I got my current teaching position by essentially volunteer-professoring while doing some grad work. Super exploitative on paper, though that wasn’t the intention of anyone involved (tiny college hated by the conservatives so they kinda had to wing it every time legislative fuckery happened). But it’s rough, I don’t make enough to pay my (incredibly cheap) mortgage so I’m in the awkward position of having been financially unemployed for a year while still working full time. Not to sound too whiny but man, the culture of “Guess I’ll starve because I just love my students so much” is absurdly toxic. And that’s coming from someone firmly part of that culture.

Among other things.

The gourd is used traditionally to administer enemas. Along the upper Congo River an enema apparatus is made by making a hole in one end of the gourd for filling it, and using a resin to attach a hollow cane to the gourd’s neck.[52]

which sounds… splintery…