By that I mean what it takes to actually apply for a job for which you are overly qualified yet do not actually have one of the key qualifications--namely, a PhD.
I had no intention of covering up or concealing or otherwise ignoring the fact that I am gay. And that it was because I was gay that they forced me to resign from the Academy 32 years ago. However, I have no idea in this post-DADT era how that will impact my application. They can easily say, "We need a PhD, and you do not have a PhD. We are sorry, but we have other applicants who are more qualified for the position than you." They don't have to openly admit, even to one another when they reject my application, that it was actually because I am gay that they have no intention of hiring me. Or it could be because I am 62 years old. Likely, I would be one of the, if not the, oldest faculty members on the staff.
They cannot reject someone these days because of age or for being gay. But they don't have to say that's the reason when they have a perfectly legitimate justification to do so.
Or they could be an entirely unique group of individuals who realize what happened 32 years ago and decide that they actually want to see an old injustice undone all of these many years later. This is the English Department. How many of their current instructors are gay? How many of their favorite writers were gay?
But right now none of that is my problem. Right now, I have been waiting over three weeks for transcripts from East LA College and California State University at Dominguez Hills. The month is nearly over, and I sent off a check with all the information about myself the first week of October. Day after day, I have looked for the transcripts in the mailbox but, like Charlie Brown fishing for Valentine's Day cards therein, I have not seen transcripts from either of those two institutions.
Finally, yesterday, I called East LA but got no one on the phone repeatedly. I eventually left a message, but no one called me back. I called again several times and finally got someone. However, when she tried to look up my personal information (I did not have my student ID handy but gave her my name, date of birth, social security number, and attendance dates; however, still she could not find me in their computer. She put me on hold but then there was a click and the phone started to ring again. I had been transferred, without knowing that, to another woman who was responsible for those former students whose last names began with "N through Z". I left another message, this time with my "permanent no.", what it says on a copy of my transcript that I do have (the Academy requires "Official" transcripts).
She did not call me back.
I tried one more time, left a third message, and got no return calls for the remainder of the afternoon. All I wanted to know is if they still had my check (my bank records do not show that the check was ever cashed) and could they finally send out my transcripts. Unfortunately, I could not afford to wait any longer. I had my roommate pick up an overnight envelope from the post office, and I inserted another cover letter with all the information about me, and included a check for $20.00 to get Emergency Transcripts sent to me. Time is running out.
Dominguez Hills was another matter. I had paid over the Internet for two copies of my B.A. degree transcripts and then two copies of my M.A. transcripts, using a company that takes care of the financial aspects of this sort of transaction for the university. I believe I paid $20.00 for each pair of transcripts. I next got emails, confirming the receipt of the money, and confirming that my transcripts were being sent by the university. That was at least two weeks ago. No transcripts have yet arrived. I called their customer service yesterday, and the rep who answered checked and said he would request that additional copies be sent since I never got what I was supposed to get over the past couple of weeks.
Those were two separate orders, and two separate charges, for two copies of each set of transcripts. Yet I got no copies of any transcripts, so far. What are the odds? And not just the odds their neither set came from Dominguez Hills, but that neither of the two transcripts I had ordered from East LA College have arrived either?
Even after 32 years of waiting to return to teaching at the Academy, I still am having problems with something that ought to be so simple: getting transcripts. I got my transcripts from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where I obtained my secondary English certification back in 1988-9. They arrived in one week. I even got my DD 214 from military records early last week. Over a year ago, I needed official transcripts from East LA and Dominguez Hills when I applied for two different community college teaching jobs. Those arrived with no problem within two weeks of each request. Now, with the most important application in my life pending, I have received nothing yet from either source.
I suppose that I have become one who pays attention, as the Greeks and Romans used to, to "signs and omens". In our modern era, it isn't the flight of birds or the entrails of other animals that do it--it's just this sort of thing such as messed up transcript requests that make one wonder what the heck is going on. Am I not meant to teach there once again?
Is it because, if you want something bad enough, regardless of how long you have already waited, it still is not going to be easy? This additional time has certainly caused me to ponder why I am doing this, why I still want to return to take up once more the best job I ever had in my entire life.
After my discharge on October 12, 1979, life sent me on this entirely different expedition. I wrote several books, including an autobiography, before finally writing and publishing the Rainbow Arc of Fire series. Had I not been forced to resign, had I not moved to Denver, had Amendment 2 and DADT not passed, I probably would never have written the series.
Now, some might question, as I certainly do, that RAoF has never been very popular or sold more than several hundred copies of all volumes, combined. Beyond being significant for me, it's not been significant for more than a few of my readers. (The very few reviews on amazon.com attest to the fact that, of all the books I have sold there and elsewhere, only 1-3 reviews exist for any one volume in the series. Only a couple of people have cared enough, negatively or positively, even to write a review.)
No, the writing of the series was mostly for me, cathartic or otherwise. It got me through the years while I waited for Amendment 2 to be overturned as well as DADT to go away. Just as the autobiography and the other, abortive novels helped get me through the years immediately after my forced resignation. The 80's was the toughest decade to endure. I still lived, metaphorically and emotionally, in the shadow of the Academy, just down Academy Boulevard.
A person's life features so many challenges along the way. Triumphs are a culmination of what happens after overcoming those challenges. Unfortunately, the satisfaction of personal triumph is often fleeting.
I survived my resignation. I survived this interminable era of AIDS. I survived to see DADT come into effect and then see DADT overturned. Sadly, the sun is indeed setting upon my working life. Before I can collect social security, I have to work but six more years. To get the maximum out of social security, I have to work until I am 70, eight years off. I have lived in my condo for 14 years. I have lived in Denver for 20 years. I have lived in Colorado for 33 years. I am 62 years old. The scant years I have left to work seem very short indeed.
So, am I going to get to teach once again at the Academy? I have no idea. I haven't the slightest clue what these latest signs and omens mean. I have two weeks left to submit my application materials. Who knows how long after that when I may hear that I am rejected or if I am still in the running for one of the two positions? Or if some surprise awaits because they want me to teach there though by some means other than by these two positions in the English Department?
I had no intention of covering up or concealing or otherwise ignoring the fact that I am gay. And that it was because I was gay that they forced me to resign from the Academy 32 years ago. However, I have no idea in this post-DADT era how that will impact my application. They can easily say, "We need a PhD, and you do not have a PhD. We are sorry, but we have other applicants who are more qualified for the position than you." They don't have to openly admit, even to one another when they reject my application, that it was actually because I am gay that they have no intention of hiring me. Or it could be because I am 62 years old. Likely, I would be one of the, if not the, oldest faculty members on the staff.
They cannot reject someone these days because of age or for being gay. But they don't have to say that's the reason when they have a perfectly legitimate justification to do so.
Or they could be an entirely unique group of individuals who realize what happened 32 years ago and decide that they actually want to see an old injustice undone all of these many years later. This is the English Department. How many of their current instructors are gay? How many of their favorite writers were gay?
But right now none of that is my problem. Right now, I have been waiting over three weeks for transcripts from East LA College and California State University at Dominguez Hills. The month is nearly over, and I sent off a check with all the information about myself the first week of October. Day after day, I have looked for the transcripts in the mailbox but, like Charlie Brown fishing for Valentine's Day cards therein, I have not seen transcripts from either of those two institutions.
Finally, yesterday, I called East LA but got no one on the phone repeatedly. I eventually left a message, but no one called me back. I called again several times and finally got someone. However, when she tried to look up my personal information (I did not have my student ID handy but gave her my name, date of birth, social security number, and attendance dates; however, still she could not find me in their computer. She put me on hold but then there was a click and the phone started to ring again. I had been transferred, without knowing that, to another woman who was responsible for those former students whose last names began with "N through Z". I left another message, this time with my "permanent no.", what it says on a copy of my transcript that I do have (the Academy requires "Official" transcripts).
She did not call me back.
I tried one more time, left a third message, and got no return calls for the remainder of the afternoon. All I wanted to know is if they still had my check (my bank records do not show that the check was ever cashed) and could they finally send out my transcripts. Unfortunately, I could not afford to wait any longer. I had my roommate pick up an overnight envelope from the post office, and I inserted another cover letter with all the information about me, and included a check for $20.00 to get Emergency Transcripts sent to me. Time is running out.
Dominguez Hills was another matter. I had paid over the Internet for two copies of my B.A. degree transcripts and then two copies of my M.A. transcripts, using a company that takes care of the financial aspects of this sort of transaction for the university. I believe I paid $20.00 for each pair of transcripts. I next got emails, confirming the receipt of the money, and confirming that my transcripts were being sent by the university. That was at least two weeks ago. No transcripts have yet arrived. I called their customer service yesterday, and the rep who answered checked and said he would request that additional copies be sent since I never got what I was supposed to get over the past couple of weeks.
Those were two separate orders, and two separate charges, for two copies of each set of transcripts. Yet I got no copies of any transcripts, so far. What are the odds? And not just the odds their neither set came from Dominguez Hills, but that neither of the two transcripts I had ordered from East LA College have arrived either?
Even after 32 years of waiting to return to teaching at the Academy, I still am having problems with something that ought to be so simple: getting transcripts. I got my transcripts from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where I obtained my secondary English certification back in 1988-9. They arrived in one week. I even got my DD 214 from military records early last week. Over a year ago, I needed official transcripts from East LA and Dominguez Hills when I applied for two different community college teaching jobs. Those arrived with no problem within two weeks of each request. Now, with the most important application in my life pending, I have received nothing yet from either source.
I suppose that I have become one who pays attention, as the Greeks and Romans used to, to "signs and omens". In our modern era, it isn't the flight of birds or the entrails of other animals that do it--it's just this sort of thing such as messed up transcript requests that make one wonder what the heck is going on. Am I not meant to teach there once again?
Is it because, if you want something bad enough, regardless of how long you have already waited, it still is not going to be easy? This additional time has certainly caused me to ponder why I am doing this, why I still want to return to take up once more the best job I ever had in my entire life.
After my discharge on October 12, 1979, life sent me on this entirely different expedition. I wrote several books, including an autobiography, before finally writing and publishing the Rainbow Arc of Fire series. Had I not been forced to resign, had I not moved to Denver, had Amendment 2 and DADT not passed, I probably would never have written the series.
Now, some might question, as I certainly do, that RAoF has never been very popular or sold more than several hundred copies of all volumes, combined. Beyond being significant for me, it's not been significant for more than a few of my readers. (The very few reviews on amazon.com attest to the fact that, of all the books I have sold there and elsewhere, only 1-3 reviews exist for any one volume in the series. Only a couple of people have cared enough, negatively or positively, even to write a review.)
No, the writing of the series was mostly for me, cathartic or otherwise. It got me through the years while I waited for Amendment 2 to be overturned as well as DADT to go away. Just as the autobiography and the other, abortive novels helped get me through the years immediately after my forced resignation. The 80's was the toughest decade to endure. I still lived, metaphorically and emotionally, in the shadow of the Academy, just down Academy Boulevard.
A person's life features so many challenges along the way. Triumphs are a culmination of what happens after overcoming those challenges. Unfortunately, the satisfaction of personal triumph is often fleeting.
I survived my resignation. I survived this interminable era of AIDS. I survived to see DADT come into effect and then see DADT overturned. Sadly, the sun is indeed setting upon my working life. Before I can collect social security, I have to work but six more years. To get the maximum out of social security, I have to work until I am 70, eight years off. I have lived in my condo for 14 years. I have lived in Denver for 20 years. I have lived in Colorado for 33 years. I am 62 years old. The scant years I have left to work seem very short indeed.
So, am I going to get to teach once again at the Academy? I have no idea. I haven't the slightest clue what these latest signs and omens mean. I have two weeks left to submit my application materials. Who knows how long after that when I may hear that I am rejected or if I am still in the running for one of the two positions? Or if some surprise awaits because they want me to teach there though by some means other than by these two positions in the English Department?
