This is one of those posts that I feel is as much for me as anything. Or more to the point, for me to tell my story and for that story be read and known later. I would say a voice from the grave, but if things have gone well there is no grave and I am floating on the currents of the Pacific. Anyway, I was promoted today. From Associate Professor to "full" professor. Well, I heard from the Dean that I was being recommended from promotion. Which is kind of the same thing. But it took several hours to sink in. At first, it was like "duh." Your old dad did not lack in confidence. It was expected.
But as the day went on it occurred to me that I didn't have this experience of promotion, really ever. Certainly as an academic. My first job was with Simon Fraser University. I left there before getting tenure for Florida State where I joined without tenure. I joined FSU without tenure because I was sure to get it in three years or less and get the salary bump, so why not wait? But I was on leave from SFU to keep open the possibility of moving back if I needed to, and technically did not yet resign. So while on leave applied for tenure at SFU while working at FSU (acronyms are fun). I got the letter from SFU telling me I got tenure there, and I promptly told them I was not coming back from the leave of absence.
I did get promoted to Associate but not tenure, as the option to get the salary bump to Associate could be achieved one year before I could apply for tenure. So while I did experience promotion, it was pretty subdued since it didn't include tenure. Then, as I was approaching tenure at FSU, I met this amazing woman. I decided to leave FSU and find a home with the woman who I knew would be the center of my world for the rest of my life. That led us to Kentucky, where I joined with tenure. So I went from untenured to be being tenured at SFU in a whimper, Assistant to Associate at FSU without tenure and another whimper, to a job offer as Associate with tenure. So never really the big promotion moment/day.
Then I go back to my history prior to academia and I didn't really have a promotion then, either. Only because I moved around so much, too impatient to wait for it. Here, for posterity, is the list of positions since graduating.
Digital Presentations. Toronto. Tiny company run out of a house. Awful experience, basically sales. Selling slides mostly, but I was the first person to sell an interactive kiosk used at a trade show. Extremely early days of "interactive" communications. Couldn't stand it, quit after a few months with no job lined up.
Quarry Communications. Waterloo. Guy who taught a senior advertising class at WLU ran the agency. I told him I wanted to work for him, kept in touch and he phoned me as I was on the brink of probably a pizza delivery job. Week by week posting, but learned a lot.Worked there for a few months.
DMS Services. Toronto. A telemarketing company. Got a supervisory role, so I didn't have to do the actual telemarketing. Learned a ton about the direct marketing business, worked for about a year or so.
Quarrry. Back to Waterloo, where I had the wheels stolen off of my Toyota Paseo. Has a great time working on bulletin boards, what was essentially the forerunner to the web. Your dad missed the boat on that one. Another year and a bit.
Enterprise. Toronto. Division of JWT. Good time, big time Toronto agency. Played solitaire a lot over lunch for about 90 minutes. My first taste of not having to work all that hard at a job. Did this for about 9 months.
Quarry. Toronto. Wooed back to the old ball game, but the Toronto office (Mississauga, technically). I think Alan had big plans to take on Toronto but it didn't quite work out. Got bored real quickly. Left after about 6 months.
Rapp Collins. Toronto. Worked on the Labatt business. A direct marketing agency, but I felt like I talked myself into something where had no business being. Turns out I was infinitely qualified, don't ever be intimidated. About a year and a half I think.
RBC. Worked on the insurance business, one office in Mississauga and another downtown. Life in a large, bureaucratic bank was not for me. Lasted about 6 months.
Rapp Coliins. Wooed back to Rapp Collins. Spent most of my time taking long drives in the countryside in the middle of the day. Seriously. Left after about 4 months.
Cossette. Toronto. Big time agency in Canada, worked there about a year with most of my time working on an account out of Vancouver. After a year move to Vancouver to set up the division of the agency locally there.
Cossette BC. Spent a year or so working on the account, probably the busiest I ever was.
BFS. Wooed away to a local agency to be the direct marketing head. Same job, different agency. Spent about a year downloading songs from Napster.
BFS Calgary. Moved to set up the local office to serve a couple big clients who were served remotely up to that point. Hated running the office, too much BS to deal with. Got myself fired after about a year (severance, baby!).
Canadian Cancer Society. Worked for a one year contract to fix their big-ticket lottery fundraiser. Sold it out for the first time, boom. While there taught a night class at the university.
PhD... even here, impatient and 2.5 years later defended my dissertation.
Anyway, the point of this blog is those Peloza kids, so here is something about them. First, Eva had her winter show on the flute. Her first band show! The best flute of all the flutes.
Next us Levi's great wrestling experiment. The whole thing started with an information session where I learned about a very interesting quote. "Once you've wrestled, everything else is life is easy." Watching Levi work so hard on the mat, it seems like a true statement. There is more perseverance required (albeit in 90 second rounds) than there is in TKD, or maybe any other endeavor. Quite simply, it's hard. But in two meets in less than one week, Levi tasted victory.
First, in Berea he has his first official win. On points after three rounds.
A surprise meet in Frankfort the next week, and this one was legit. Official weigh-in, professional ref in a uniform, the whole deal. Levi pinned his opponent in the first round.
Finally, a decoration Levi brought home somehow stayed up for several months right in the middle of the living room. Not sure how is lasted as long as it did, but I fear its time may be limited so I grabbed a picture for posterity.
But as the day went on it occurred to me that I didn't have this experience of promotion, really ever. Certainly as an academic. My first job was with Simon Fraser University. I left there before getting tenure for Florida State where I joined without tenure. I joined FSU without tenure because I was sure to get it in three years or less and get the salary bump, so why not wait? But I was on leave from SFU to keep open the possibility of moving back if I needed to, and technically did not yet resign. So while on leave applied for tenure at SFU while working at FSU (acronyms are fun). I got the letter from SFU telling me I got tenure there, and I promptly told them I was not coming back from the leave of absence.
I did get promoted to Associate but not tenure, as the option to get the salary bump to Associate could be achieved one year before I could apply for tenure. So while I did experience promotion, it was pretty subdued since it didn't include tenure. Then, as I was approaching tenure at FSU, I met this amazing woman. I decided to leave FSU and find a home with the woman who I knew would be the center of my world for the rest of my life. That led us to Kentucky, where I joined with tenure. So I went from untenured to be being tenured at SFU in a whimper, Assistant to Associate at FSU without tenure and another whimper, to a job offer as Associate with tenure. So never really the big promotion moment/day.
Then I go back to my history prior to academia and I didn't really have a promotion then, either. Only because I moved around so much, too impatient to wait for it. Here, for posterity, is the list of positions since graduating.
Digital Presentations. Toronto. Tiny company run out of a house. Awful experience, basically sales. Selling slides mostly, but I was the first person to sell an interactive kiosk used at a trade show. Extremely early days of "interactive" communications. Couldn't stand it, quit after a few months with no job lined up.
Quarry Communications. Waterloo. Guy who taught a senior advertising class at WLU ran the agency. I told him I wanted to work for him, kept in touch and he phoned me as I was on the brink of probably a pizza delivery job. Week by week posting, but learned a lot.Worked there for a few months.
DMS Services. Toronto. A telemarketing company. Got a supervisory role, so I didn't have to do the actual telemarketing. Learned a ton about the direct marketing business, worked for about a year or so.
Quarrry. Back to Waterloo, where I had the wheels stolen off of my Toyota Paseo. Has a great time working on bulletin boards, what was essentially the forerunner to the web. Your dad missed the boat on that one. Another year and a bit.
Enterprise. Toronto. Division of JWT. Good time, big time Toronto agency. Played solitaire a lot over lunch for about 90 minutes. My first taste of not having to work all that hard at a job. Did this for about 9 months.
Quarry. Toronto. Wooed back to the old ball game, but the Toronto office (Mississauga, technically). I think Alan had big plans to take on Toronto but it didn't quite work out. Got bored real quickly. Left after about 6 months.
Rapp Collins. Toronto. Worked on the Labatt business. A direct marketing agency, but I felt like I talked myself into something where had no business being. Turns out I was infinitely qualified, don't ever be intimidated. About a year and a half I think.
RBC. Worked on the insurance business, one office in Mississauga and another downtown. Life in a large, bureaucratic bank was not for me. Lasted about 6 months.
Rapp Coliins. Wooed back to Rapp Collins. Spent most of my time taking long drives in the countryside in the middle of the day. Seriously. Left after about 4 months.
Cossette. Toronto. Big time agency in Canada, worked there about a year with most of my time working on an account out of Vancouver. After a year move to Vancouver to set up the division of the agency locally there.
Cossette BC. Spent a year or so working on the account, probably the busiest I ever was.
BFS. Wooed away to a local agency to be the direct marketing head. Same job, different agency. Spent about a year downloading songs from Napster.
BFS Calgary. Moved to set up the local office to serve a couple big clients who were served remotely up to that point. Hated running the office, too much BS to deal with. Got myself fired after about a year (severance, baby!).
Canadian Cancer Society. Worked for a one year contract to fix their big-ticket lottery fundraiser. Sold it out for the first time, boom. While there taught a night class at the university.
PhD... even here, impatient and 2.5 years later defended my dissertation.
Anyway, the point of this blog is those Peloza kids, so here is something about them. First, Eva had her winter show on the flute. Her first band show! The best flute of all the flutes.
Next us Levi's great wrestling experiment. The whole thing started with an information session where I learned about a very interesting quote. "Once you've wrestled, everything else is life is easy." Watching Levi work so hard on the mat, it seems like a true statement. There is more perseverance required (albeit in 90 second rounds) than there is in TKD, or maybe any other endeavor. Quite simply, it's hard. But in two meets in less than one week, Levi tasted victory.
First, in Berea he has his first official win. On points after three rounds.
A surprise meet in Frankfort the next week, and this one was legit. Official weigh-in, professional ref in a uniform, the whole deal. Levi pinned his opponent in the first round.
Finally, a decoration Levi brought home somehow stayed up for several months right in the middle of the living room. Not sure how is lasted as long as it did, but I fear its time may be limited so I grabbed a picture for posterity.
Finally, here is a picture of me and that woman I mentioned earlier in the post.
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