weeoo

So didn’t from my regular posts I’m going to bitch about my old English teacher I had last year

Oh yeah trigger warning she was a ableist bitch also when I’m upset I curse more so this contains some colourful and Australian language then normally also I get angry so my spelling and grammar goes flying out the bloody window. Also also I’m not fucking missgendering myself for the sake of being accurate

I used to think maybe I was too harsh but now I honestly could not give a shit even if my life depended on it as she was a horrible teacher. Also I’m making the closest thing to my real nickname because it is very obvious what my legal name is if you know it do I’m going to coni I place as it’s similar sounding also anytime I say connor it’s in place of my legal name

so first day i meet her in person i tell her im dyslexic and might need some help with stuff, it went down hill from there as if adhd ASD and dyslexia aren’t on my file

how did she treat me, well not like everyone else that’s for fucking sure

Talked in the “hay sweetie/buddy” voice, for people who don’t know it’s the kinda voice used when you talk to a very very young child and fucking pets so it’s not very nice eg Miss Paulings line to pyro gives me flashbacks(joke I’m not serious)

I draw in class do I concentrate I told her that, she didn’t hear I guess as she always went “coni you can draw afterwards” or “coni could you look up at the board”

even if I finished the work I’d still get the same replies as the top one. Once I did all the work in the group project thingy and I got “coni you need to talk with (name of friend) so you can do the project then you can draw” becuase I guess I can’t possibly do work and finish it quickly it fucking quickly

unit on how stereotypes are bad and dehumanising when she was infantilising me so yeah she was also a hypocrite bitch

i had to be out of school for two weeks first week is kinda personal and the other was wisdom teeth removal. She emailed MY FUCKING MOTHER and not me that she’d send me the work

she sent it halfway through Thursday after I got back home from a blood test, IT WAS THE DAY BEFORE I WAS GETTING SURGERY ALSO IT WASNT EVEN THE RIGHT FUCKING WORK

i get back I ask how to catch up as she emailed me she would, she didn’t. She said not to worry about it and didn’t actually help me at fucking all with work where I needed to of done the work pipe and read the bloody book to s point

SO I HAD TO FUCKING FIGURE SOME SHIT OUT TO HELP MY FUCKING SELF AS SBE COULDNT DO HER BLOODY JOB AS A DAMN TEACHER

she then proceeded to slowly go from never choosing me to answer questions with my hand down to fucking telling me “you can tell me later coni” “not now coni” and like the bloody bitch she is she never call on me again

My friends can fucking see the shit she is doing because is so bloody blanet you’d have to buried half way to hell head first not to tell

i somehow managed to bet a a decent grade on my essay exam and here’s some crap I was going through at the fucking time : psychosis from hiding amount of stress, only getting 2.5-4houes of sleep for a month and returning to school when I hadn’t even fully recovered because the doctor note had bloody fucking stupidly only let me stay home for a week even when I wasn’t getting better for several days. I SOMEHOW MANAGED TO GET A C- and then she comes up to my fucking desk to tell me how I could of bloody done better

LIKE IM SO SORRY I DID NOT THAT BLOODY WELL AS YOU COULD NOT DO YA DAMN FUCKING JOB. She also didn’t do this for anyone else

she introduced me to the new English teacher because thank the fucking heavens she had to schedule change and the audacity this fucking bitch

she, 20cm tops away from my desk and indrodues me too the new teacher, I wasn’t in the damn convo she was talking about me in front of me. Effectively doing it like

“That’s coni he is disabled, you need to be a condersending wanker as I think it works best oh yeah he isn’t like the other students so I obviously need you to treat him like dumb toddler who can’t understand anything” (if you couldn’t fucking tell I’m trying to make a joke it’s a joke)

also 2 last things

I never introduced myself as ‘coni ‘ to her or said she could call me that I said my name is Connor

also she didn’t like how I did stuff, even tho I didn’t do it wrong I just did it differently then she wanted so she made me do work in a way that doesn’t actually work for me and 2 apparently doing something that was effectiving no one is so bloody horrible

also new English teacher was fucking amazing and actually did their bloody job

ive claimed down again I think I need to add I never once got angry at her in person. I honestly had some fun in the class be of my friends not because of her

a

thoughts on ice skating

supposed to be under read more, sorry if mobile is weird! 

i mean ive missed multiple weeks and alll in all the society/ practice is quite weird like the beginners teacher dude keeps rambling off about like olympics skating or how higher levels have this and this move and look ive taught that advanced kid over there and heres how they do that technique rather than concretely helping us develop those basic skills that were apparently flawed at. like how do i do that correction youre just showing me bc clearly im about to fall over bc idk how to do it. and i tried being all professional and interested and make the most of it for myself, but cant help the frustration when it goes out of the easy shit into the stupid spins because apparently i just cant do it. be it my skates are too thin or too sharp blades or my ankle is not strong enough  or enough support thats why its going bad? idk even but i cant spin. cant do it. idk i kinda know multiple things that are fucking up and its frustrating and annoying and its just not gonna work yknow i can kinda turn 180. no i cant do the multiple spin spin spin that seems so easy. is it my skates or is it my inadequacy? im not getting new skates tho, im only here because i have my own skates a while back, im clearly so shit that im not even gonna be a milkly good figure skater im not gonna get in on that. i might as well do fuckin ballet rather than this. im actually looking into that kinda now id love to try. 

ice skating is dumb in the way that ive done it since im a child but never as a hobby, like ive done it with most the time my own owned skates since like 3-4 yrs old like young. but school only ever teaches forwards and basic backwards (apparently its cheating backwards) and basic stop and turns and idk things you learn somewhat naturally and my coolest tricks always been sausages (or bubbles as they call them here) and those are apparently baby level beginner stuff and im just :| yeah i can do those tho. and now ic an do them backwards which is kinda cool, and im more confident one foor skating/gliding. but like never as a hobby so i guess none of that matters, i did try to do intermediate and could keep up to an extent but i guess my basics are so shoddy i wasnt doing well enough for my own standards, and even now looking over tho the teacher is better and more encouraging, everyone seems to be doing crazy tricks and jumps and spins and one leg up fancy shit and im just... ya. guess i cant be over there. cant do it. lemme just stand with mr blabber mouth. it is frustrating bc yeah maybe i wanna be that intermediate level, maybe i wanna go skate with my family/old friends and show off bc look i can do like 3 4 cool things im almost a real skater. but fuck i guess my skates are limiting me and i should try use the rental skates? that are dull af but have better support? idk, ive got blisters from them the last i used them and i dont particularly wanna use shitty skates. but i dunno even what to do, i dont particularly wanna drop on some fancy skates just to find smths wrong again and im shit and cant do it. maybe id suddenly improve and feel a lot better about myself and take it as a proper hobby but realistically nah. im actually kinda frustrated i dont even know if i wanna continue. yes i have a friend that goes, yes i have skates and you only get better by spending time on ice and id like to be better bc only recently ive realised how shit i am, (trust me its confidence boosting to have skated with bambis on ice who are afraid of moving at all and then i can at least go kinda fast if i want) but i cant even turn properly, cant stop properly neither. its just ugh, i dont think im getting as much out of it as i should be, i dont know if its the teachers fault, my skates fault, or my own personality/inability. 

no im not doing the dumb kinda competition theyre organising in a few weeks. the criteria for intermediate (that i havent participated in enough anyway recently) is fuckin hops and drags (my skates do not drag! to sharp? idk) and spins and fancy shit i havent even ever tried to. yeah sure i could for the fucks of it do the beginners bc its uh, bubbles forward and backwards that i can do, and i can kind of do the chassee thing kind of. but i cant do a god damn spin for the life of me apparently so i might as well save my 5 pound and ‘pride’. ugh. besides the fun part was that he was talking abt the higher levels leg up glide thing, and had us do it against the wall bc ‘afraid well just face plant’ and i guess i can bring my leg up decently high when supported by the wall which is fun, and otherwise im not the worst of the 5 beginners that showed up. but yeah im just frustrated with it over all. dunno how long the clubs even gonna continue for, theres only one friend there that i would continue for which isnt great considering means i dont consider the others easy to make friends with or ones i could be fond of enough to over look the struggle of the hobby. 

i think my plan was to call my dad not only to ask if they had a preference for when my friend would fly down to visit  so she could buy her tickets, but i guess also i was going to say about the skate apparently being too soft and too thin/too sharp and express this frustration that i still cant do shit, that maybe even using unsharpened (and uncomfortable) rental skates could be better for skating and just wonder what im even doing abt this all. clearly not competing but idk even if we could just come to observe/skate for fun during the competition etc or if i should just skip to catch up/pack and clean idk. also im kinda annoyed at myself otherwise bc i just tuesday saw with J and shes off for a few weeks and i made such a good verbal plan saying id do an email and a summary im weeeeeks behind on on tuesday evening and prep for class today (didnt prep but it went okay anyway) and today i would have gone to class and to skating with a healthy meal (check check check) and come home to sign up and send the other email thats been bugging me, and then do my report due midnight i havent even started on. said id work after midnight if it was taking so long so id have it done..... i had a nap instead. not even a god damn shower i was planning to have tuesday and now its 3 am on thursday. ayy. sure i could skip classes tomorrow to shower and clean my room and maybe complete a task before i drag myself to an archery arrow lesson and badminton after (no thatll be fun, but ill be back rly late) but ive skipped so many classes and i wana see and be with my friends i might as well go, and if i get abandoned work on work somewhere in between classes and maybe actually get something done? gasp. shock. and still get home and do smth like clean and do dishes to be productive while anticipating fun thing, do it and come home and actually sleep bc im fuckin that over eh. but fuck. its not just that i have 1 overdue summary from two weeks ago, i have another summary due thursday night. maybe, in between classes i could do both, miraculous i guess yes but would be cool. do two summaries, send off both and an apology email for the other, take the spare chance to book myself another experiment if theyre still running and if not send an apology email bc i missed one in class one and ask what now. and then maybe even since the calendar is out get my 3 planned viewings booked so that i can see them b4 going back home and dont get fucked. maybe even add the corrections i got yesterday to my other report. wow wouldnt that be great. i could do them now but i should get to sleep right now heres hoping ill remember the corrections then. and then id need to look at the video for the assignment that was due yesterday and bring up the files and find the debrief and begin filling it in and maybe email researcher if i need to, and do the easy part. so that maybe logical me in a clean room will fill in the ethics part between classes on friday or after class or gasp on saturday bc im not going to st andrews after all... its a lot.. i hate that two days are wasted already. ugh. uGH. well get by. lets just try stay positive, now im going to sleep and wake up to go to my 11 class prepared to do some easy work between classes. yes yes. its probably weird that who ever has read this far has read all this shit and maybe i should just keep my shit personal and not post on my main blog bc surprisingly its open to anyone who just slightly would wanna see it,and though you likely dont know me in person its a bit weird huh idk. maybe this is here so my cousin can read it if she happens to , maybe its so that you can read it and be like ya i do that and i think like that too pretty cool im not alone, maybe its for me to read back and not have to be exposed to my worst ugly vents on my plain vent blog and can remain positive thomaybe not. its under read more anyway. lets try bury it guys. 

Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

Adjunct professors in America face low pay and long hours without the security of full-time faculty. Some, on the brink of homelessness, take desperate measures

There is nothing she would rather do than teach. But after supplementing her career with tutoring and proofreading, the university lecturer decided to go to remarkable lengths to make her career financially viable.

She first opted for her side gig during a particularly rough patch, several years ago, when her course load was suddenly cut in half and her income plunged, putting her on the brink of eviction. In my mind I was like, Ive had one-night stands, how bad can it be? she said. And it wasnt that bad.

The wry but weary-sounding middle-aged woman, who lives in a large US city and asked to remain anonymous to protect her reputation, is an adjunct instructor, meaning she is not a full-time faculty member at any one institution and strings together a living by teaching individual courses, in her case at multiple colleges.

about

I feel committed to being the person whos there to help millennials, the next generation, go on to become critical thinkers, she said. And Im really good at it, and I really like it. And its heartbreaking to me it doesnt pay what I feel it should.

Sex work is one of the more unusual ways that adjuncts have avoided living in poverty, and perhaps even homelessness. A quarter of part-time college academics (many of whom are adjuncts, though its not uncommon for adjuncts to work 40 hours a week or more) are said to be enrolled in public assistance programs such as Medicaid.

They resort to food banks and Goodwill, and there is even an adjuncts cookbook that shows how to turn items like beef scraps, chicken bones and orange peel into meals. And then there are those who are either on the streets or teetering on the edge of losing stable housing. The Guardian has spoken to several such academics, including an adjunct living in a shack north of Miami, and another sleeping in her car in Silicon Valley.

The adjunct who turned to sex work makes several thousand dollars per course, and teaches about six per semester. She estimates that she puts in 60 hours a week. But she struggles to make ends meet after paying $1,500 in monthly rent and with student loans that, including interest, amount to a few hundred thousand dollars. Her income from teaching comes to $40,000 a year. Thats significantly more than most adjuncts: a 2014 survey found that the median income for adjuncts is only $22,041 a year, whereas for full-time faculty it is $47,500.

We take a kind of vow of poverty

Recent reports have revealed the extent of poverty among professors, but the issue is longstanding. Several years ago, it was thrust into the headlines in dramatic fashion when Mary-Faith Cerasoli, an adjunct professor of Romance languages in her 50s, revealed she was homeless and protested outside the New York state education department.

We take a kind of vow of poverty to continue practicing our profession, Debra Leigh Scott, who is working on a documentary about adjuncts, said in an email. We do it because we are dedicated to scholarship, to learning, to our students and to our disciplines.

Adjuncting has grown as funding for public universities has fallen by more than a quarterbetween 1990 and 2009. Private institutions also recognize the allure of part-time professors: generally they are cheaper than full-time staff, dont receive benefits or support for their personal research, and their hours can be carefully limited so they do not teach enough to qualify for health insurance.

This is why adjuncts have been called the fast-food workers of the academic world: among labor experts adjuncting is defined as precarious employment, a growing category that includes temping and sharing-economy gigs such as driving for Uber. An American Sociological Association taskforce focusing on precarious academic jobs, meanwhile, has suggested that faculty employment is no longer a stable middle-class career.

Adjunct English professor Ellen James-Penney and her husband live in a car with their two dogs. They have developed a system. Keep nothing on the dash, nothing on the floor you cant look like youre homeless, you cant dress like youre homeless. Photograph: Talia Herman for the Guardian

The struggle to stay in housing can take many forms, and a second job is one way adjuncts seek to buoy their finances. The professor who turned to sex work said it helps her keep her toehold in the rental market.

This is something I chose to do, she said, adding that for her it is preferable to, say, a six-hour shift at a bar after teaching all day. I dont want it to come across as, Oh, I had no other choice, this is how hard my life is.

Advertising online, she makes about $200 an hour for sex work. She sees clients only a handful of times during the semester, and more often during the summer, when classes end and she receives no income.

Im terrified that a student is going to come walking in, she said. And the financial concerns have not ceased. I constantly have tension in my neck from gritting my teeth all night.

To keep their homes, some adjuncts are forced to compromise on their living space.

Caprice Lawless, 65, a teacher of English composition and a campaigner for better working conditions for adjuncts, resides in an 1100 sq ft brick house near Boulder, Colorado. She bought it following a divorce two decades ago. But because her $18,000 income from teaching almost full time is so meager, she has remortgaged the property several times, and has had to rent her home to three other female housemates.

I live paycheck to paycheck and Im deeply in debt, she said, including from car repairs and a hospitalization for food poisoning.

Like every other adjunct, she says, she opted for the role thinking it would be a path to full-time work. She is so dependent on her job to maintain her living situation that when her mother died this summer, she didnt take time off in part because she has no bereavement leave. She turned up for work at 8am the next day, taught in a blur and, despite the cane she has used since a hip replacement, fell over in the parking lot.

If she were to lose her home her only hope, she says, would be government-subsidized housing.

Most of my colleagues are unjustifiably ashamed, she said. They take this personally, as if theyve failed, and Im always telling them, you havent failed, the system has failed you.

A precarious situation

Even more desperate are those adjuncts in substandard living spaces who cannot afford to fix them. Mindy Percival, 61, a lecturer with a doctorate from Columbia, teaches history at a state college in Florida and, in her words, lives in a shack which is in the woods in middle of nowhere.

Lecturer Mindy Percivals mobile home in Stuart, Florida. Her oven, shower and water heater dont work. Photograph: Courtesy of Mindy Percival

The mobile home she inhabits, located in the town of Stuart, north of Miami, was donated to her about eight years ago. It looks tidyon the outside, but inside there are holes in the floor and the paneling is peeling off the walls. She has no washing machine, and the oven, shower and water heater dont work. Im on the verge of homelessness, constantly on the verge, she said.

Percival once had a tenure-track job but left to care for her elderly mother, not expecting it would be impossible to find a similar position. Now, two weeks after being paid, I might have a can with $5 in change in it. Her 18-year-old car broke down after Hurricane Irma, and she is driven to school by a former student, paying $20 a day for gas.

I am trying to get out so terribly hard, she said.

Homelessness is a genuine prospect for adjuncts. When Ellen Tara James-Penney finishes work, teaching English composition and critical thinking at San Jose State University in Silicon Valley, her husband, Jim, picks her up. They have dinner and drive to a local church, where Jim pitches a tent by the car and sleeps there with one of their rescue dogs. In the car, James-Penney puts the car seats down and sleeps with another dog. She grades papers using a headlamp.

Over the years, she said, they have developed a system. Keep nothing on the dash, nothing on the floor you cant look like youre homeless, you cant dress like youre homeless. Dont park anywhere too long so the cops dont stop you.

James-Penney, 54, has struggled with homelessness since 2007, when she began studying for her bachelors degree. Jim, 64, used to be a trucker but cannot work owing to a herniated disk. Ellen made $28,000 last year, a chunk of which goes to debt repayments. The remainder is not enough to afford Silicon Valley rent.

At night, instead of a toilet they must use cups or plastic bags and baby wipes. To get clean, they find restrooms and we have what we call the sink-shower, James-Penney said. The couple keep their belongings in the back of the car and a roof container. All the while they deal with the consequences of ageing James-Penney has osteoporosis in a space too small to even stand up.

James-Penney does not hide her situation from her class. If her students complain about the homeless people who can sometimes be seen on campus, she will say:Youre looking at someone who is homeless.

That generally stops any kind of sound in the room, she says. I tell them, your parents could very well be one paycheck away, one illness away, from homelessness, so it is not something to be ashamed of.

Ellen James-Penney teaching an English class at San Jose State University in California. She tells her students, youre looking at someone who is homeless. Photograph: Talia Herman for the Guardian

I hung on to the dream

Many adjuncts are seeking to change their lot by unionizing, and have done so at dozens of schools in recent years. They are notching successes; some have seen annual pay increases of about 5% to almost 20%, according to Julie Schmid, executive director of the American Association of University Professors.

Schools are often opposed to such efforts and say unions will result in higher costs for students. And for certain adjuncts, any gains will come too late.

Mary-Faith Cerasoli, 56, the homeless adjunct who captured the publics attention with her protest in New York three years ago, said that in the aftermath little changed in termsof her living situation. Two generous people, a retiree and then a nurse, offered her temporary accommodation, but she subsequently ended up in a tent pitched at a campground and, after that, a broken sailboat docked in the Hudson river.

But there was, however, one shift. All the moving around made it hard for her to make teaching commitments, and in any case the pay remained terrible, so she gave it up. She currently lives in a subsidized room in a shared house in a wealthy county north of New York.

For Rebecca Snow, 51, another adjunct who quit teaching after a succession of appalling living situations, there is a sense of having been freed, even though finances continue to be stressful.

Author Rebecca Snow, now retired from adjuncting, has moved to a small apartment just north of Spokane, Washington. Photograph: Rajah Bose for the Guardian

She began teaching English composition at a community college in the Denver area in 2005, but the poor conditions of the homes she could afford meant she had to move every year or two. She left one place because of bedbugs, another when raw sewage flowed into her bathtub and the landlord failed to properly fix the pipes.

Sometimes her teenage son would have to stay with her ex-husband when she couldnt provide a stable home. Snow even published a poem about adjuncts housing difficulties.

In the end she left the profession when the housing and job insecurity became too much, and her bills too daunting. Today she lives in a quiet apartment above the garage of a friends home, located 15 miles outside Spokane, Washington. She has a view of a lake and forested hills and, with one novel under her belt, is working on a second.

Teaching was the fantasy, she said, but life on the brink of homelessness was the reality.

I realized I hung on to the dream for too long.

Do you have an experience of homelessness to share with the Guardian? Get in touch

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Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

Adjunct professors in America face low pay and long hours without the security of full-time faculty. Some, on the brink of homelessness, take desperate measures

There is nothing she would rather do than teach. But after supplementing her career with tutoring and proofreading, the university lecturer decided to go to remarkable lengths to make her career financially viable.

She first opted for her side gig during a particularly rough patch, several years ago, when her course load was suddenly cut in half and her income plunged, putting her on the brink of eviction. In my mind I was like, Ive had one-night stands, how bad can it be? she said. And it wasnt that bad.

The wry but weary-sounding middle-aged woman, who lives in a large US city and asked to remain anonymous to protect her reputation, is an adjunct instructor, meaning she is not a full-time faculty member at any one institution and strings together a living by teaching individual courses, in her case at multiple colleges.

about

I feel committed to being the person whos there to help millennials, the next generation, go on to become critical thinkers, she said. And Im really good at it, and I really like it. And its heartbreaking to me it doesnt pay what I feel it should.

Sex work is one of the more unusual ways that adjuncts have avoided living in poverty, and perhaps even homelessness. A quarter of part-time college academics (many of whom are adjuncts, though its not uncommon for adjuncts to work 40 hours a week or more) are said to be enrolled in public assistance programs such as Medicaid.

They resort to food banks and Goodwill, and there is even an adjuncts cookbook that shows how to turn items like beef scraps, chicken bones and orange peel into meals. And then there are those who are either on the streets or teetering on the edge of losing stable housing. The Guardian has spoken to several such academics, including an adjunct living in a shack north of Miami, and another sleeping in her car in Silicon Valley.

The adjunct who turned to sex work makes several thousand dollars per course, and teaches about six per semester. She estimates that she puts in 60 hours a week. But she struggles to make ends meet after paying $1,500 in monthly rent and with student loans that, including interest, amount to a few hundred thousand dollars. Her income from teaching comes to $40,000 a year. Thats significantly more than most adjuncts: a 2014 survey found that the median income for adjuncts is only $22,041 a year, whereas for full-time faculty it is $47,500.

We take a kind of vow of poverty

Recent reports have revealed the extent of poverty among professors, but the issue is longstanding. Several years ago, it was thrust into the headlines in dramatic fashion when Mary-Faith Cerasoli, an adjunct professor of Romance languages in her 50s, revealed she was homeless and protested outside the New York state education department.

We take a kind of vow of poverty to continue practicing our profession, Debra Leigh Scott, who is working on a documentary about adjuncts, said in an email. We do it because we are dedicated to scholarship, to learning, to our students and to our disciplines.

Adjuncting has grown as funding for public universities has fallen by more than a quarterbetween 1990 and 2009. Private institutions also recognize the allure of part-time professors: generally they are cheaper than full-time staff, dont receive benefits or support for their personal research, and their hours can be carefully limited so they do not teach enough to qualify for health insurance.

This is why adjuncts have been called the fast-food workers of the academic world: among labor experts adjuncting is defined as precarious employment, a growing category that includes temping and sharing-economy gigs such as driving for Uber. An American Sociological Association taskforce focusing on precarious academic jobs, meanwhile, has suggested that faculty employment is no longer a stable middle-class career.

Adjunct English professor Ellen James-Penney and her husband live in a car with their two dogs. They have developed a system. Keep nothing on the dash, nothing on the floor you cant look like youre homeless, you cant dress like youre homeless. Photograph: Talia Herman for the Guardian

The struggle to stay in housing can take many forms, and a second job is one way adjuncts seek to buoy their finances. The professor who turned to sex work said it helps her keep her toehold in the rental market.

This is something I chose to do, she said, adding that for her it is preferable to, say, a six-hour shift at a bar after teaching all day. I dont want it to come across as, Oh, I had no other choice, this is how hard my life is.

Advertising online, she makes about $200 an hour for sex work. She sees clients only a handful of times during the semester, and more often during the summer, when classes end and she receives no income.

Im terrified that a student is going to come walking in, she said. And the financial concerns have not ceased. I constantly have tension in my neck from gritting my teeth all night.

To keep their homes, some adjuncts are forced to compromise on their living space.

Caprice Lawless, 65, a teacher of English composition and a campaigner for better working conditions for adjuncts, resides in an 1100 sq ft brick house near Boulder, Colorado. She bought it following a divorce two decades ago. But because her $18,000 income from teaching almost full time is so meager, she has remortgaged the property several times, and has had to rent her home to three other female housemates.

I live paycheck to paycheck and Im deeply in debt, she said, including from car repairs and a hospitalization for food poisoning.

Like every other adjunct, she says, she opted for the role thinking it would be a path to full-time work. She is so dependent on her job to maintain her living situation that when her mother died this summer, she didnt take time off in part because she has no bereavement leave. She turned up for work at 8am the next day, taught in a blur and, despite the cane she has used since a hip replacement, fell over in the parking lot.

If she were to lose her home her only hope, she says, would be government-subsidized housing.

Most of my colleagues are unjustifiably ashamed, she said. They take this personally, as if theyve failed, and Im always telling them, you havent failed, the system has failed you.

A precarious situation

Even more desperate are those adjuncts in substandard living spaces who cannot afford to fix them. Mindy Percival, 61, a lecturer with a doctorate from Columbia, teaches history at a state college in Florida and, in her words, lives in a shack which is in the woods in middle of nowhere.

Lecturer Mindy Percivals mobile home in Stuart, Florida. Her oven, shower and water heater dont work. Photograph: Courtesy of Mindy Percival

The mobile home she inhabits, located in the town of Stuart, north of Miami, was donated to her about eight years ago. It looks tidyon the outside, but inside there are holes in the floor and the paneling is peeling off the walls. She has no washing machine, and the oven, shower and water heater dont work. Im on the verge of homelessness, constantly on the verge, she said.

Percival once had a tenure-track job but left to care for her elderly mother, not expecting it would be impossible to find a similar position. Now, two weeks after being paid, I might have a can with $5 in change in it. Her 18-year-old car broke down after Hurricane Irma, and she is driven to school by a former student, paying $20 a day for gas.

I am trying to get out so terribly hard, she said.

Homelessness is a genuine prospect for adjuncts. When Ellen Tara James-Penney finishes work, teaching English composition and critical thinking at San Jose State University in Silicon Valley, her husband, Jim, picks her up. They have dinner and drive to a local church, where Jim pitches a tent by the car and sleeps there with one of their rescue dogs. In the car, James-Penney puts the car seats down and sleeps with another dog. She grades papers using a headlamp.

Over the years, she said, they have developed a system. Keep nothing on the dash, nothing on the floor you cant look like youre homeless, you cant dress like youre homeless. Dont park anywhere too long so the cops dont stop you.

James-Penney, 54, has struggled with homelessness since 2007, when she began studying for her bachelors degree. Jim, 64, used to be a trucker but cannot work owing to a herniated disk. Ellen made $28,000 last year, a chunk of which goes to debt repayments. The remainder is not enough to afford Silicon Valley rent.

At night, instead of a toilet they must use cups or plastic bags and baby wipes. To get clean, they find restrooms and we have what we call the sink-shower, James-Penney said. The couple keep their belongings in the back of the car and a roof container. All the while they deal with the consequences of ageing James-Penney has osteoporosis in a space too small to even stand up.

James-Penney does not hide her situation from her class. If her students complain about the homeless people who can sometimes be seen on campus, she will say:Youre looking at someone who is homeless.

That generally stops any kind of sound in the room, she says. I tell them, your parents could very well be one paycheck away, one illness away, from homelessness, so it is not something to be ashamed of.

Ellen James-Penney teaching an English class at San Jose State University in California. She tells her students, youre looking at someone who is homeless. Photograph: Talia Herman for the Guardian

I hung on to the dream

Many adjuncts are seeking to change their lot by unionizing, and have done so at dozens of schools in recent years. They are notching successes; some have seen annual pay increases of about 5% to almost 20%, according to Julie Schmid, executive director of the American Association of University Professors.

Schools are often opposed to such efforts and say unions will result in higher costs for students. And for certain adjuncts, any gains will come too late.

Mary-Faith Cerasoli, 56, the homeless adjunct who captured the publics attention with her protest in New York three years ago, said that in the aftermath little changed in termsof her living situation. Two generous people, a retiree and then a nurse, offered her temporary accommodation, but she subsequently ended up in a tent pitched at a campground and, after that, a broken sailboat docked in the Hudson river.

But there was, however, one shift. All the moving around made it hard for her to make teaching commitments, and in any case the pay remained terrible, so she gave it up. She currently lives in a subsidized room in a shared house in a wealthy county north of New York.

For Rebecca Snow, 51, another adjunct who quit teaching after a succession of appalling living situations, there is a sense of having been freed, even though finances continue to be stressful.

Author Rebecca Snow, now retired from adjuncting, has moved to a small apartment just north of Spokane, Washington. Photograph: Rajah Bose for the Guardian

She began teaching English composition at a community college in the Denver area in 2005, but the poor conditions of the homes she could afford meant she had to move every year or two. She left one place because of bedbugs, another when raw sewage flowed into her bathtub and the landlord failed to properly fix the pipes.

Sometimes her teenage son would have to stay with her ex-husband when she couldnt provide a stable home. Snow even published a poem about adjuncts housing difficulties.

In the end she left the profession when the housing and job insecurity became too much, and her bills too daunting. Today she lives in a quiet apartment above the garage of a friends home, located 15 miles outside Spokane, Washington. She has a view of a lake and forested hills and, with one novel under her belt, is working on a second.

Teaching was the fantasy, she said, but life on the brink of homelessness was the reality.

I realized I hung on to the dream for too long.

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