The Autistic Me

I completed my doctorate in June 2010. It is now June 2015. Five year after earning the doctorate, there's little to show for it. I have taught, but at my last post I was not on the tenure track and that is unlikely now. I might be a lecturer or adjunct here and there, but that's not the career I imagined. It's also not the path my wife had imagined, and certainly not the path that we went into debt for, yet again. Yes, I've applied for teaching jobs. No, I don't really want them, but teaching is the only thing I seem to be able to do, in part because of the schedule. Unfortunately, my degree choices weren't the wisest. The doctorate was an accomplishment, but to what end I don't know anymore. My wife needs stability. She likes routines and order as much as I do. We both hate any reminders that we are powerless. We organize our spaces, because that is something we can do. Unfortunately, we can organize books and things, but not my career. We won'...

Years ago, when I entered graduate school, I imagined helping students and teachers connect via technology. I wanted to study "writing across the curriculum" and online writing labs. These interests led me to a doctorate… but by the time I completed the degree I recognized that my career was already off my planned course. When I decided that writing about autism and education would be beneficial to someone, beyond myself, part of that decision was based on the (yes, we should admit this) trendiness of disability studies and all things diversity-based. I could do some good, and the topic would be desired by other academic scholars. It was a win-win. Instead, I found myself drifting back and forth between what I love (creative writing and the rhetoric of fiction) and what I believed I had to do to secure a teaching job (something autism-related). Not that I don't care about autism, but it isn't nearly the interest for me that it is for some other autistic scholars...