From the Great Big Girl Archives, Part the Second: Ain' Nothin' So Sad as a SuperHero on the Skids...

Listen up, my little lambs: there ain' nothin' so sad as a SuperHero on the skids.

Seriously, yo. Great Big Girl has hit the rocks.

Let's go back a little ways...I had high hopes for the whole situation. There I was, mild-mannered receptionist Lulu O'Brien, newly freed from the evil clutches of her nemesis Little Bully at The Company only to fall into another pink-collar trap: adjunct teaching at community colleges. There I was, fresh-faced and optimistic, ready to spread the joy of learning throughout the Introduction to Theatre sections at Hometown CC, and through the Composition 1 sections of Kountry Kollege. There I was, a newly-minted Ph.D. with a spring in her step, a song in her heart, and a passion for arts and letters...only to discover that the world of community college adjuncting was not the utopian escape I thought it would be.

"But how so?" you demand. "How can that be possible?!?! The world of education will be your respite, whatever the position, whatever the wage, it is your haven--your home! If you cherish it, it will love you and keep you safe from all the Little Bullies and Jackies and Heavy Breathers and Cowboy Salesmen and Wrong Number Callers That Think You're a Prostitute! If you only believe, it can be so!"

Oh, not so. So not so.

We can start with the wage, which is a nice, concrete place to start. During office hours one day at Kountry Kollege, I did the math: the number of hours I was required to work for a three credit-hour composition course versus the semester salary I was earning. The result? $7.50 an hour.

$ 7.50 an hour.

$7.50 an hour with a Ph.D.

$7.50 an hour to shape the minds of America's youth. $7.50 an hour to help the students learn crucial writing and communication skills that would last them a lifetime, help them get employed, help them stay employed, help them to think critically, create arguments, provide evidence, persuade. $7.50 an hour...$4.00 less per hour than The Company and far, far more education, responsibility, skill, and work required. And that was if I didn't work a lick over the set number of hours...which of course was impossible.

Still, I was pretty happy. I was out from under the thumb (and from under the secret, hidden, desk-and-toilet cameras) of Little Bully, and Hometown CC was paying me maybe 60% more to teach theatre, so why wouldn't a girl be happy? Certainly the monetary sacrifice would be worth the satisfaction of helping the students discover the joys of the educational subjects I hold so dear. That's what I believed with every cell in my sacred heart.

Until the first day of Introduction to Theatre, that is. The first section, the first day...I still have flashbacks. I still see a little group of five immediately-post-high-school students in one corner, literally jumping up and down in their seats, one of whom, upon seeing me, gleefully shouts, "I HAVE A.D.D.!!!!"

I see an image of me, innocently asking, "Can someone hit the lights so we can watch this section of The Emperor Jones?" and seeing the broad, heavy course textbook go flying across the room towards the wall that held the light switch--missing the switch, of course, but conveniently hitting the girl who was sitting next to it.

Flash forward to a discussion of August Wilson's Fences when a student--in a way completely unrelated to any part of the debate over why Rose takes Troy's baby into the house--tells the class the advice he received (strangely enough, from a playwright) about how to get his stepfather to stop beating him: "The next time he lays a hand on you, you fight back, you win, and you let him know you will fucking kill him if he ever touches you again." And the student adds, "And I did. And he was right."

Flash forward again. I still remember the exact moment as if it were a photograph: I saw a student who had not been in class for a month--a particularly psychologically troubled student, prone to strong, sudden, shockingly angry outbursts (especially given that the topic was theatre), a student who radiated fury every moment I saw him, no matter the day or the topic or how kindly I spoke to him--I saw this student stride into class after one month of absences, 30 minutes after the class had started, dressed in fatigues, combat boots, and a long coat. He strides into the center of the room, slams his army surplus rucksack to the floor, and slowly steps directly in front of me, without speaking a word. And I remember the exact thoughts that flashed into my head at that moment: "Holy shit--this is it. At least most of the students are sitting by the door. Maybe I can distract him long enough for the rest to escape..."

(Strangely enough, that wasn't even Great Big Girl taking over my body...that was the first thought of mild-mannered Adjunct Instructor Lulu O'Brien, mild-mannered-ly deciding to use her own body as a distraction to buy time for the students to flee when he pulled the gun.)

(And P.S. He never did pull a gun, although about 72% of the class later told me they thought that was what was going to happen.)

So how to get back on track? How to return to the glory and the grandeur of a Girl on a Mission? How can the skills of a Feminine Avenger get me off this road to ruin? SuperHuman Eavesdropping doesn't keep grown men from throwing books. The Soothing Telephone Voice only works, um, on the telephone. And Great Big Girl's most effective superpowers are completely inappropriate to use in an educational setting, if one wishes to keep working in an educational setting--so no Hypnotizing her target with the swaying of her hips, and definitely no Irresistible Persuasion Beams shooting our of her magical push-up bra. And her notorious Shove-and-Run technique would certainly lead to nothing but lawsuits...

So what's a down-on-her-luck SuperHero to do? Buy a 40, drink it on the street corner, and wait for a worthy adversary to show up? Pine for the social context in which her powers were potent weapons? Or can I get along without the other me, without the SuperHero me, without Great Big Girl? Is it possible for someone like me--the plain, everyday Lulu O'Brien--to use her plain, everyday powers of reason to conquer the community college circuit?

Here's my first attempt: My sweet little pink-collar girls...and hey, you too, my blue-collar baby boys...if you buckle down and do the work to get through this place, you won't need a Working Class Hero to defend you. You'll be able to defend yourself.