re-thinking

Great. No I’m clinically depressive – what comes next? No life plan, no job, no friends, no family, no future. It’s a miracle  how I became that unhappy, neglected, silent person I am today…

Time to stop that before it stops me finally! I am willing to make a change; I really am. But how and what can I even change?

The last months I’m doing nothing than rethinking what I’ve done the last eight years with my life and why I am after all this hard work so sad about what I’ve done. I have made so many new plans, ideas how I could change my life. For example there was the idea of become a music therapist which died when I visited some seminars. An other “great” idea was to study again (without founding) and make a M. Sc. in cognitive Psychology. But I’ve just learned that I have to start from the very beginning – and there will be no time and money for that silly idea. So what was the next idea: making “money” with the “science” I know (=linguistics) doesn’t seem to work out well. As it turns out no one want’s to work with a scientist you don’t know and which has no professor  who advertises. I also made a degree in graphic design just in case I could get lucky in this area.

In the end I just have to say, that I need to rethink my rethinking! I’ve made a very  wrong assumption being unhappy with the thinks I have done in the last years. I was (most of the time) very happy doing what I’ve done …And now I am not sad because of the thinks but because of the perspective, because of being alone [full stop] – being alone with the results I’ve gained and isolated in the scientific field.

The question is not what I’ll do in the future but with whom!

[hippoglyphs]

FUCK ACADEMIA!*

*before it fucks you!

One word (or two) on academia. – The way I know that bitch.

This is a very bad post on how I quit with German academia. It's a break-up letter that arose from great wounds and written in the most terrible english imaginable. But nevertheless I had to screw it out and leaf it here where anyone could read it and where I can read it to recall the degree of suffering I hopefully will lower soon.

It never really started; I just knew when I was very little, that I want to go to university, to investigate things, to understand how the world works. I never thought  of me as a genius or a great thinker; I just believed in my curiosity.  At first I was very interested in natural science, but I don't know why there was a turning point to humanities when I was 18.

School was hell. It was not about learning, it was about knowing. And "knowledge" is (because of my damaged brain), not a good friend of mine.  But against all grades I finally found my way to academia and it was amazing how good I fit into that system of "do-what-you-want". The way to create knowledge was more important, than the knowledge itself. I felt so free and powerful using my brain for the first time in my life for at east something: discover some structures our shadows are made of (cf. Plato). All was just like: YEAH!

I did it all: study of literature, medieaval studies, theology, jewish studies, and (of which I am proud as a dyslexic) linguistics. I finally made my Ph.D. in that field. And I think I did it with success and fun…

…mostly fun. But the joy weakened as much as I got higher in the academic hierarchy. And when I finished my Ph.D., I felt just like: SHIT!

And here I am; just about to loose all I ever dreamt of: figuring out how (and why) the things are the way they are. How does that came? The short answer is: it's because academia ist no happier place than the "real" world. The scientific world is no parallel universe  – scientists are no better humans than others. Every kind of human disability (and ability) can be found here. There are the ones that brown-nose, the ones that cheat and steal, the ones that work to much for others and there are lazy ones too. Science is an economic system that works on the power of young idealists that would do anything for science. Young academics, that are willing to work 24h 8 days a week to make sure their professors get more data to could publish (just under their names, naturally). Those idealists are willing to sell their souls and bodies to science. They take no longer care in sports, sleep or healthy food. They are willing to give their unicorn blood to academia. And all this just with two wishes: a durable employment agreement (even for more than 1-2 years) and finding at least something meaningful for the scientific field they are working on and maybe (but thats an "I-wanna-win-the-nobel-price"-wish) also important for  everyones everyday life.

The problem is not only, that the young ones do all the work – In my field the worst problem is, that there is no self-reflexion in what, why and how we do the things we call "science". Linguistics is like Homeopathy – the least successful linguists are the statistical thinkers that prove us how little we know after 100 years of research about language, its structures and its use. But instead of problematize our disagreements in key questions (for example just by formulate those questions), we are stucked as science of phenomenology . At least there is the hope that real science (like neuroscience, psychology and mathematics) attend to linguistics and get thinks done. But thats off topic.

Academic life (I know it from Germany) is neither about knowledge nor about learning (and at least about teaching); it's about surviving – a surviving of the cocky. There is no <w> in science only an <i> – and it is acadeMEa not acadeWEare.

I'm running out of unicorn blood. I no longer have any interest in working my arse off for nothing. Getting depressed, overweight, resign kids and a life outside academia. But with me quitting nothing will change. I am replaceable. There are younger horses that are waiting for their chance in serving my master (I mean: professor) with fresh and tasty blood.

[hippoglyphs]

The Neurologist Who Hacked His Brain—And Almost Lost His Mind

Neurologist Phil Kennedy set out to build the ultimate brain-computer interface. In the process he almost lost his mind.

Ok, if neurolinguists are going on digging in their brains, the historical linguistics has to work harder on the time machine!

[hippoglyphs]

Making the world a coffeeplace

What does a horse need? Beside oat and hai (a lot of hai…we come to this later). It needs dark mater!

That is why my first serious entry in this blog is an ode to #chemex the love of my life. We just met, but I feel that I met a friend for life.  …and thats the #Freudian slip.

In times when friendship only last for short times and depending on work, lokality and social networks, the things you share your life with are getting more and more importand. Who would you chose if you must deside between who ever is your friend for like 8 month and your smartphone?

Back to my unpaid plug on chemex: it’s the reason I get out of bed every single day. I like spending time with it –  or him? And love the smell thats still in the room when he is long gone …there is no friend of whom I could say that.

But what’s the best of chemex’ coffee is to share it with the people who doesn’t smell that good, who perhaps will forget you when they are moving away and who really don’t care if you are sick, depressed or anxious as long as they they can get a really great coffee from you.

[hippoglyphs]

Hello World

»A horse got to do what a horse got to do«  (Augustine of Hippo)

Does the World (means the www #helloworld) needs a further blooooag written in crappy denglish bristled with postmodern cross-references #LMFAO? NO, it doesn’t! But I do.

No one will ever read this blog and no one will ever care about it – just me. So this blog is for me, myself and I – for one single reason: to remember what has happened.

My Brain doesn’t work that well, especially my hippocampus, which plays an important role with memory #Turner (1969) …as far as I remember. Maybe my holey memory is a result of a long time depressive disease or it’s an indication that I never should have eaten that Burger in the UK in 1996 (#BSE). I hope this blog will help me getting a past. Living only in the present is very boring and sometime frightening.

Beside, I hope this blog would help reaching a higher level of #awareness, the new “funky”. Slowing down with a conscious mind (and without any drugs) to find a place in its time, that’s all a 31 year old Pferdchen can hope for.