Fork in the road

Ok, ok, maybe not a road; it's a table.

I finally got up the urge to download and read my rental extension agreement and learned that, if I plan to move, I need to give my notice very soon. Almost now.

But when I most recently talked with my family, surprisingly, they were very unsympathetic with my idea that I move back and try for some "random" sort of nonacademic job and were very very worried about me trying to apply for jobs unemployed. They must believe the "it's easier to get a job when you have a job" mantra. Also, they are very unsympathetic to the cats. As people with severe allergies who have never had pets, they just don't get why I refuse to surrender my cats to a friend or a shelter, or just dump them on the side of the road and leave them (thanks dad!). I hasten to add that this is a completely unacceptable option for me and it is only at 3 am when the cats start wrestling each other on top of my slumbering head that I fantasize about leaving them on the side of the road somewhere. Taxidermy, I will also point out, is not an option. (dad again.)

Now, if I actually land this permanent job I interviewed for (and I think I did well, but who knows how one actually did?), everything would work out very simply --- as simply as moving cats and all my stuff across the country can be --- I give notice, pack everything up, move to a new apartment in a new town somewhere way over that way.   

But if I stick around here, (the other fork in the road?) I would like to move anyway. Here's where everything gets confused.

Local Kid Makes Good, one of the postdocs who I really like and who is a wonderful person, found a very nice apartment after she moved out of the slumlord place that refused to pay when she had the pipes break and back up raw sewage into her kitchen. Anyway, that's another story. Point is, her place is just as nice as mine, has slightly more square footage, and is about 50 bucks cheaper, and has an opening right now. Actually, they are raising my rent when I re-sign and demanding that I provide proof of renter's insurance, so it is 75 bucks cheaper plus the renter's ins.

Our evil plan was to get all of the postdocs who still hang out together into the same apartment complex and be able to just walk over and socialize. So I emailed the apt. ad to the Kickass Sparkly Postdoc and told hir to jump on it. Maybe I would get this job back home, maybe another apt. would open up in this place and I would join them later. Except.

Argh! Kickass Sparkly Postdoc is already renting from the same rental company, and they won't allow the move! Actually, they will, but they will keep all the rental deposit, consider it breaking the lease, charge a lease-breaking fee, and demand a new deposit for the new place. Fuck 'em. That means K.S.P. can't move until the end of August, I think. But I could move soon, except I might get a job offer, and what about the knife? I know it's not part of the fork, but there are all those other job apps I sent out that haven't contacted me yet, but could, right?

This is why I am shitty at planning stuff. Ooh, squirrel!

We haven't even talked about the original plan, which was to move back home and look for some sort of office job --- we drove by Evernote on the way to my sister's work! How cool would it be to work there? --- except if family isn't providing me with a cheap or free place to stay, this plan is not financially doable. And I don't think I could conduct a long-distance foot-in-the-door type job search; it takes a full day to fly cross country from here to there, so doing lots of informal informational interviews and the faster pace of nonacademic job searching means that I think I need to be right there and able to walk in and chat at a moment's notice.

I am so confused. Moving is definitely in the cards, but moving to exactly where I want to be is going to take considerable finagling.

...And I was rejected.

for the CA cc.  :(


I have one more interview and two more academic applications to send out ... and I have printed about 4 or 5 semic-academic-ish type jobs. I guess  I am going to start applying to them too?

Sigh. What am I going to do, people? What am I going to do?

This whole "move back into the basement" thing may become real and actual.

This is terrifying; I don't even know how to begin.


Sigh. *whimper*

What's up.

What is up? I actually have no clue.

No word back on the interview, which I had thought they said we'd hear back at the end of this week since my day was the last day of all ---- but then again, maybe they meant next week at the end of the week I'd hear back. Or maybe they are just behind on their schedule. No clue.

The semester is pretty much to bed, except for all those grade-complaint emails already in my inbox that I am ignoring. Now I have time to --- well, what the hell am I doing this summer? I still haven't figured out.

I need to prep for another interview trip. I signed up for Dame Eleanor's writing group and on Monday I am going to look at the R&R for Floyd. I'm going to ... start packing? I guess I can hold off at least until when I get back from the interview. But I promised that I would have an end date on the academic job search, and five years is definitely later than most people put in. The search committee looking for new postdocs got tons of applications this year for some reason, and 2010 was the oldest conferral date ... and they only shortlisted the newest of the newbies. If anybody's PhD is old and rusty and out of date, it is mine. I was saying how it was stupid of me to come back for a renewal year here, and it was, I didn't get anything out of it new or interesting professionally, so I know I need to be giving up and moving on.

I just didn't think ... it would actually have to happen, you know? This is not the way books end, in a pile of mush and unresolved drivel that doesn't actually go anywhere.

I'll need to sell most of my crappy furniture (sigh ... it's sad how I am attached to it) and probably my car, to make money to make it back to "home." My sister has cleaned out her spare room and I can crash there while looking for a new career, but she says absolutely no cats. I am not willing to sell or abandon or hand off my cats to anybody else so that will be a major sticking point. I might be able to get my niece to harbor that cats for me for a little while, at least.

I still haven't told my fellow postdocs about this yet. I just went out to dinner with one and he wanted to go home and work more on a book review instead of go out to the bar after dinner. It made me sad and like I should go home and be "working." But I don't plan on sticking around, what work could I be doing? The postdocs --- the ones left that I still talk to --- are scattering to various places to visit family and friends and do their research trips, so I might end up just sneaking out of here once I've made my plans. Alas. The department? For this amount of money, you are lucky to get two weeks' notice. Fuck you, you Right to Work State! You'll know I've quit when I don't show up to orientation. Bite me.

But what is up next? I really, really have no clue.

Can you keep a secret?

I just went out for a job interview. Thing is, I can't say anything about it because it is only an hour's drive from my parents', and if they were to know I did an interview *that close* and then didn't get it, they would keel over from a broken heart. If they hear that I was rejected yet again, this time somewhere close, it will be no biggie. But if they know I interviewed and then they have to wait on pins and needles for several weeks...? Way worse than just knowing I didn't get a job.

So I did the whole flying/driving all around/interviewing/freaking out/ going back to Postdoc City without telling anyone or announcing anything on my facebook page. The stress is killing me. And they are interviewing a shitton of people and there are like two more levels of interviewing before a job offer would come so this is still a really really long shot. (to say nothing of ... ick! possibly two more crosscountry flights for higher-level interviews? I don't even want to think about it.)

I really really want it, though. Sigh. I think I interviewed pretty well, but with those lockstep cc interview formats, who can tell? And how do they end up deciding when it gets down to 5 or 6 of the interviewees that they all really liked and who had good fits of CVs? If I only knew what separated the "getting an interview" from being "the" person and landing the job! That knowledge is worth zillions! I seem to be fairly competitive at this level of jobs, since I keep getting a few cc interviews every year... but how to "close"? (Eh, maybe I need brass balls? I'll go look on ebay.)



I also have *another* interview coming up, also at a cc, but this one is wayyyyy out there in BFE nowhere. I am hoping that this means it is a less desirable location ---- though it is a very beautiful location, particularly if you like outdoor recreation, and thus probably there is no advantage to the fact that it is remote. I will tell my family about this one, since they will be only regular-level happy  about it or even complaining that it is too far away. It is far enough away that I have already enlisted my sister in helping me figure out how to get there, and it is going to cost me quite a bit on top of a big fat expensive plane ticket. But all of that is worth it if it lands me a full-time job! Especially one in the same time zone as my family and theoretically visitable more frequently!

On the other hand, I say that every year, and every year I do about three of these plus a nice pricey MLA romp, and every year a full time job does not materialize. The "backlog" of "pricey but worth it" is piling up, for sure. If any grad students still exist in academe and are still reading my blog (and really, is anyone still reading my blog at all these days? Probably not.), if your advisors are giving you the "the job search is an expensive year but it will pay off!" please remember that you are very likely *not* looking at a single year of expensive job searching, just like your grad school life and its financial hardships are probably significantly better than the "gap years" you will have piecing together some work and probably moving around a lot until (or until if) you finally get a tenure-track job.

What advice do I have for grad students for how to deal with this job search knowledge? Absolutely none! You probably can't budget for multiple years of expensive job searching and poverty while a grad student any more than you can budget for one year! It is still, however, good knowledge to have, and maybe it will be good to think about when the temptation to splurge comes up. Or maybe you will know to start selling your plasma every few months even earlier in your grad school career, and put the cash aside for future expenses. I kid, I kid. Clearly part-time pot growing and sales is the superior sideline for cash-strapped grad students. You can skim a bit off the top for self-medicating all that anxiety.

In my final piece of secret news, I did an interview for a staff type academic job a while back but got rejected for it. Le sigh. It is the only staff job I applied for, I think ---- no, I threw in for a couple publishing jobs and they didn't even acknowledge my applications, but whatever ---- so maybe I should be more surprised that I got the phone interview than didn't get the job. I know less about how to pitch myself for those types of positions, but again, I would love to be a fly on the wall and know what puts a good candidate below *the* candidate? It could be fit, it could be connections/who you know --- or there could be something weak or offputting in my application or interview skills. Who knows? I wish I could get the inside info and some advice on how to interview better. On the other hand, just like with the cc jobs, I don't want to chuck it all and take a staff position just *anywhere,* and there haven't been many of those level of admin jobs popping up on the West Coast.

Ok then; I will soon have more time to post silly things and worry about my future career, as the semester is wrapping up soon here. Be prepared to see lots of whining! Whining and cat pictures. Perhaps cat pictures in the form of future-career quizzes, even! Ooh, I'll have to plan something fun around that theme...

Rain

I am a rainy creature. This morning the rain was coming down hard enough to sound like pebbles on the roof --- a soothing, relaxing sound that seduced me into staying in bed far longer than I should have. Inside the air was crisp and cool when I got out from under the blankets; outside everything was all a mist, the rain having subsided to almost nothing.

I love the way the tree trunks and branches turn shiny black with the rain, causing the new leaves to really pop against them in contrast --- not quite a spring green, but a soft yellow-green with a hint of the gray from the sky. The sky itself is rubbed out like an unfinished pastel drawing: a smudge, a word unspoken, emptied of time. When the mist is on the mountains it looks like they are on fire ---- smoky tendrils and tentacles wisping out from between trees almost fully clothed in green and yellow.

Out into the drizzle, I can't be bothered with hats or umbrellas or waterproof coats, a legacy of my long years in California, where, if it is raining, it won't be much longer, and if it is raining, it certainly wasn't when you left the house and had access to theoretical rain supplies. Fat, infrequent drops plaster my hair to my head, bead up on my sweater but do not soak it. I go into the grocery store.

The rain is cold, the air pleasantly chilly. I approve. For me, still, a dark gray sky means cold weather and hot rain is a strange, baffling impossibility. Today, all we are missing are sugar pines and redwoods for this to be California. The light is diffuse and strangely sourceless, as if we are surrounded by scrims and light reflectors instead of the flat harsh light that casts shadows and picks out foregrounds from backgrounds. Though there is no fog, nothing is distinct. Everything runs into each other except the stark wet black trunks of trees.

I want to sit in a tent and watch the fat drops swell and plummet from the tips of pine needles. I want to slip and scramble my way up a muddy trail to a smoky, gauzy view. I want to print my fingertips in the red and smell the iron tang of clayey wet earth. I want to eat mouthfuls of mist.

Instead, I should do this huge pile of grading.

When grading, wear something sparkly on your head. When thinking...

you'll need something like this.

(Has anybody found a fascinator or headband that has a lot of bobbly red pens or quill pens bouncing off the top? I think that is the most appropriate grading headgear. Unless you plan to bring the pain and discipline; then I would recommend a police officer cap. The more you can look like one of the Village People, the better.)

Dr. Seuss's hats of creativity

Ok, I meant to post this quite a while ago. Here, go look at this article about a traveling exhibition of Dr. Seuss's private hats. Not only were they private, he even had them behind a secret door! And he would bring them out at parties, which sounds pretty awesome.

(my kind of hat, over on the right)

I think the exhibit itself would be more compelling than the article, to tell the truth, as it's a bit thin and repetitive, but it did bring up the interesting point that Geisel and his collaborator/editor would pull out hats and put them on whenever they were stuck with writer's block.

"he and Frith would each pick a different hat, perhaps a fez, or a sombrero, or maybe an authentic Baroque Czech helmet or a plastic toy viking helmet with horns. They’d sit on the floor and stare at each other in these until the right words came to them."

I am hoping that the right words would come out in song and dance, or profound silliness. Still, I think that the idea of a writing hat, or perhaps even a closetful of them, is the perfect solution for academics who are struggling with their work. Ideally putting on the hat would give you the new perspective to break through an impasse in revising, or act as a literal "thinking cap" to help you discover what exactly is wrong with that wonky paragraph, or at the very least make you burst out into laughter and not take your problems so seriously --- and if you do not understand why that is so important, then you haven't been around enough academics!

Hmm, I wonder what the proper "job application writing hat" would be. Perhaps Viking horns? Or maybe the wide hat those South American gauchos wear, with the little dangly corks all around. I kinda like the idea of the bobbling as you bobble about for your interfolio login. Mm.

So now I turn it over to you: Writer's Block Hats/Hats of Creativity: yea or nay? Should they be allowed in the senior seminar or only at the graduate seminar level? Would there be penalties for having a fancier hat than your major professor? And most importantly, what would your ideal Writing Hat, the one that would be most helpful or perhaps the most emblematic of your writing process, be?

Or maybe that should be Writing Hats --- if Geisel could have a whole closet of creativity hats, I figure academics need at least a shelf of 'em.