Well You Betta Work Hard

Finally, that teaching portfolio is done and going off to the presses. My writing sample is all picked out, printed out, and ready to go. In the morning, I'll make a trip to a printer and see quickly I can get this portfolio put together. If I can get it done tomorrow, my first two applications will be in the mail tomorrow. Tomorrow is a D-Day (Deadline Day) -- Third Chapter is going out the door too....

I'm feeling so good right now, I thought I'd take a time out for a little story about the hard work of being an academic for those in the listening audience...

My mother, God Bless Her Nonacademic Soul, looked over my portfolio materials this evening. I had charts and graphs for my teaching evaluation data and piles and piles of paper. Now perhaps it is because my mother knows that I work in words and not in numbers that she put on airs of being impressed.

"You did all this?" she asks, looking at me sideways with skepticism.

"Yes, mother, I told you I've been really working on this portfolio," I reply, feigning to be hurt by her disbelief.

She pauses, flips some pages, and states in a way only a Southern Black woman can, "Well...You BETTA work hard." Because of course, her eyes say, she hasn't raised me to do otherwise.
"I'm doin my best mom."

She hands me back the thick wad of papers and smiles--"Good." I find comfort in her finality, not feeling in the mood to answer the "when you going to send off some more chapters" inquiries.

But as I turn to get my things together to go, she reminds me why Nonacademic Souls are often wiser than Academic ones.

"They ain't gonna read all that stuff are they." Not a question, but a statement.

"No mom," I sigh defeatedly, "probably not."