Generation Debt

While my ENG 112 students begin reading Jean Kwok's novel Girl in Translation this week, my Monday/Wednesday sections of ENG 100 will be discussing an excerpt from Anya Kamenetz's book Generation Debt. (My Tuesday night section discussed this last week.) Here is a video of Kamenetz discussing student debt on PBS:

My students are typically divided on the issue of whether or not taking out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans is a good bet. Some are "lucky" in the sense that the government pays their tuition because of their military service. ("Lucky" is not the right word -- they have certainly earned this benefit.) Others have family members helping them along. Others are paying their own way, and would rather take a decade to get their degree--taking only the classes they can afford to pay for up front--than borrow money from the federal government or private banks. Still others do take loans, and are anticipating taking more loans when they move on to more expensive schools.

I have mixed feelings on this issue. I was very lucky when I originally applied for college: I received a scholarship from Bard (a very expensive, private liberal arts school) that allowed me to attend for the same tuition charged at state schools. This comparatively small bill was covered by federal loans and some help from my parents. When I first enrolled in graduate school, I could no longer lean on my parents for help, so I took out more loans until I was able to get a teaching assistantship. My combined graduate and undergraduate loans are pretty staggering--despite the scholarships and funding I received along the way. I will be paying these loans back for decades.

Do I regret taking on this amount of debt? No--I don't. I can't imagine being who I am without my years at Bard, and I can't imagine landing the job I have without my graduate degree. Student loans made that possible. Yet, at the same time, I can't say for sure that I would make the same decisions if I had it to do all over again. I certainly would NOT advise someone in a similar position to do what I did. I acted with a kind of financial recklessness, and just happened to get lucky. Many people who come out of the same PhD program I came out of (and others similar to it) struggle for years to find full-time employment.

It's scary to think how so many young people make financial decisions that may impact their whole lives at a time when they have little to no financial experience and may be receiving misinformed or misguided advice from parents or institutions. My hope is that public colleges and universities will be able to win more support from government and renew their commitment to making higher education accessible, by keeping tuition fees reasonable and offering more grants and scholarships to more students. This should be a much higher priority than competing with private colleges for prestige.

It Gets Better

Things my students and I are reading this week:

• an excerpt from Dan Savage's It Gets Better collection (MW sections of ENG 100)
• President Obama's DNC speech (TU section of ENG 100)
• Act II of Next to Normal (ENG 112 sections)

This is the third consecutive semester that I've included a reading assignment that deals with the issue of gay rights in ENG 100. Last fall we discussed the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell; this past spring we discussed an article in Rolling Stone which investigated a series of teen suicides in Minnesota linked to a controversial "neutrality" policy in schools (teachers and staff were told, ambiguously, neither to defend nor condemn homosexuality). This semester we are reading the introduction to Dan Savage's anthology of "It Gets Better" stories: narratives directed at LGBT youth, meant to give them hope that-- no matter how much crap they may have to deal with in high school--they can persevere and live very happy lives as LGBT adults. I also plan on showing some videos from the "It Gets Better Project" -- the videos that inspired the book. Before the narratives were compiled and published, they were recorded as videos and posted on YouTube.

I believe that the range of gay rights issues (combatting hate crimes and anti-gay bullying, same-sex marriage, adoption rights, etc.) are important civil rights issues of our day, and I hope my students feel comfortable engaging each other in conversation about these topics. Sexuality--like race and religion--can be a difficult topic to open up about, especially in a room full of relative strangers. A well-placed Chik-Fil-A joke may be needed to ease the tension at times.

While I do not personally know what it is like to be threatened and alienated because of my sexuality, I do know what it is like to be threatened and alienated because of how my sexuality was perceived. During my first two years of high school, a rumor spread around school that a good (male) friend of mine and I were a couple. Some severe teasing and intimidation followed, and we both felt pretty miserable, perhaps even depressed. Although the experience was socially and psychologically unpleasant (to put it mildly), the two of us stood together as friends. We didn't avoid each other to try to quell the rumors. Nor did we turn into homophobes ourselves. I think, ultimately, it made us more sensitive to what actual gay and lesbian teens go through in such hostile environments. I wouldn't want to live through those days again, but I'm glad to have the broadened perspective that came out of it.

Keeping Up With Lost Time

The first reading that I assigned for my Monday / Wednesday sections of ENG 100 is an excerpt from a book titled, Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now. My hope is that it will offer some practical advice about how to avoid avoiding things. I know that just getting started can be the hardest part of writing. This is especially true for writers who are not particularly confident in their skills, but it happens to all of us.

When I need to get some writing done, I have a few little tricks, though I wouldn't recommend all of them. My worst trick is to reward myself with a snack after each paragraph I finish. That leads to a lot of unwanted calories. I'm trying to get away from that. This summer, I bought a 90-year old baby grand piano. My new plan is to reward myself with brief intervals of piano time after completing a paragraph or 2. The new plan could be dangerous, though--it's easy to lose track of time when playing an instrument. I'd play for 12 hours a day if I had nothing else to do (or if I wasn't afraid of annoying my fiancé with my amateurism.)

(antique piano, new bench, geriatric dog)

My other trick is to change locations. I'll write a little bit at home, then maybe go to a cafe and do a little more writing. Then maybe a library before heading back home. Changing the scenery somehow helps me renew my mental energy. Getting out of the house also helps keep me away from certain distractions (food, piano, TV).

The most challenging thing to deal with is the Internet, because we all almost always write on computers, and it's so easy to click away from Word and over to Facebook or YouTube or Zappos or whatever. (I spent nearly $200 on new running shoes and Doc Martens yesterday. Yikes.) I used to write in notebooks, and I know some folks disable their WiFi to stay on task. Do what you got to do, I guess.

This summer I did a good deal of procrastinating (never updated my blog, for example), but I also was fairly productive. I managed to put together a decent draft of a manuscript for first-semester college writers, which I hope my students will find useful. They seemed happy to be getting a free "textbook," but I hope its freeness is not its only good quality.

At some point in my life, I developed a really strong aversion to the phrase "killing time." It sounds so morbid and sad to me. We only have a finite amount of time as living beings--why would we want to kill any of our time? Thinking of procrastination as a kind of partial suicide -- as a wasting of our limited chances to do meaningful things with our life -- can be a strong deterrent. Getting it done today opens up possibilities for life tomorrow.

Debt or Alive

This week my ENG 100 classes have their final reading assignment--a government report on the state of student loan debt nationally. The report cites some staggering figures. About 2/3 of students who earn a Bachelor's degree take out student loans in order to pay for it, and the average amount of debt per student is roughly $25,000. I went to a rather expensive private liberal arts college for my B.A., but I did not graduate with quite that much debt. This was in large part due to a very generous scholarship the college offered me, which covered about 2/3 of my expenses. In other words, I was lucky--I mean, I worked hard to earn that scholarship, but still, I was lucky.

When I moved onto graduate school, I was not as lucky. For my first three semesters, the only financial aid I received was through federal loans. I needed these loans to cover tuition and living expenses. (I was teaching part-time, but that only brought in about $2,500 per semester.) For the remainder of my program, I was able to obtain funding (a tuition waiver and a modest stipend), but the damage was already done. I'm not going to broadcast the exact figure of how much I owe, but I will say that my monthly student loan payment is higher than my monthly car payment--and odds are, when my car dies some 100,000 miles from now, I'll still be paying back those student loans.

Was the debt worth it? For me, it was. I am currently a tenure-track, college English professor, which is exactly what I want to do with my life. If I hadn't taken out the loan, I probably couldn't have found another way to get here. But for others, I know, who have taken out similar loans, the results have been different. Jobs like mine are not plentiful these days, and many people with PhDs in English can only find part-time (poorly paid) employment, without benefits. It's such a big gamble to take on big-time debt when you're not sure what the job market will look like post-graduation.

I don't have any easy answers to offer my students on this topic, but I hope our discussion will get them thinking--if they're not already--about the challenges and risks that lie ahead as they contemplate where to go after DCCC and how to pay for it. I just hope none of them take out a variable interest rate loan from Citibank to pay for tuition at the University of Phoenix. From what I hear, I think that might be the worst possible decision.

I Fixed the Lawnmower

For all my students who think writing is "just not their thing," here's a little tale of hope.

Tinkering with mechanical doohickeys is not my thing. When faced with the challenge I'm about to relate, I tried to think back and remember the last time I fixed anything that involved several moving parts. I couldn't come up with anything. I did put together a bicycle that I ordered in the mail around 2006 or 2007, but I did a horrible job of it. When I later brought it to a bike shop for a tune-up, I got laughed at.

Three weeks ago, Yuriko's father (Bob) was visiting from Maryland, and we were talking about how the grass needed mowing already because of the early spring. He asked if I had changed the oil in our little Troy-Bilt self-propelled mower. "You have to change the oil in a lawnmower?" I thought. I doubted that I was anywhere near 3,000 miles with the thing. But apparently changing the oil in a mower at least once a year is a good idea.

Bob, who is a semi-retired electrical engineer for NASA, is, as you might imagine, a vastly superior tinkerer. He showed me, step-by-step, how to take off the blade, drain the old oil, put in the fresh stuff, and put everything back together. He always does these things in a spirit of nonjudgmental helpfulness. Never do I get a hint of "If your not man enough to change the oil in this mower, how are you man enough to live with my daughter?" from him. I am grateful for this.

After Bob left, I started the mower up, and quickly there were 2 bad signs: smoke billowed out of the engine and the self-propulsion feature was not functioning. The smoke was not a big deal--apparently we put a little too much new oil in, but this quickly burned off. Why the mower wouldn't "go" when I asked it to, however, was a more perplexing and troubling question (especially for someone like myself with little to no mechanical intuition or experience).

After consulting Bob via email, I learned that the belt had likely come loose from the pulley while we changed the oil. After taking off the blade again, I could see this was the case. I could not, however, see how to access the front pulley to put the belt back on.

Bob sent me several emails of encouragement and advice over the next couple weeks, and finally--this past Sunday--I found the time to undo every bolt I could find until I could get at that front pulley. Eventually I got there, put the belt back on, and reassembled all parts. I was relieved there were no leftover bolts lying around. I was pretty convinced I would forget where something went.

The mower started up and moved right along--success! I felt quite a surge of pride, even though this was a pretty simple accomplishment. This is all to say that succeeding at something that you're not "naturally" good at can be a very empowering, rewarding experience.

An Unhealthy Debate

This week the Supreme Court heard arguments about the constitutionality of so-called "Obamacare," officially known as The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in 2010. The issue at the core of the debate is whether or not the U.S. Congress can mandate that all Americans purchase health insurance or pay a penalty (which may or may not be considered a "tax"). The idea behind the mandate was that if all Americans have to buy health insurance, insurance companies can charge lower premiums for everyone--even those who are chronically ill or have "pre-existing conditions."

Most critics of "Obamacare" think the government is overstepping its bounds, and that the market for health insurance should remain unregulated. I, too, think the individual mandate is a bad idea, but for different reasons. I think it is a sign of the government doing too little, not too much. By forcing all Americans to buy health insurance, the government is putting even more money into the pockets of insurance companies who profit off people's illness. What I wish the government would do, instead, is to do what nations like Britain and Canada have done--create a single-payer system in which we all pay a health-care tax and are thus all covered. I'd much rather have the money I pay now for health insurance, which goes to a private company, go to a government agency, as long as that agency could really deliver decent health care for all Americans, regardless of employment status, age, sex, or past health. Since that agency would be operating for the public good--not for profit--one would expect that it would be less expensive and more accountable to those it serves (i.e. voters). Also, one wouldn't have to worry about losing one's health coverage if one lost one's job.

If "Obamacare" does get struck down by the Supreme Court, I hope Obama can--in his second term--find the political will and capital to pass something more ambitious, not less. Rather than coercing citizens into filling the pockets of insurance companies, he should show us that truly socialized health care can be more economical and effective in promoting the nation's health than the troubled status-quo.

A Tale of Two Floridas

For the first time ever, I traveled someplace warm during Spring Break. (Little did I know that it would actually be quite warm at home while I was away.) Yuriko and I went to the Florida Keys, and we had a fabulous time. Here is a list of some of the highlights:

• Sandspur Beach -- Located in Bahia Honda State Park, this beach is simply gorgeous. Aside from a few sand fleas, it was perfect. I was a little worried that my super-pale-senstitive skin would be burned beyond repair, but covered in SPF 50, I was able to soak up some sun and live to tell the tale.
• Great Seafood -- Yuriko and I both love to eat sea creatures, and we sure indulged last week. Nearly every place we dined had fresh mahi mahi (which they call "dolphin" -- not to be confused with regular dolphins, which are super-intelligent mammals, not tasty fish) and grouper. We also had some great shrimp, oysters, and even sushi.
• Bicycling -- We rented two bikes and rode out on this really long bridge (about a 2 mile section of "Ye Olde 7 Mile Bridge"). This was easily the most scenic bike ride I've ever taken, surrounded by endless, clear blue water on both sides. Here's a picture of us on "Pigeon Key," where the bike trail ended:

• Great Weather: 80 degrees and sunny each day; 70 degrees and breezy each night. Only significant rain we saw was on the day we left.
• Wildlife: Our last two nights we stayed at a bed and breakfast on Big Pine Key, which has a nature preserve to protect an endangered species of small deer. We saw one particular deer hanging out on the beach all the time, and I was able to take several pictures of it. Also saw this cool little lizard.

All in all, a great trip -- we can't wait to go back next year. My one issue was that I didn't like spending so much time in the rental car. The car was perfectly fine, but I wish there was a train or monorail or something that you could take to the keys from the Miami airport, and from key to key.

While my personal little trip to Florida was blissful, I--like many others--have been profoundly disturbed to hear the news coming out of Florida this week. Nearly a month ago, on February 26th, an unarmed, seventeen-year-old black teenager, Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed by a self-appointed "neighborhood watchman" by the name of George Zimmerman. While Zimmerman claims he shot this kid in self-defense, there seems to be little reason to believe that Martin could have posed any kind of a threat to him or the community. The local police, however, failed to investigate or file charges against Zimmerman. As far as I know, Zimmerman is yet to face any charges or even have his gun license revoked. Many community members locally and protesters nationally have been calling for Zimmerman's arrest. It looks like the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI are now looking into the case, since the local police obviously did not do much. I'm hoping to get my English 100 students talking about this case this week, and following it in the weeks to come.