Brownie's interview seems to have gone well. The only sucktastic thing about it was that it was being held in the ballroom. In order to walk into the ballroom, he had to register for the conference. $65 that we really don't have after Christmas (plus $27 for parking and $5.50 for tolls), he was able to sit down at a table for an hour and interview. Nearly $100 to interview. Thanks, MLA.
I'm momentarily feeling pretty good, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that I've actually remembered for the past few days to take my Vitamin D supplement. If I'm just feeling good, then fantastic. If it's the Vitamin D helping, also fantastic. I have to remember to take it out to KS with me just in case that's what it is and I'm not just spontaneously feeling alright with the world. All of the thoughts that were weighing me down in the last post are still there, but I feel at least right now like it's manageable and that something will work out eventually.
Brownie and I are heading out to visit my parents tomorrow for a couple of weeks of decompression time before all hell breaks loose for the final semester of grad school. Going home is always weird. I love it and I have a blast with my family and I adore the friends I have out there. It's just that I have many more friends out there than I do where I am now, and all of those friends want to hang out, and I want to hang out with them, so I end up with an insanely packed social schedule that leaves me drained and moody and not wanting to go out at all (see: I'm an introvert) even as I feel pressured to because x or y night is the only night that I'll be able to see persons Q and V until next summer etc etc. And I feel guilty if I can't fit someone in, which adds to the moody. So the goal for this trip is to avoid the guilty and tired feelings by not overcommitting myself, but as I didn't manage to avoid it last year when I was out there for three weeks, I'm not sure I have much hope of being able to avoid it now when I'm only out there for two.
New Year's Resolution is quite simply to be awesome. I'd love to say something about "I'm going to blog more" or "I'm going to write more" or "I'm going to finish the fucking dissertation if it kills me" but resolutions like that never seem to stick and just add to the perpetual pile of guilty "there's something I should be doing now that I'm not because I'm doing x instead" feeling that's become so entrenched during grad school that I literally no longer can imagine the inside of my mind without it. It is a feeling I'm working on ridding myself of.
My cat is next to me on the couch and snoring. I am ded of cute.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
the (*&^%!#@ing academic job search and life in general
So after much durm and strang and gnashing of teeth and application after application after application sent out, Brownie finally has an interview for a nine-month renewable assistant professorship at Small College in nearby, state next door. In a town he'd never heard of, no less, despite having grown up roughly 20 minutes from the apartment I'm currently sitting in. The only thing we know about the town other than that Small College is located there is that Favorite Bartender apparently grew up one town over and was fully ready to recommend the town as a fantastic place to live because it meant we'd still be close enough to come visit during our drinking times. Beyond that, I'm refusing steadfastly to bother doing any research about the town unless he gets a campus visit because I'm tired of looking at towns and going "ooo, that'd be neat, and that'd be awesomesauce" only to see the rejection letter come floating in via carrier pigeon a few days later. I'm tired of feeling hopeful only to be crushed again.
The worst version of the hope/crush feeling happened today, when I woke up to an email from my MOTHER of all people with a job listing for the community college out by them. I would kill to move back there - not to live even all that close to my parents, per se, but to live around the Kansas City area again and to enjoy the insanity that the Midwest refers to as "weather." (Nothing says "Fantastic Drinking Entertainment" like watching helicopters swarm around tornado-producing thunderstorms!) Anyway, so I got way too excited about the job posting and sent it to Brownie, who promised to apply and who then went straight back to prepping for the job interview tomorrow (which, well, obviously that would be the priority). I come to find out later (as I'm dreaming of starting a KC-centric beer blog) that while he's still planning on applying, it's without much of a hope of actually landing the job since they're asking for someone with different specialties than he has. He's still applying, but it's probably going to end up being a waste of time. And so my first (and thus far only) chance of living in any of the cities I'd actually want to move to has 95% poofed away into thin air yet again. The only reason I like the idea of Brownie getting the job at Small College is because it provides a paycheck and a place from which to launch yet another grueling awful job search. I don't understand anymore why anyone wants to go into academics, because the way the field treats its workers is beyond appalling.
Meanwhile, his landing of an interview has made me sit back and try and figure out what the hell I want to do with my life since I'll be telling academics to suck it once the dissertation is done (which I should, uh, probably do something about but whatever). I've come to a few realizations:
- I haven't the foggiest fucking clue what I want to be when I grow up
- I do know that I don't want to be an overacheiver anymore, since that hasn't exactly panned out so well for me
- I'm not sure I've done anything of note this entire year except continue on in my existence and be the good, calming, caring wife for my stressed-out, job-seeking husband
- I don't particularly want to be a productive member of society, but I also don't see that as optional
- I hate that general upsetness/disillusionment/disappointment with my career choices thus far radically outweigh everything in my life that's good when I go about taking inventory of my life, but I've yet to figure out how to stop that line of thinking
- I wonder if I'll ever come up with something to do with myself that doesn't make me feel like the last five years of grad school were a complete and total waste (I don't feel that the MA was just for sheer critical thinking/research skills, but I do feel like the Ph.D. has been)
And so all this shit just circles around in my head and I get stuck and spend a lot of time on the forum or crocheting or playing MarioKart or cooking or whatever because I'm lost on trying to find answers. In accordance with the wide world of astrology, I'm mid-Saturn Return right now, which I bring up only because that does feel roughly like my life right now - everything I've held onto as a way to define myself up until now (read: overachiever, student) has disintegrated around me and I'm left standing here thinking "so that's nice and all, but the fuck do I do now?" I typically tell myself that this is in some way good because this opens up new ways for me to define myself or time to focus on areas of my life that I'd generally left unexamined before and all that rot and all of that is good but I still spend far too much time thinking "well, shit" and then finding a beer. Some sense of rebuilding would be nice - even just a glimmer of an idea of a way to begin figuring out how to rebuild would be nice at this point.
Mostly I really hate that every time someone asks me about my life, I'm prone to telling them about Brownie's life rather than my own because there's so much more going on in his. I won't tell more than a handful of people IRL (and the entire fucking internet, apparently) how I'm actually feeling - the last time I told Brownie how I was actually feeling he said "damn, that was a lot to dump on me" before realizing that he sounded like an ass, apologizing, and then admitting he didn't have a clue what to say and giving me a hug. I'm sure the reaction from anyone else would be at least as charming. DNW.
I sort of suspect I'm probably drinking a bit too much lately, but that's neither here nor there and anyway it's the holidaze. Seriously, though, Sunday's been the only alcohol-free night in a week. The holidays have been really lovely. (Er, one huge screaming fit at my father-in-law aside wherein he had no clue the rage he'd produce in me by saying that it was Rihanna's fault that Chris Brown beat her, but everything else really has been great.) I think I've put on five pounds from all the eating - it's way too cold to go outside and run so I'm at the mercy of my brother's WiiFit once we get to KC on Thursday. Here's to going home for a couple of weeks to attempt to decompress...
The worst version of the hope/crush feeling happened today, when I woke up to an email from my MOTHER of all people with a job listing for the community college out by them. I would kill to move back there - not to live even all that close to my parents, per se, but to live around the Kansas City area again and to enjoy the insanity that the Midwest refers to as "weather." (Nothing says "Fantastic Drinking Entertainment" like watching helicopters swarm around tornado-producing thunderstorms!) Anyway, so I got way too excited about the job posting and sent it to Brownie, who promised to apply and who then went straight back to prepping for the job interview tomorrow (which, well, obviously that would be the priority). I come to find out later (as I'm dreaming of starting a KC-centric beer blog) that while he's still planning on applying, it's without much of a hope of actually landing the job since they're asking for someone with different specialties than he has. He's still applying, but it's probably going to end up being a waste of time. And so my first (and thus far only) chance of living in any of the cities I'd actually want to move to has 95% poofed away into thin air yet again. The only reason I like the idea of Brownie getting the job at Small College is because it provides a paycheck and a place from which to launch yet another grueling awful job search. I don't understand anymore why anyone wants to go into academics, because the way the field treats its workers is beyond appalling.
Meanwhile, his landing of an interview has made me sit back and try and figure out what the hell I want to do with my life since I'll be telling academics to suck it once the dissertation is done (which I should, uh, probably do something about but whatever). I've come to a few realizations:
- I haven't the foggiest fucking clue what I want to be when I grow up
- I do know that I don't want to be an overacheiver anymore, since that hasn't exactly panned out so well for me
- I'm not sure I've done anything of note this entire year except continue on in my existence and be the good, calming, caring wife for my stressed-out, job-seeking husband
- I don't particularly want to be a productive member of society, but I also don't see that as optional
- I hate that general upsetness/disillusionment/disappointment with my career choices thus far radically outweigh everything in my life that's good when I go about taking inventory of my life, but I've yet to figure out how to stop that line of thinking
- I wonder if I'll ever come up with something to do with myself that doesn't make me feel like the last five years of grad school were a complete and total waste (I don't feel that the MA was just for sheer critical thinking/research skills, but I do feel like the Ph.D. has been)
And so all this shit just circles around in my head and I get stuck and spend a lot of time on the forum or crocheting or playing MarioKart or cooking or whatever because I'm lost on trying to find answers. In accordance with the wide world of astrology, I'm mid-Saturn Return right now, which I bring up only because that does feel roughly like my life right now - everything I've held onto as a way to define myself up until now (read: overachiever, student) has disintegrated around me and I'm left standing here thinking "so that's nice and all, but the fuck do I do now?" I typically tell myself that this is in some way good because this opens up new ways for me to define myself or time to focus on areas of my life that I'd generally left unexamined before and all that rot and all of that is good but I still spend far too much time thinking "well, shit" and then finding a beer. Some sense of rebuilding would be nice - even just a glimmer of an idea of a way to begin figuring out how to rebuild would be nice at this point.
Mostly I really hate that every time someone asks me about my life, I'm prone to telling them about Brownie's life rather than my own because there's so much more going on in his. I won't tell more than a handful of people IRL (and the entire fucking internet, apparently) how I'm actually feeling - the last time I told Brownie how I was actually feeling he said "damn, that was a lot to dump on me" before realizing that he sounded like an ass, apologizing, and then admitting he didn't have a clue what to say and giving me a hug. I'm sure the reaction from anyone else would be at least as charming. DNW.
I sort of suspect I'm probably drinking a bit too much lately, but that's neither here nor there and anyway it's the holidaze. Seriously, though, Sunday's been the only alcohol-free night in a week. The holidays have been really lovely. (Er, one huge screaming fit at my father-in-law aside wherein he had no clue the rage he'd produce in me by saying that it was Rihanna's fault that Chris Brown beat her, but everything else really has been great.) I think I've put on five pounds from all the eating - it's way too cold to go outside and run so I'm at the mercy of my brother's WiiFit once we get to KC on Thursday. Here's to going home for a couple of weeks to attempt to decompress...
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Some random thoughts
I went with Brownie and his parents to see 'Invictus' this afternoon. It was okay. I wasn't hugely impressed. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great. I'm mostly glad I wasn't the one funding the tickets. I think my next film will be 'the Lovely Bones.' I hope it's better.
I read what's written so far of the last third of the novel last night. It wasn't as bad as I feared. It's not quite to the standard of being willing to show other people, but I didn't think it reeked of pointless sentimentality either, so that's a bonus. Part of my goal with the novel is to deal with some extremely emotional situations - i.e., situations that have to be dealt with emotionally because the logical counterpoint isn't/can't be there - without making them seem mawkish or insulin-inducing. However, at the moment my MC is in the middle of making out with her romantic interest, and it's still going to be a while before I allow them into a real relationship, so I'm going to have to break that up and I feel sorta bad about it.
Two passionfruit martinis do not make for easy typing. I've corrected roughly every fourth word I've typed. I might be better off getting off the internet and hitting the yarn/crochet hook for the evening.
Job things for Brownie aren't going well. I had a daydream that I sold my novel for way more money than anyone could possibly expect and managed to keep us afloat (and my bpal habit going strong) for a year until he got a job, but that, like I said, is pretty clearly a daydream. I think one of the things that seems hardest about the possibility of being a writer is not knowing exactly when the next paycheck will come. Like you could sell a book, get a huge paycheck, know you could live off of it for a while and all that and yet still be insecure because really, where does the next one come from? Will it be soon? How much will it be? How can one budget?
I read what's written so far of the last third of the novel last night. It wasn't as bad as I feared. It's not quite to the standard of being willing to show other people, but I didn't think it reeked of pointless sentimentality either, so that's a bonus. Part of my goal with the novel is to deal with some extremely emotional situations - i.e., situations that have to be dealt with emotionally because the logical counterpoint isn't/can't be there - without making them seem mawkish or insulin-inducing. However, at the moment my MC is in the middle of making out with her romantic interest, and it's still going to be a while before I allow them into a real relationship, so I'm going to have to break that up and I feel sorta bad about it.
Two passionfruit martinis do not make for easy typing. I've corrected roughly every fourth word I've typed. I might be better off getting off the internet and hitting the yarn/crochet hook for the evening.
Job things for Brownie aren't going well. I had a daydream that I sold my novel for way more money than anyone could possibly expect and managed to keep us afloat (and my bpal habit going strong) for a year until he got a job, but that, like I said, is pretty clearly a daydream. I think one of the things that seems hardest about the possibility of being a writer is not knowing exactly when the next paycheck will come. Like you could sell a book, get a huge paycheck, know you could live off of it for a while and all that and yet still be insecure because really, where does the next one come from? Will it be soon? How much will it be? How can one budget?
Thursday, December 10, 2009
After a morning of facebook stalking
The facebook privacy changes have been fun. I've gotten to see much of the profiles of various mythical figures which has been all kinds of good fun. Probably a little creepy, but definitely good fun. I'm a bad person. However, I've also found some fantastic bad poetry, figured out that one guy is creepier and weirder than my wildest imaginings, that a friend has a crush on a damn hot guy and so on, so it's been fun.
I'm also up to three students friend requesting me on facebook, which is some kind of record for me. All three were awesome, so I've actually accepted them.
Beyond that, the semester got me into some really bad food habits - I got up at 10:30, had coffee, and after playing around have realized that it's almost 2 and that I haven't actually eaten anything. It's been like this most of the semester. I've been getting up, having coffee, and then mentally pretending that the coffee (which I take black) is food until some point after normal people have eaten lunch, when I realize that I'm starving. And then I have a huge dinner and don't eat again until the next day. So I'm eating what amounts to probably three meals worth of food, just lumped together twice and mostly at dinner. And I wonder why (stress aside) my stomach has been so ripped apart painful ouch lately. I've got to cut this shit out and start eating on a more normal schedule again. It'll help me feel better when I exercise too.
Bad news on the academicjobsearchfront - the one school that had so far requested more info from Brownie apparently called everyone yesterday to set up MLA interviews and he didn't get a call. So that's out. That was also the only one in an honest-to-god city, so we're off to podunks now. I'm hating this, but more I'm hating what it's doing to Brownie - he's having a hard time not taking all the rejection personally (which is understandable even if it is a bad thing to do) and I just want to give him a really big hug, but really big hugs don't help anything (I'm doing it anyway). I'm scared to fucking death neither one of us will have a job come June first and won't know where our next paychecks are coming from. The current paychecks are already too small to be able to save anything as it is.
The noveling is going relatively well. I've got one conversation that I've already re-written twice to try and get it closer to right - I know I'll have to revise it again later, but it has to end in the right place and have gone in the right directions or it'll screw a bunch of things up. But I'm still plugging away (often til 3am or so), and really am enjoying it. I'm hoping I can have near a draft ready by Christmas so I can take some time away to do the dissertation and then return to it and see if I can make it shiny.
Now to eat before I hose my blood sugar levels or something.
I'm also up to three students friend requesting me on facebook, which is some kind of record for me. All three were awesome, so I've actually accepted them.
Beyond that, the semester got me into some really bad food habits - I got up at 10:30, had coffee, and after playing around have realized that it's almost 2 and that I haven't actually eaten anything. It's been like this most of the semester. I've been getting up, having coffee, and then mentally pretending that the coffee (which I take black) is food until some point after normal people have eaten lunch, when I realize that I'm starving. And then I have a huge dinner and don't eat again until the next day. So I'm eating what amounts to probably three meals worth of food, just lumped together twice and mostly at dinner. And I wonder why (stress aside) my stomach has been so ripped apart painful ouch lately. I've got to cut this shit out and start eating on a more normal schedule again. It'll help me feel better when I exercise too.
Bad news on the academicjobsearchfront - the one school that had so far requested more info from Brownie apparently called everyone yesterday to set up MLA interviews and he didn't get a call. So that's out. That was also the only one in an honest-to-god city, so we're off to podunks now. I'm hating this, but more I'm hating what it's doing to Brownie - he's having a hard time not taking all the rejection personally (which is understandable even if it is a bad thing to do) and I just want to give him a really big hug, but really big hugs don't help anything (I'm doing it anyway). I'm scared to fucking death neither one of us will have a job come June first and won't know where our next paychecks are coming from. The current paychecks are already too small to be able to save anything as it is.
The noveling is going relatively well. I've got one conversation that I've already re-written twice to try and get it closer to right - I know I'll have to revise it again later, but it has to end in the right place and have gone in the right directions or it'll screw a bunch of things up. But I'm still plugging away (often til 3am or so), and really am enjoying it. I'm hoping I can have near a draft ready by Christmas so I can take some time away to do the dissertation and then return to it and see if I can make it shiny.
Now to eat before I hose my blood sugar levels or something.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
RRRRRRRRRRRR
So the AP is reporting that the 10 Senators tasked by Harry Reid to put together some sort of compromise have killed the public option. Then Reid semi-contradicted it, and as of now it's completely unclear as to what the hell is going on. The best I could tell from admittedly incomplete information is that it seems like they're cutting the public option in favor of extending Medicare down to the age of 55, which is fantastic and all that for anyone who's reached that age but does fuck all for anyone who isn't that old yet.
And so, again, just as with the Stupak amendment, I'm left feeling like voting for Democrats by and large means being thrown under a bus by the people who claim to be representing my interests. And I'm again reminded why I'm registered Independent, and why one of my two favorite Senators is Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (the other one is Al Franken). And why the only two Democrats I don't regret having voted for are the governor of the state I live in (because that governor is fairly genuinely progressive) and Obama (who I'm not thrilled with, but who at least hasn't made me regret the vote).
So I'm trying to temper my general feeling that the ten Senators involved in the compromise (along with the Blue Dog Democrats, most Republicans, all Tea Partiers, the insurance companies and Wall Street in general) can FOADIAF and am hoping that, once the dust settles at some point and we know what the hell actually is in the health care bill, it won't be as bad as it sounds right now. But I have very little hope for that, and I hate it.
I want to move to Canada. Or Norway. Or any other country that genuinely respects human life.
Back to your regularly scheduled thoughts later.
And so, again, just as with the Stupak amendment, I'm left feeling like voting for Democrats by and large means being thrown under a bus by the people who claim to be representing my interests. And I'm again reminded why I'm registered Independent, and why one of my two favorite Senators is Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (the other one is Al Franken). And why the only two Democrats I don't regret having voted for are the governor of the state I live in (because that governor is fairly genuinely progressive) and Obama (who I'm not thrilled with, but who at least hasn't made me regret the vote).
So I'm trying to temper my general feeling that the ten Senators involved in the compromise (along with the Blue Dog Democrats, most Republicans, all Tea Partiers, the insurance companies and Wall Street in general) can FOADIAF and am hoping that, once the dust settles at some point and we know what the hell actually is in the health care bill, it won't be as bad as it sounds right now. But I have very little hope for that, and I hate it.
I want to move to Canada. Or Norway. Or any other country that genuinely respects human life.
Back to your regularly scheduled thoughts later.
Friday, December 4, 2009
In which I post for the sake of posting
I just realized it's already December 4th and I haven't posted in this thing once so far this month. So I am posting now, with no idea what to write about.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY H0RS!! :)
We're forecast to get snow tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers. I'm usually well into my "SNOW DAMMIT NOW NOW NOW" phase by now, but I sort of missed November - as in, I still keep trying to write October on things and have yet to come to terms with the fact that it's already (as mentioned) December 4th. In missing November - mostly from NaNo but also from the warm temperatures (my region just had the warmed November on record) - I didn't get going on the snow crazies quite as early. This is good. It would be awesome to get some snow before I really started looking for it. It honestly looks like it could snow right now - the sky has that flat light gray that tends to happen right before the flakes start falling, but it's still about 10 degrees too warm.
And lo, it will be beer o'clock shortly, I've yet to even begin my final pile of grading for the semester, I need to clean the litter box and I've yet to have the beginnings of a clue as to what would make an interesting blog post for right now. So I'll give this up for the moment and hope to be interesting later. Or tomorrow. Or maybe I'll shove my nose back in my NaNo project - I figured out that the reason one of the scenes felt stilted is because at least one of the characters is not at all acting like herself and I need to fix that.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY H0RS!! :)
We're forecast to get snow tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers. I'm usually well into my "SNOW DAMMIT NOW NOW NOW" phase by now, but I sort of missed November - as in, I still keep trying to write October on things and have yet to come to terms with the fact that it's already (as mentioned) December 4th. In missing November - mostly from NaNo but also from the warm temperatures (my region just had the warmed November on record) - I didn't get going on the snow crazies quite as early. This is good. It would be awesome to get some snow before I really started looking for it. It honestly looks like it could snow right now - the sky has that flat light gray that tends to happen right before the flakes start falling, but it's still about 10 degrees too warm.
And lo, it will be beer o'clock shortly, I've yet to even begin my final pile of grading for the semester, I need to clean the litter box and I've yet to have the beginnings of a clue as to what would make an interesting blog post for right now. So I'll give this up for the moment and hope to be interesting later. Or tomorrow. Or maybe I'll shove my nose back in my NaNo project - I figured out that the reason one of the scenes felt stilted is because at least one of the characters is not at all acting like herself and I need to fix that.
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