You might be cut out for academia if....

To all who think being a college professor is a cushy job: you've never been more wrong.  You're so wrong there's not even a way to express how wrong you are.  It's not a job for the faint of heart, the wishy-washy, or the gentle talker.  If you can't say NO and stand firm no matter what the heck people come up with as an excuse, you cannot do this job.  However, if you possess some of the following qualities, you might be cut out for academia.

You might be cut out for academia if.....

1.  You spend 60 hours a week preparing for your 13 hours of teaching.  And then another 40 grading.

2.  You are ok with sleeping an average of 4-5 hours a night and dreaming about the papers that you didn't get around to grading.

3.  You don't mind when people repeatedly tell you they understand and then it becomes extremely evident that they didn't when you grade their tests.

4.  You don't get beaten down when teaching the same grammar point four days a week for three weeks straight and then on the quiz, 50% of your students still don't get it.

5.  You don't mind when students blame you for their inadequacies and inability to read, write, or manage their own lives at all.

6.  You enjoy being solely responsible for 29 crazy 20 year olds in a country where they can drink whenever, wherever and only sort of speak the language.  Good times, my friends, good times.  If you haven't gotten the Italian ER call at 3am, you haven't lived.

7.  You can manage numerous assistants - read you can take the blame for their errors but allow the praise for your own work to be credited to them on occasion.

8.  You can stand for the question "Do you have any questions?" to be met with complete and utter silence.

9.  You can win a staring contest.  If you can't stare down your students who refuse to answer you in class, you'll never make it.  I'm considering shaving my eyebrows into angry brows ala Rob Rix circa 1996.

10.  You can make disjunctive pronouns fun.  Turns out students like stupid songs and a dance to go along with it.

So my dearest friends, please evaluate very closely your goals in life.  You don't want to end up bitter and sleep deprived with a big a** pile of papers to grade.