Allergies, Age, and Advice

Well it’s 5 am on a Saturday morning. The winds are howling outside and the sun has just begun to creep over the south Atlantic, casting a shaded hew of yellow and purple light over Rio Vermelho. Considering that I went to bed after a steady pounding of chopp and churrasquinho last night, I’ll be the first to admit that it is way too early to be stirring about.

On Monday I start school and work again. The summer break is ending. All told, my two months of temporal freedom have been fruitful, maybe a bit less productive than I would have liked. It has rained pretty much non stop for the last two months. This isn’t unusual for this time of year; after all I do live in the tropics. But what is abnormal is the steadiness of the rain, like a well built Swiss clock, it pelts against my windows. Its reliability is maddening, and never quite lets up long enough for things to dry. The result of this, aside from keeping me indoors with cabin fever, is mold. Colorful splotches of it, green, yellow, white, little spores determined to creep all over everything. Without the sun, it becomes almost impossible to fight, infiltrating every porous, stationary object with its colonies. The result of all this is the worst allergy season I have experienced in my life. I am constantly sick, like a living human incubator for the common cold. I have sneezing fits, runny nose, and burning itchy eyes that get worse in the evening and when I wake up. It is not uncommon for me to go through whole rolls of toilet paper in an evening, popping allergy pills like a junkie with spare change.

This constant state of mild sickness is adding to another theme of my summer, feeling my age. For the first time in my life I have begun to feel old, like an awkward forty something that hits on young girls at roller world. Time, it would seem, is finally starting to catch up with me, and is making it self known in a number of surprising ways. First is the physical stuff, common things like back pain, smile lines, a tummy that seems to a tad more horizontal. Then, the blissful world of male-pattern baldness, a noticeable difference in the thickness of my hair, which makes me want to grow a mustache and be awkward at parties. Second, I have begun to take note of a strange phenomenon known as “young people”, which have suddenly cropped up like plague of emo zombies in tight pants. Since when was it fashionable to wear stripe colored t-shirts, to slick your hair over your eye, stick in a lip piercing, and wear thick black retro glasses? The weird thing isn’t that this is cool, but that it isn’t my cool, that I am witnessing for the first time a generational gap where the 80s kids are on the out. I must have not been paying attention because I have no idea when or how this happened.

All of this sitting at home feeling sick and old can be quite taxing, and I’m trying my best to do the adult thing by ignoring it by staying busy. I decided that I would organize my thoughts about what I would do for work when I got home. Namely, if I should enter a doctoral program, seek gainful employment in a museum, or just give up on the hopes of a vocation and punch the emo kids in the face for their lunch money. The big question has been, will the investment in a lengthy doctoral program pay off? And after numerous emails to museum directors, anthropologists, and other insiders, the answer seems to be no. The academic market is currently flooded with Ph.D.’s, all fighting for the scraps at the same table. With a down turn in the job market, there are just too few positions available and too many highly competent (and better qualified) people to fill them. This leaves me running in circles, as usual. Do I join the corporate world, sell my soul to industry, find some other niche in which I can somehow be productive?

I have been recently considering working as an anthropology prof at a community college, something most ivory tower academics wouldn’t consider. I kind of like the idea of teaching anthropology full time, mentoring younger students, and working in a small community based teacher centered atmosphere. For this to happen, I would have to return to school for at least another two years to get my subject specialization in my area (i.e. MA in Antho). From my research, community colleges are on the rise, offer comparable salaries to four year institutions, and are good place for moderately academic people who want to teach, instead of publish/perish. Vivi could perhaps teach Portuguese or ESL, we could pull in 80-100k a year, and get the summers off for travel. Hmmm….

All told, the rain continues. The allergies are wiping me out, I’m feeling old, and I’m still on the search for a better job. That said, life is good for the most part, and I feel moderately happy as the summer break winds to a close.

Sunset over the Bay of All Saints: