All that Jazz

This weekend was the UMSL Jazz Festival. As with last year, Yaya's school performed during the day. Then, I took her to both evening performances. Really good stuff all around.

Except, of course, for the fact that the time doesn't come from nowhere. I was so tired from staying up late the last two nights that I didn't get much done today.

But, back to the jazz. Yaya is very much into it. So much so that I was happy to hear Gordon Goodwin speak plainly to the crowd (which, this being a scholastic event, had a lot of middle and high school jazz players in attendance) about the realities of professional jazz. He didn't come across as remotely jaded or bitter; he just acknowledged that if jazz is what you want to do, you might need to find some other way to pay the bills. As he's pretty much top of the heap in the Big Band world, his commentary carries a lot of weight.

Yaya needs to hear stuff like that. Frankly, so do I.

I entered this PhD program not even considering that getting a faculty job might be a problem. After all, I had multiple offers coming out of Cornell, and that was with just a masters. But, things have changed. Schools aren't hiring full-time faculty anymore. At least, not as a general practice. They are relying on adjuncts to carry the load. I'm not really interested in being an adjunct. I've done it and I didn't find I got the same connection with the students that I did when I was full-time faculty.

So, will I ever teach again? I can't honestly say. I still think it's possible, but I don't know that I'd call it likely. I don't regret going back to school and a PhD in Computational Mathematics is a useful thing to have as a consultant. But, it's certainly not the path I thought I was on.