Sunday, February 28, 2010

Lowered Expectations

Sigh.

While looking around for any sort of staff or office job openings in places I'd be willing to live, I'm also going through college and university web sites for any sort of admin type of position that might possibly look survivable. Development is out, because I would drop dead of a heart attack from the thought of cold-calling for money, and schmoozing warm contacts for money doesn't sound any easier. But, you know, anything that might recognize me as a candidate, or just even be familiar with the idea of someone who has advanced degrees on the resume, I'm thinking that they will be more likely to not toss my app immediately. So, you know, admissions, undergrad advisors, department manager or the MSO's staff --- secretaries, whatever.

I was going through this one university employment web page because I thought I had seen a posting for a staff position --- and I had. It was for coordinating a new interdisciplinary program. I don't know if they'd hire someone straight in at the supervisory level. Anyway, when I finally found it I saw they were hiring a lot of faculty in addition to the staff positions. Including one interdisciplinary position that pulls on my area of expertise, although they might want a different discipline name on the cv.

Sigh. Would it look weird if I applied for the faculty position and the secretarial one? It would look strange, wouldn't it. I'm putting in for just the secretary slot. And I don't want to hear about how I have even less chance at it than the slim chance for the faculty position.

:(

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Replacement Shopping

You know, I may have forgotten how to blog. Let's see if I can just type random things in here and see if I get my skills back.

I need new black boots. You'd think this makes me happy but it doesn't. I mean, new black boots? WTF!!! I have those! Why can't I spend my money on something entirely new and different that I don't already have? Like, um, purple boots! Or teal! Or neon orange wellies!

And when I was thinking this as I was assessing the damage to my boots (they've leaked water for a while, now there are some tears right along the tabs where I pull them on), I realized why I both like and hate shopping, and why it is so hard for me to get rid of stuff.

I have a terrible time dumping ruined or old clothing and then replacing it. It seems that this does nothing to satisfy my shopping urges, for "replacement" is almost like not buying anything, there's no newness, no fresh idea, no feeling of infinite possibility. This is why I have several coffee-stained khakis and haven't bothered to get new ones. I have khakis and I don't want to buy any more. Even though they are not really acceptable for teaching any more because I am a slob who spills things. Cleaning these "basics" out of my closet doesn't give me any feeling of accomplishment either, since I'm not really making any room if I'm just going to buy new ones. And nobody walks in and compliments you on nice clean khakis without stains the way they do when you walk in with some sort of new and different pant or skirt combo.

This explains why I have so many different colors of shoes in my closet right now, as I've been tempted, off and on lately, to buy shoes and I always get something totally unlike everything else in my closet. And this works for shoes since my clothes are pretty boring, so when my other "basic black" shoes got too beat up I got rid of them and didn't replace them. Unless you count the embroidered or the rainbow or the snakeprint shoes. But this tactic does not work for dress pants and it doesn't work for rainboots.

Of course, we've probably had our two rainstorms for the year already and I could hold off until next year. That's what I did last year, after all. Which led to me forgetting all about it, wearing the boots like normal all fall, and then being unpleasantly reminded of their new non-waterproof status during the big deluge. But the little tears are bad enough that I can't be seen in public with them any more --- it looks like they are flaking apart up by the cuff. Meh.

I need new fuzzy house slippers as well, as long as I'm complaining about things I don't want to bother replacing. See how long it takes me to get to those purchases.

And while we're on the subject of boots, I've been smitten by that knee-high-boot-over-skinny- jeans look. Mainly because it showcases the whole boot, unlike boots under pants. And I love the really warm brown leathers and simple gold hardware that are on a bunch of boots these days. But besides the fact that I just bought some new jeans (took a long time to get around to replacing the old ones of those, too) and they are rather flared instead of skinny, I worry that being short and, uh, plump, would not go well with the boot-jean look. I mean, I look really stumpy and wrong in those tiered broomstick skirts everyone was wearing a while back, and the same with maxi dresses. I am a squat little square not a rectangle, and the horizontal line of the boot tops would probably cut me up like skirt lines do. And I'm not really skinny legged to fit that skinny jean look either. This wouldn't resolve the black boot dilemma, anyway.

I wonder if all this resistance would go away if I had a job with a real paycheck. Maybe. I'm certainly interested in getting a new couch or new desk. Oh, that reminds me ---- there's a chair out by my recycling that I was tempted to exchange for my crappy desk chair. Both are crappy cheap office chairs from officemax, but mine has arms. Arms that are crumbling apart and have big chunks missing from either cat damage or slobby-me damage, depending on which square inch you are looking at. But even though those arms look terrible, I still like having arms on my chair, so I left the other one out by the recycling. And then it got rained on so the point is moot. Moot like a boot. Heh. See what I did there?

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Ulcers! Awesome.

I still need to undergo more tests to discover to what extent my anguish is mental vs. immunological or gastrointestinal (to say nothing of existential), but I am back to eating some things. Just crying all over a doctor and having a massive breakdown over the whole situation did wonders. It's amazing how much I wanted an authority figure to tell me that X was wrong and Y was definitely right and give me some rules to follow unthinkingly.

In other news, I was surprised by a couple writing-sample requests for some VAP-y things, and I sent them my articles. ... Meh. You'd be amazed how meaningless all that stuff seems to you when you are obsessed with being unable to breathe.

And just to continue my position as the poster child for why you should not go to graduate school, let me remind all those prospective grad students that we've been here, metaphorically, before.