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15.4.05
From an email sent to Megan on Friday, April 15: As we walked, Tina asked me when I was leaving. "Six weeks from today" "Why?" I started talking. "It's difficult to say; I want to go home, but I don't want to. I don't want to stay here, but I want to. I've undertaken so many things, but I've seen nothing come to closure. That makes it a tough and frustrating job. Now maybe if I stay just another month something will happen that will bear fruit; only I know that it won't. Things in the academic world don't move like that. I'm reminded of Newton's first law: Objects at rest tend to remain at rest. Universities here are at rest, and getting them in motion to make a change is almost a super human effort. I could extend for a year and still not see anythig done; I may be dead before some of the seeds I've planted have matured." Someone has said that the US Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body; that person may have been a college graduate; they were never involved in the dynamics of a college. When a college/universitiy faculty begins deliberating something, they can make the US Senate look like a bunch of novices. I can't remember the formula for overcoming the inertia of an object, but on a scale of zero to one, overcoming the inertia of a university faculty is a coefficient of about .99. "I'd like to stay; I'm anxious about leaving. What will I find when I get home? For that matter, where will "home" be? This land is just beginning to be comfortable; at my age, I've got to start all over again? Tom has talked about the difficulty of finding our house on his visits to Woodbury; the landmarks are constantly changing. Last trip he was told to turn right at an open field; six months later he can't find the corner; the open field has been covered with a strip mall and 25 houses! And I may have to become acclimated to a whole new environment. "It still is the "Toughest job you'll ever love." posted by Megan Harkness-Madole at 10:33 PM | |
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Charles In |