My father’s side of the family adored me, thought I was the second coming of Jesus. Well, they were Jewish, so probably that’s a bad way to put it. But they truly saw no defect in me. They’d gather around me and stare at me with mesmerized looks like they couldn’t begin to process this absolute perfection. Everything I achieved in life was thanks to this adoring look.
With my mother’s side of the family, I always felt weird, out of place. Everything about me was annoying to my mother and confusing to her relatives. They just couldn’t accept who I was.
And today I realized that I’m replaying this dynamic my whole life. I always find myself living between, “wow, you are amazing” and “wow, you are such a weirdo.” Outside of my university, I’m really respected. At conferences, guest lectures, public appearances in the community, videos, everywhere, people are interested in my ideas. Everybody is excited and wants to learn more. But at work, I’m this clumsy, out of place weirdo. I’ve encountered nothing but annoyance from the administration regarding all the publications, awards, and accolades. It’s hard to explain but I feel like two completely different people. And I just realized, this is how it’s always been. This is my zone of comfort, and I keep engineering myself into it my whole life.
Clarissa's Blog 
Why did the administration express annoyance at your publications? That seems truly perverse.
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Because doing research “takes time away from teaching and you can’t serve students as well as those faculty who are concentrated 100% on teaching.”
It got so, I started concealing my research activities because I don’t want to get constantly accused that I’m a bad teacher.
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“those faculty who are concentrated 100% on teaching”
You mean like the ones that feel that two sections of a course is making them work too hard?
The ones who want to teach entirely on zoom?
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You should see my student evaluations. Students adore me. Nobody ever complained that I was disregarding my teaching. To the contrary, I’m a more interesting teacher because I’m not just dumbly recycling whatever I learned in graduate school 20 years ago. But where I am it’s considered a handicap.
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I’ve done so much curriculum innovation. Created courses in machine translation, interpretation, Latin American dictatorships, Mexican identity, Cervantes. Nobody can accuse me of not doing anything for teaching.
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Oh, man … It hurts to think how bad this all must have been for you.
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Thank you, but I made my peace with it. It doesn’t make sense to be miserable over something for 16 years. But now I’m thinking it might be good to experience something different elsewhere.
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