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January 22, 2012

Nikki Giovanni Asks for a Major Motion Picture for MLK, Junior

As Kennesaw State University joins the rest of the nation to mark another deserved birthday celebration for Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, it welcomed the world-renowned poet, Nikki Giovanni, as its keynote speaker. In her inaugural visit to KSU, Giovanni posed a question worthy of deep consideration.

“Why has there not been a major motion picture in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? Hollywood has made movies about drug dealers and criminals, Capone, Dillinger, and so on. You have to wonder why Martin has no movie in his honor,” the bold and critically acclaimed Giovanni demanded during the 2012 annual observance on Monday, January 16.

Forty-four years after his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr., is yet to earn a big-screen, sole-title movie right as Malcolm X and numerous other black history makers and heavyweights.

In an unpredictable mixture of history lecture, entertainment, chastisement, and religious sermon, Giovanni kept up a stream of surprising influx that kept attendees laughing hilariously and continually. Without warning, she sent them bristling from her criticisms and feeling grateful for uncountable legacies at the same time.

A distinguished professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University-Virginia Tech–since 1987, Giovanni sneaked in another title to numerous others (mother, writer, poet, commentator, and activist), that of a comedienne, as she caused riotous laughter to erupt smoothly and repeatedly.

The “Princess of Black Poetry” recanted childhood stories of her grandmother’s link to Civil Rights legends such as Rosa Parks, E.D. Nixon (who bailed Parks out of jail), and MLK, Jr. She reminded us of a very painful fact: “We lost Martin too early. He was just 39.” Ironically, Giovanni’s writing career was born in the year of Martin Luther King’s assassination.

Giovanni recited a very moving tribute to “the incomparable Martin” from her poetry collection, Acolyte.

“In the Spirit of Martin,” demanded “the world to see what they did to my boy.” It traveled through civil rights cities and envisioned a present-day Martin, “the voice of his people,” wearing a tattoo and with braided hair.

One of Oprah Winfrey’s twenty-five “Living Legends,” Giovanni uplifted the mixed-race audience by urging Caucasian female writers and historians to tell the story of the frontier woman whose courage in the face of insurmountable danger has not begun to be told yet.

Georgia’s third largest university, Kennesaw State honored the woman who came to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., with a medley of orchestrated events such as songs by the KSU Gospel Choir, a rendition of the “Black National Anthem,” and remarks by President Daniel S. Papp.

January 21, 2012

The Sensory Self of Discovery

All who create things hope for discovery, whether they are musicians, sculptors, writers, or singers. The essential question is, what does it look like? Which one is better: self-publishing self-discovery or being unearthed by traditional publishing? Which one carries a lesser burden?

We hope to recognize it when it comes, if it is truly true, but some discoveries wear cloaks of deception, as many authors can attest. Regardless, we all want it and hope that it is truly honest when it arrives to carry us away in a romantic carriage of success.

What used to be the yardstick established by traditional publishing houses is no longer the norm: millions of book sales and bulging bank account with the illusive money from an advance of potential earnings, the key word being potential.

It is always intrinsically rewarding when a publisher recognizes a talented writer and trusts, on a hunch, the lilting words of potential sales so much so that a huge advance is proffered in hopes that the novel will deliver. The borrowed or loaned money equates credit, but the writer, as worried as he is about the huge debt hanging precariously above, wills the book to deliver, even as he or she squanders the money anyway.

Conversely, in the current exhilarating circumstances introduced by self-publishing and e-book sales, talent identification of self is sweeter when the writer gets to keep all or most of the rewards of his creation and labor. There is no advance payment looming over the head of the writer who discovers himself or herself. Yes, discovery is internal and is even more uplifting. After Amazon (or the e-book-reader maker) takes its hefty cut, the remaining amount belongs to the author entirely.

However, talent recognition by thousands, nay, millions of adoring fans, is also even more vindicating because these readers are garnered by the writer directly. Anyone who has not been living under a rock for the past couple of years has heard and seen the ubiquitous news about self-published e-books taking the industry by storm. Statistics abound prolifically.

What discovery is not:

According to Deirdre Donahue of USA Today, “…When 25 publishers passed on buying his thriller Riptide, Michael Prescott thought his career was dead…” Being passed off sounds like the end of the publishing road, but as any persevering writer will attest, someone has to believe in a writer’s work, eventually, if the writer is waiting on traditional publishing houses. Time, acceptance, and several factors are the foe.

What does it look like?

Whether it is through royalty-paying, traditional publishers or through self-publishing, the point is that all authors should be able to make money on their work without having to jump through all sorts of hoops imposed by the system, so says J.A. Konrath, who is considered the guru of the self-publishing movement.

“I am a guy who had his butt kicked by the (traditional-publishing) industry for 20 years, and now I’m showing other authors what they can do so they don’t have to go through the same thing,” he continues. “Traditional book publishers are just serving drinks on the Titanic. It’s a huge win for readers, who now have easier access to more writers from around the world,” he adds.

Discovery looks like peaks in sales on a graph, a peak that keeps rising and rising until it goes off the chart regardless of the platform used to monitor the exchange of book for money. Peaks in sales are born by authorpreneurs who have used the ever permissible and pervasive outlets to pitch their novels like Brittany Geragotelis who used Wattpad to propel herself to stardom with over one million followers.

According to the Association of American Publishers, e-books grew from 0.6% of the total trade market share in 2008 to 6.4% in 2010, the most recent figures available. Total net revenue for 2010 was $878 million with 114 million e-books sold. In adult fiction, e-books are now 13.6% of the market.

What does it sound like?

In this revolutionary period of unraveling breakneck technological advances in the book-making and book-reading industries, discovery sounds like pages turning maddeningly fast by an avid reader who cannot put the book or the e-reading device down. It sounds like the adamant voice of a devoted follower demanding when the next book will be out after devouring the maiden novel of an inventive writer. This is an encouragement for the author to get back to work fast and continue cooking and concocting while the embers are still red and flaming.

What does it smell like?

It smells like crisp and newly minted dollar bills earned by newly printed pages (or not, if it is uploaded into an e-reader). According to the USA Today article cited above, author Michael Prescott says he earned more than $300,000 before taxes last year (2011) by selling more than 800,000 copies of his self-published e-books.

Konrath has seen his income from his self-published e-book sales go from $1,400 in April 2009 to $68,000 in April 2011.

These two authors might be the tip of the success iceberg, but imagine both for yourself, freshly minted money and freshly printed pages vying for a smelling contest. That I should be so lucky to smell both!

What does it feel like?

Discovery feels like touching the soft and fluffy clouds in the sky, the summit. Getting that nod feels like the coolest, smoothest 100% silk, like satin, and 800 percale thread count, the most luxurious sensation a person could ever touch. It is that much peaceful and calming—reaching that elevation of success, self-measured or not. It is sensational, the key word being sense (of self, that is).

What does discovery taste like?

It tastes like food on the table. Quoting the quotable Konrath, “Any writer who puts food on the table with their writing is successful. It doesn’t matter if it is a box of Mac and Cheese, or caviar and champagne. Taking your career into your own hands, giving it your best shot, striving to do better… that’s the American Dream, baby.”

Konrath is especially thrilled for the thousands and thousands of authors who are now making ends meet because they achieved their goals and self-published their e-books. “Your ebooks will continue to earn money, forever. Be proud. You are a success,” he encourages.

“It’s a gold rush out there,” Prescott joins the chorus of e-book songs of praise. “Forty acres and a mule. It’s the best time for an independent writer to get out there. It’s a whole new world. You’re eliminating the middleman.”

January 13, 2012

The Queen of Free Hounds Happenings Around Town

In case you have not heard, I am the Queen of Free. I love free things: air, water, concerts, movies, healthy food, books, and so on. As long as I do not have to work unnecessarily hard for it, (and realizing that some things do come with a price–purportedly free), I am all the more enthusiastic for it.

In search of an attempt to brand myself, I will start with the official title, Queen of Free,” and I will try to locate free intellectually rewarding, journalistically uplifting, financially informative and gifting, and therapeutically relaxing things (for the mind and the body) in and around ATL. I realize that trying to pry free things from companies and organizations in our current economic upheaval will be as difficult as trying to squeeze a drop of water from a basket of dry laundry, but I am going to try my hardest.

With the Christmas season showing us its back, some songs are still fresh in my head. One particular song’s chants repeat: “Do you hear what I hear?” and “Do you know what I know?”

What I heard and what I know is that the one and only true Princess of Black Poetry, Ms. Nikki Giovanni, is coming to Kennesaw State University in the flesh! She is not charging me a dime for her billion-dollar presence.

Are you ready for The Next Boom? Attend this free event and get a free e-book. In case you were not counting, I used the word “free” twice in one sentence.

While you are at the Georgia State University’s site, look up another free event, Bill Kahnweiler’s cutting-edge research on non-profit. As you know, non-profit seems to be the only branch of our economy that appears more stable than most.

There are some other important happenings around town, but they involve you reaching into your purse or wallet.

Georgia Writers’ Association workshop on 1/14/2012:

Atlanta SoCon12 on February 3 – 4, 2012, will undoubtedly offer insightful takeaways for everyone – from small business owners and journalists to CEOs and marketing professionals.

Phenomenal Women’s Conference: March 23, 2012, at Kennesaw State University.

November 13, 2011

Is It a Woman’s Work of Words?

Everyone around me knows how much I love Michael, Prince, and Maxwell in that order, but it is Maxwell’s lyrics that are most appropriate for this blog entry. The question now is whether the writing world is a woman’s work.

“Pray God you can cope
I’ll stand outside
This woman’s work
This woman’s worth
Ooh, it’s hard on the man
Now his part is over
Now starts the craft… of the father…”

Several parts of the lyrics lend themselves to today’s Georgia Writer’s Association’s Red Clay Writers’ Conference. The theme was “Crafting,” which included “Below the Surface: The Craft of Fiction,” “Crafting the Poem and The Book Poetry and the Chapbook,” and the sale of different crafts.

There were more female presenters than male presenters during the conference, a coincidence or a planned action? Thus I proffer the questions, “Are there more female writers than male writers?” and “Do women epitomize literary prowess more than men?”

My instinctive response is that it depends on the genre not the gender. Then again, I might find myself eating my own words later. However, evidence shows more female writers of Young Adult and romance forms than their male counterpart.

For realistic fiction, I would say that it is still a male-dominated arena going back to hundreds of years ago when only men reigned supreme in the writing plateau. The science fiction genre is no different: more men seem to get their names out there.

What about the craft itself? Do men write better stories than woman? Here the opinions polarize themselves. Of course, we are dealing with opinions here. A visit to http://www.writingforums.org/ on the threading of this topic shows it unresolved. However, the current trend is that more publishers receive more manuscripts from new female writers than male writers.

Is this a numbers game where we count recently published men versus recently published women? Should we focus on submissions? What percentage of women who submit their works recently reach publication as opposed to the number of men whose manuscripts are accepted and published recently? Should we take genre into consideration when we respond to the questions?

Elizabeth A. Flynn in “Composing as a Woman” in College Composition and Communication 39 (December 1988), observed that women write more about caring and connection in their narratives, and men write more about adventure and separation. Several commentators on the Writing Forums site echo Flynn’s observation over two decades later.

Following that thought and providing an explanation to the reason, Katherine Haake, “Claiming Our Own Authority,” AWP Chronicle 2 of October/November 1989, pages 1 – 2, states, “When women tell the stories (of their experiences), we know the world differently; we demystify the original scene that has worked so well to silence us. We can then construct a place in which we can hold a wide diversity of scenes to be compatible, to coexist, to enhance and redefine each other.”

Mary Ann Cain in Revisioning Writers’ Talk: Gender and Culture in Acts of Composing (1995), adds that as women, “We can reconstruct the world as a place that both women and men safely inhabit” as opposed to men’s reconstruction where male writers put their characters through more hardships than women writers.

Is this a tolerance issue? Can women withstand and write about hardship as men do? Since action sells, the literary world perceives men in some quarters as better writers in that they can remove their emotions completely from their writing. Most women may seem unable to do just that yet.

Consider something else: There are more female literary agents than male literary agents? What does that say then? That women agents tend to pick and publish more male writers in the general fiction, science fiction, and thriller/crime fiction genres? Is there a conspiracy theory here?

What about readership? Everyone knows women are the readers across all genres. More women read more books, fiction or nonfiction, than men. With women dominating the reading world and more new females entering the literary world in droves, what does that augur for the future?

Is this the wave of things to come, future trends with women writers pervading all genres? Is it a woman’s work of words now or will it be a paradigm shift of impending female writer dominance?

As a writer, I inhabit the locales of multiple genres but have not sat myself down to tally what gender dominates what genre. I just know that I love to traverse across several types of literature and can write well, but I refuse to throw in gratuitous sex, violence, and such for the sake of trying to sound like a man or for the sake of using gore to make a buck.

Those who dismiss or underestimate the feminine artistry, lyrical prose, and fluid poetry intrinsic in the female art form do themselves the injustice of failing to appreciate and recognize gifts as profound as the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that make women the exquisite gender they are.

November 5, 2011

Eddie Murphy’s “Tower Heist” Shafted

Can a cinema house intentionally undermine the sale and performance of a movie? I will let you be the judge of that after I present what I saw, heard, and experienced tonight at the premier of Eddie’s “Tower Heist.”

After months of anticipation for this movie, I perfected my plans: chiropractic visit, laugh my head off during the movie (after all, it is Eddie), run back home to walk my dogs, have dinner, and spend the night regaling friends of the fantastic attributes of this most-expected movie.

Upon arrival at Movies 278 in Hiram, the ticketing agent informed me that I could not watch the movie at my preferred 5:15 P.M. time because Theater 4 was experiencing technical problems.

Immediately, I saw this veiled rouse as an attempt to sabotage Eddie Murphy’s movie. “Are you going to charge me the matinee price?” I asked with rightful expectation.

“No, ma’am. I can’t.”

Imagine my surprise! Without exchanging any additional words, I walked out, angered at the audacity of this movie theater in trying to cause this movie to flop.

The ticketing agent had the nerve to ask me to pay full price for a movie for which I clearly had intended to pay matinee price, a movie for which they have inconvenienced me and now want to rearrange all my plans for the entire evening. I also saw this as an attempt to make two quick bucks per customer.

I almost reached my car when another righteous indignation took a hold of me. I spun around, walked back into the theater, stewed in that annoyance while I waited my turn with the utmost self-control, and asked to see the manager when I arrived at the window.

Before I walked out, there was no further evidence of deception except the words that emanated out of the cahier’s lips. Now, the management went as far as covering the remaining three show times (5 O’clock, 7 P.M., and 10 O’clock) with handwritten “Sold Out!” signs that screamed at me and the other patrons. It must have become tired of telling people of the “experiencing-technical-problems-in-Theater-4” lie.

When the very young gentleman came to address my concerns, I stated that I was aware of his movie house’s attempt to shaft Eddie Murphy’s movie and cause it to fail. “Why is it that all the other movies in your theater have no problem except ‘Tower Heist’?” I demanded.

At which point he saw fit to explain, “We got bought out by Carmike and are switching to a digital system. We used to have reel-to-reel. We do not have a physical movie anymore. Otherwise, none of this would have happened.”

Not only was my anger incensed further by this pitiful lie, I was insulted by his presumption that the public would not make any fuss. Several thoughts flooded my mind in a question nature. Why did this management not plan ahead? What was so destructive about the machine in Theater Four that, by all intents and purposes, earlier shows had gone without a glitch (presumably) until we arrived at the 5:15 show? Suddenly, “Houston, we have a problem?”

Are there not some laws that this movie theater is breaking? Public deception, sabotage, falsification of information, a bold attempt to cover its own lies by stating that a movie is sold out when it is not, scheming to charge the public a full price rather than the matinee price, defrauding the producers and the entire cast and crew of their future earnings, and so on?

“I am disappointed with what your movie theater is doing,” I continued. “Look at all these people. They are leaving; they are getting upset, obviously. Like me, they had plans, and now your theater is changing those plans selfishly and with the hidden motive to make more money.”

I actually heard a couple say the same exact thing. “We came to see the 5:15 show. That ruins our plans for the entire evening.”

“I am sorry, ma’am, but I do not like what you are insinuating.”

“I am not insinuating. I am stating flat out that your movie theater is trying to mess up the premier of “Tower Heist. I came to watch the 5:15 show. You closed it down, but you want to charge me the full price when it was not my fault that you are experiencing ‘technical problems.’ The cashier wants to charge me a full fare. I will not pay it.

“Here is the $7 for the matinee price,” and I stretched out my hand with the correct amount it in. “That is what I am going to pay. It is the rightful course of action considering what your theater is doing.”

He paused for a second, which gave my long-winded self the chance to pounce.

“You have altered my plans for the entire evening. I had wanted to see the movie and run home to walk my dogs. Now, I have to run home, walk my dogs, and run back here, which clearly would be a waste of my time and gasoline, and I cannot eat my dinner until after the movie ends around 9 P.M., which goes against my weight-monitoring rules.

It usually takes me 30 minutes on a good day to get here. Now, with the merciless 5 O’clock traffic, it is going to take me twice that long.”

“I clearly understand your frustration. I would be upset as well. Tell you what. You can watch the movie on the house.”

This was an unexpected twist of events. I inquired how that would work. He asked me to wait for a minute, was gone for that long, and handed me a square slip of paper with “EMP $0.00” and Theater 11 stamped on it, among other relevant and irrelevant pieces of information.

Even though I watched the movie for free, I still believe that this movie theater intentionally meant to cause Eddie Murphy’s movie to flop. Whether it will fail due to poor sales remains to be seen. I also wondered if this same dubious tactic was practiced elsewhere by other movie theaters. Was there a hidden agenda here, a veiled attempt to cause this movie to fail by Movies 278 and other cinemas elsewhere?

The Federal Trade Commission, the Screen Actors Guild, the Department of justice, or whatever arm of the law oversees business practices that restrain trade for others need to turn its spotlight on this theater’s actions today, actions that must have broken several laws.

For a much publicized movie, there were no posters of the movie anywhere in that theater, not claiming its earned display outside with the other movies, nor inside in the lobby or on the walls, not one poster. Movies 278’s activities today stank of mischief, deception, and sabotage. “Tower Heist” has been robbed!

September 15, 2011

Education Knocks Down Those Who Knocked It Down

My father, a very cosmopolitan and wise man, gave all his children access to as much education as each could assimilate, regardless of the child’s gender, the cost of the education, or how far flung the location of that knowledge was.  And I, being a voracious reader, a sponge in an arid zone, and an eternal learner, an adventurer, could not get my fill of that well and wealth of knowledge; I still cannot.

I blazed through two degrees, and with bright eyes and a bushy tail, I sashayed back to Nigeria.  I remember when I came back to the United States, having left Nigeria with a shredded heart from a new marriage and a speedily defunct one at that, pregnant with our daughter, how bleak things looked, but I had an accommodation.  Thank goodness for the two wonderful people who helped me with that toothache of a problem.  I came back with one hundred dollars to my name (not wishing to declare anything to the U.S. Customs), plus a couple of hundred dollars that I had loaned to a friend who came to Nigeria to visit.  That was the extent of my wealth, and the friend was not paying back the debt quickly enough no matter how desperate I sounded or how much I tried to impress my needs upon him.

Getting back into the groove of things in Atlanta back then (after a three-year absence) was as impossible as trying to climb onto the back of a stubborn elephant that refused to lower itself.  It was like doing so with the shortest ladder.  I complained to my father about the prejudice, about not being given a chance once Americans heard the accent, and about every excuse I could muster.  His unwavering line was, “My daughter, you have a solid education, a Master’s degree from a renowned American university.  No one will ever take that away from you.”

I complained some more, and he felt the need to add, “You have an education.  The jobs will always come.  Be patient.”  Those two grains of advice kept churning themselves over in my head.  No matter how many rejections I received back then, I never gave up.  I went back to school and obtained a teaching certificate on top of my Master’s degree, and no one was going to take either or all three away from me.  I had a ladder to climb on to the back of that stubborn elephant, and I was going to make that elephant bend down to my level, to the height of my ladder.  As God is my witness, I will climb that animal, even walk on its back, do cartwheels, and find creative ways of showing it who was the mistress.  Not long after my father’s wise words, the jobs came, and I stood and dribbled the ball of choices on that elephant’s back, which company or school district to choose.  My father was absolutely correct.

I had been working consistently for over two decades, never knowing what skin tone unemployment was born in, not knowing what odor it surrounded itself with, who unemployment was, and never bothering to make his or her acquaintance all those 20+ years until 2010.  During those job-laden times, I held two jobs, not to make ends meet, but rather to afford the frilly things in a hardworking woman’s life.  I held on tightly to my college-obtained job, but I quit those part-time jobs at the slightest distress, fatigue, or displeasure.  Another part-time job was right around the bend.  Education afforded me a life at the higher end of middle-class luxury.  That it seemed to onlookers that I always seemed to struggle was because I loved frilly things too much, and I splurged intermittently.  Ah, those were the days.

As Willy Wonka’s famous Golden Ticket, education procures access to limitless benefits and luxuries.  Even the United Negro College Fund’s mantra, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” does not capture the full import of life without a college education.  All through the two decades that I have raised Nigeria’s and the state of Georgia’s children who have come into my classroom, I have preached education, stressed it, demanded it, and impressed on those young minds the unimaginable reaches and riches of education and did hands-on activities to give them a taste of the life and the style a post-secondary education could purchase for them.  My daughter was not spared.  From infancy, she knew that education was the only choice, undisputed and unnegotiated.

Being a trained journalist, I always felt the need to balance my message.  Therefore, I also stressed the horrors of a life without a college education unless the students had some “mad” skills of some sort that would catapult them over the threshold of poverty, scaling them cleanly over the bruising cuts of impoverishment and sacrificed wisdom.  Even those who had the exceptional talents, I always advised them to get a degree regardless.  Education would save them tremendously by endowing them with elevated problem-solving skills and refined logical finesse.  It would cushion the hard fall from loss of million-dollar lifestyles (when those contracts stop coming) to a decent life rather than falling into the gaping hole of abject poverty like many fallen stars, from million-dollar lifestyles to minimum-wage ridicule.

Even as bad as things get now, those who have a college education and who refuse to give up, seem to have more options of finding jobs, of being self-employed, of devising avenues for self-actualization, of marketing and reinventing themselves, of returning to college to augment defunct skills or to earn more money by ascending to the next salary scale, of piecing together two temporary and/or part-time degreed jobs, and so on to keep the soul patched together.  As employers get crafty and try to divide most of their full-time salaried jobs into several part-time positions, those with college education will still come out on top financially by doing the simple math of one-half job plus one-half job equals one (whole) full-time position.

Education is knocking down mercilessly those who knocked it down when things were good, especially the younger generation, those who snubbed it, who did not appreciate it, who did not stay in school to finish college, who refused to finish high school, who inadvertently are having to train their college-degreed replacements, and who chose not to grab the opportunities offered by that express gateway into Middle Class City.  http://chronicle.com/article/International-Report/128955/?sid=gn&utm_source=gn&utm_medium=en

Recently, each time I scrolled through job-search websites, I found jobs listed, and I applied.  I completed 30 application forms online in one month and mailed that many number in the same month for jobs that were supposedly vacant, and I called and spoke frequently with and/or e-mailed potential employers after I dispatched the applications and my resumes.  I want to believe that there still are jobs, maybe very highly specialized now; I also want to believe that employers are not taking undue advantage of this job market crisis, but I know better, contrary to what the article cited in the link above states.

I am constantly overqualified but not hirable even for jobs at which I previously would have hissed loudly like a disturbed rattle snake at the impudence of the below-my-highest-income offerers and would have hissed even louder at the minimum-wage offerers.  Some of them are audacious enough to ignore high school graduates, who were originally their only entry-level choices, and seek college graduates, to go after even Master’s degree holders (from my own personal experiences), dangling the carrots of managerial ascension by enticing them with menial jobs of salad makers or French-fries fryers and pittance pay, jobs for which college graduates previously would have held their sides and heads from the pains of unstoppable laughter and with tears of ridicule running down their faces.

The impertinence and bodaciousness of  some fast-food restaurants and other minimum-wage employers have become the rule rather than the exception.  Alas, there are few jobs to be had these days; humility has taught many college graduates to tuck in their proud tails between their legs, hang their heads like man’s best friend, and beg for the dregs of jobs; truly sad.

Each time I scroll through job-search websites, I find jobs listed, managerial jobs, and I apply.  I have been both a manager and an assistant manager.  I have an advanced degree.  Few employers want to pay for that education and that amount of experience.  I am three-fourths of the way toward retirement.  Employers talk themselves out of very efficient employees like myself because they do not want to be saddled with my impending retirement costs.  It is not that there are zero jobs; it is that more employers are doing more number crunching in attempts to keep most of their profits.

As much as I know that I will produce exceptional results for them should they deign to give me a chance, and even though I know that I am overqualified for some of their jobs, it comes down to dispensing as few dollars as possible for that position.  Recent financial reports indicate that many corporations made a boatload of money this year, but they are refusing to hire.  They are keeping their profits by refusing to hire while overworking their current labor force.  (See the links below for profits reported by U.S. companies.)

Still, I feel under-qualified for other positions, those jobs out there in the higher academia websites that list only positions for professors, assistant professors, associate professors, deans, and doctoral degree holders, jobs for which I yearn but cannot get.  I scroll through pages and pages of vacancies, thousands and tens of thousands of higher education jobs listed by states, and I cannot find one full-time position for a Master of Arts degree holder.  To my chagrin, almost all of them demand a post-graduate degree, beyond the Master’s level, so I feel a continuous hunger, an insatiable, ulcer-causing hunger.

The good news is that I have never knocked education down.  Therefore, it has never knocked me down.  I always have been its best salesperson.  Some cheapskate employers may hire only Bachelor’s degree holders (and reject post-graduate degree holders due to the higher salary they would garner) in an effort to “balance their budget” and jeer at holders of graduate degrees, but times will change; the wheels of fortune will turn; the tide will rise and flow smoothly again without the debris of fallen tree branches impeding its progress; the tide will flow again and abundantly at that.  Those who hold college degrees, I say to you, do not despair.  No one can take those away from you.  The jobs will come.   Like my very astute father said to me, and I say to you, “The jobs will come.  Be patient.”  Let’s ride out the bear market, so to say.  The bull will come crashing through our doors with job offers and investment returns soon, and we will have money to replace those low-quality doors with better ones.

As hopeless as the current job situation seems, I do not feel complete or abject desperation or bleakness.  For inexplicable reasons, hope lives abundantly in me because of my education, and I feel a job calling my name around the corner too loudly for me to ignore it, part-time or full-time.  Faith is not squashed.

Those who have returned to college to buff their skills and polish them with coats of Sally Hansen’s No-chip Nail Hardener, I say to you, hang in there.  I am joining you soon for that doctorate degree to help me go after those thousands of higher academia positions.

On a final note, may our nails not chip or break, and may they survive this traumatic period of gloveless dishwashing and hand-washed laundry!

 

–At the time of the publication of this article, this writer was offered an instructor position at a local university!  Hope lives!  Remember, “You have a college education.  The job will always come.  Be patient.”

 

U.S. companies and reported profits:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-16/major-u-s-energy-companies-second-quarter-profit-table-.html?cmpid=yhoo

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/economy/24econ.html

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/04/20Apple-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-Airways-Reports-Second-bw-125289455.html?x=0&.v=1

August 12, 2011

The Four Sins Crying to Heaven for Vengeance


 The four sins crying to heaven for vengeance are:

  1. Wilful murder (Gen. 4);
  2. The sin of Sodom (Gen. 18);
  3. Oppression of the poor (Exod.2);
  4. Defrauding labourers of their wages (James 5).
Oppression.
Being very unjust or cruel, harming a person.
Defrauding.
Taking away by deceit or by cheating.
May 9, 2011

Happy Mother’s Day!

Someone gave me an amazing book as a Mother’s Day gift, and it was titled “Encouraging Words for a Mother’s Heart.”  In it is a collection of heart-warming poems and sayings. Among the ones that tugged at my heartstrings, the one below also seemed more in line with how I raised my daughter.

A Mother’s Creed

I will worry less about my children and trust God more.

I will commit them into the Lord’s care.

I will love my children unconditionally and let them know I do.

I will believe  in them constantly and encourage them often.

I will pray for them daily.

I will teach them responsibility for their own actions.

I will try to be an example of Godliness, but I will be unafraid to let them see my faults.

I will give them generous doses of laughter interspersed with fun.

I will release them when they are grown, but they will always be my own.

—-Rebecca Barlow Jordan

February 7, 2011

What a Day! What a Day!

Superlatives have not been invented for the words to capture the weaves and the intricacies of my emotions today.

What is insanely pulsating is the possibility of compacting a lifetime of luxurious pampering into three hours.  All these are handed to me on a silver platter, and I did not pay a penny, shinny or rusted.  All these are handed to me by a boss, my boss.  All these are happening in what is the school cafeteria, a cafeteria now transformed into another world with varying sizes and shapes of white and blue snowflakes and lights from the students’ “Snowflake Ball,” a father-daughter soiree of a few yester-days (hyphen inserted on purpose).

I called today’s event “Stations of Bliss,” for lack of better words. Imagine, if you will, a big room set in variations of levels of pampering for all the senses of my body.  I traveled to (what was for me) the first station to have my vital statistics deciphered and remedies given to take care of what might ail me in the future, but I am in perfect health, as my systolic pressure and diastolic pressure (110 over 75) and temperature of 98.6oF showed.  I packed free medicines for my inside and other remedies for my skin: hands, feet, and body.   

In the second station, one of the massage therapists located all the problems of my life where they hid on my back, neck, and shoulders.  And with a resolution that defied any strength I could have mustered, dragged them out in her own unique blending of Swedish and deep tissue massages.  She pressed, tugged, traced, and followed the trail of stress until the boatload of hassles fled unceremoniously out of every nerve and muscle of my body.  Needless to say, languid and relief were an understatement for the satisfied feelings that flooded my body.  

The third station boasted of the hairdresser, a very exceptionally talented woman who came with very few items. By the time she finished each teacher’s hair, we all felt so elevated and so much more sophisticated than our usual sophisticated, urbane, and stylish selves.  Even for those who didn’t have plans previously, they made or wanted to make plans afterwards, for such an amazing hair transformation and flair had to be shared with the outside world. We just could not go from the school building into our homes.

The movie station boasted, yes, a movie that I had meant to see, but I had dallied, and it left the theaters. Who was on the silver screen but none other than Smyrna, GA’s true daughter, Julia Roberts, who comes to my church with her mother whenever she leaves Hollywood for home (Smyrna)?  And yes, I have seen her at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church at least two times.  The movie that grabbed me was “Eat Pray Love,” but since we could not finish viewing it, the principal, my boss, asked me to take it home and finish watching it. Kindness is a wonderful woman named Nina.

Of course, on the way to the Movie Station, I made a quick stop over at the Popcorn Station.  What is a movie without popcorn? In that station were ice, variations of soft drinks, and more ice.  On an Indian summer day such as today, I was lifted by an inner bravery to fill a cup to its rim with ice and to crunch and savor the cold sensation of the arctic in my mouth.

The food station seemed sparse by all accounts, but with a room full of mostly women, and each on one type of diet or another, the food selection was just what we needed.  A long stainless steel dish perched above two warming lights hiding something mysterious, but the dessert was so opulently and decadently displayed that we all rushed toward it forgetting our calorie-counting resolutions, forgeting what our mothers told us, and what we as mothers tell our children daily, “Do not eat your dessert before your meal.” Well, we did! We did!

Oh my taste buds!  What just touched my tongue? Superlatives have not been invented yet for the sensation that confronted my palette! It was chocolate cheese cake, but it was not your typically firm cheese cake.  The bold and brown circle reclined invitingly with white whipped cream cloud floating like cake icing, but looking at its softness assured us that it was not icing. Even the softness was visible in the arcs left by the decorating tips.

This was no ordinary cheesecake.  This one’s smoothness, velvetiness, and softness grabbed the tongue and fork, and the fingers were forced to regretfully pull the fork out in slow motion because the chocolate clung lovingly to the fork, not clingingly hard, but clinging with controlled softness, not all-over-your-mouth messiness, but controlled mousse-and-soft-chocolate-on-the-fork-yet-in-your-mouth situation that caused the heart to quicken.  If you have never tasted food that reached your soul and grabbed it with its mystery, you have no idea what I am talking about.  However, if you have tasted food that made you sigh, food that forced you to eat it with extreme tenderness and regret to see its last morsel, you know exactly what I quite cannot seem to put into words.

So we ate our dessert before our meal, and the meal was another self-fulfilling journey of its own. It was sensitively hot without scalding the roof of the mouth.  It was pasta like you have never tasted pasta.  Shakespeare said, “If music be the food of love, play on.  Give me excess of it.” This food was music, and everyone in that hall loved it as it played itself on our tongues again.  I think everyone spent more time with the food than on or with anything else in that hall today.  We did not know that there was vegetable in the pasta until the teeth bit down on the ever so soft corn, the corn playing hide and seek in the sauce.

Before we hit the road, we made one final stop at the Goody-bag Station where a red mystery bag awaited each of us.  We grabbed a bag each, peeked in, and were extremely pleased with the numerous items within: chocolates, candies, teacher-supply items, and a gift card for Barnes and Noble.  I feel a read coming on, and I know exactly for what I will redeem my card.

Oh, I tell you, it has been an incredible day, a day that I want to hold in my palm for a very long time, a day that I have never encountered from an employer ever, and that is what makes it so hard to believe, that an employer would stop time, pause time, and cause it to move in languid luxury for her hardworking employees, yet not make it feel or look like any work related function with announcements and interruptions.  It was a day that no previous employers had ever given to me, not in 27 years of working myself to the bones and not receiving a tarnished penny in appreciation.

Superlatives have not been coined for the feelings that coursed through my heart, mouth, mind, and body today.  They call me “Word Wizard,” as the plaque hanging in my classroom attests, but even this woman, who is extremely skilled in words, lacks the power and ability to work wonders with words today.  Thankfully, I took a picture of the dessert before it vanished ‘fore the eyes could finish blinking.

December 13, 2010

Thank You! Thank You!! The Goal Still Lives!!

Thank you to the supporters of this Kickstarter project who latched on and rode with me simply on their faith in me by sending in donations through Amazon. You have no idea what your trust means to me!

Thank you to those who wrote me, called me, or approached me with your fear of giving your debit or credit card information to Amazon. Your hearts were very willing. It is the thought that counts!

Thank you to those who sent or wanted to send personal checks to me directly because of the debit/credit card fear (reason above). Although I explained how the whole thing was set up through Amazon and Amazon alone, you still gave or wanted to give. Unfortunately, I have to return the checks to you until I can launch the fundraisers some of you suggested.

Thank you to those who suggested and volunteered to do pre-publication fundraising for me and with me. Since I could not collect and load the money myself into Amazon (a reason for automatic disqualification), I did not see any point in hosting the fundraiser at that time. There was no other way around what you suggested short of asking all of you to send your donations to Amazon through debit/credit cards. You were very wiling to give cash directly to me. I thank you!

Our journey is not over yet! The goal still lives! Although this project did not make it through Kickstarter and Amazon due to system set up, but based on the feedback I received from so many of you, I know the project will succeed through another channel, pre-publication fundraising.

Hang on to that money! I still need your financial support. I will let you know when and where the fundraising will take place for the novel.

Thank you so much!!!