To Boldly Go by Anesa Miller

Author:Anesa Miller [Miller, Anesa]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Artisan Reader
Published: 2013-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

Farewell to Matyora

With apologies to Valentin Rasputin

A very long time ago, at a remote college in the City of Angels, a rudderless but idealistic young person stumbled into the field of Russian Studies. I will call this young person Darya. As if by magic, a revelation occurred: Darya had a talent for phonetic mimicry! What does that mean? In an ancient castle called The Language Lab, she convinced everyone she was a native speaker of Russian, although she could merely imitate the incomprehensible sounds she heard on tape.

Some years later, having mastered Russian grammar with a good deal more difficulty than it took to spit out those consonants, Darya found herself in graduate school in front of a first-year language class, passing on her skills and knowledge. It seemed she had found her calling: The Russian language was “prickly to touch but strong to hold onto” as Maxim Gorky once said of a fir tree. What could be more worthwhile than teaching Americans to speak the language of their nation's foe? While political leaders rattled sabers and spent vast sums on weaponry, Darya would advocate humane understanding, forge the links of grassroots diplomacy to eventually pull official discourse in a sane, peaceable direction.

This felt like a mission worthy of all her youthful energy.

Over the next decade, Darya received awards, published articles and translations, edited books, and garnered positive student reviews. In testament to the impracticality of a permissive upbringing, such matters as salary and benefits were not her major concern. She accepted the fact that a part-time instructor’s income was even less than she’d earned as a graduate assistant. She searched for work in her field all over the country, but pickings were slim. Awaiting a better opportunity, she subsisted on loans, multiple jobs, and help from relatives.

At long last, a new position was announced in the Department of Modern Languages, where our idealist had already been teaching for eight years. Although this job was not the coveted tenure-track slot Darya had dreamed of, it was, at least, full-time with benefits.

At the dead-end rank of Instructor.

Darya turned in her application for the job at the department office. She waited and waited, then waited some more. Weeks passed. One morning, the senior Russian professor, a kindly but nervous man named Dr. Volodin, stopped Darya in the hallway. He wanted to apologize because the job search committee had declined to formally invite her to apply for the position.

“That wasn’t right,” he said, not meeting Darya’s eye. “You’ve been with us all these years. You should have been invited to apply.”

“Am I on the shortlist?” she asked. “That’s what matters.”

He would only say candidates were being considered.

She decided to ask one more question.

“It’s a shame the job’s an instructorship. Any chance Admin might upgrade the rank?”

Since defending her Ph.D. dissertation (with honors) the previous year, Darya’s contract accorded her the rank of assistant professor. This entailed no pay raise, but the words looked nice on her curriculum vitae, improving her chances in competition for research and travel funding.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.