Thr--- aw, dammit!

I was sure I was going to turn that one into a third campus visit.





Now back to waiting!

Two!

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One!

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My life as a blog

I am amusing myself reading my own archives over here. I feel so floaty and pointless --- did I feel like this last year, I wonder? Did I really sit around and do nothing for weeks on end? I know that the year before that I was chugging away at the dissertation and planning to file despite the beating I took at the job market.

So I have my "planner" to figure out what I did and my blog to figure out how I felt. Now, I make to-do lists. But to keep me honest, I use a planner --- not for planning but to note what I did that day. If I keep up with it, this works really well. I know when I did two hours of writing and I know when I spent an entire evening on the internet. And I put in all the things I've read and my various social engagements so that when I glance back through I can see what I accomplished and that I am not a total anti-social weirdo who fails at human interaction. I also make little notes about me, sometimes, like when I didn't work because I didn't sleep well or had cramps or whatnot.

It's not a diary but more of a work-tracker, so I don't explain much. Days I am sad or upset are usually blank or marked, at most, with a little :( It's surprising how some months that were tremendously productive for me will have a solid week of work hours and then maybe note a party, and then a big blank day with nothing but a :( I don't usually remember what prompted it --- you'd think surely that I would be happy and good-feeling about having worked so much. Maybe I got a lot of rejection emails that day or something.

That's why you'd think collating the planner record with the blog record would be informative. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The whole first three months of my 2009 planner are blank --- very unusual at this late stage in my recording habit. (I still regularly discover it's Friday and that I didn't put any notes in there and then do a sketchy halfassed job, entering in the teaching or whatnot that I am sure I was around for, but not leave it blank for weeks on end).


Looking at the blog I can see quite a lot of writing in all sorts of voices until here and here, and then after that I seem to have amused myself with the Magical Month of Academic Publishing Challenge. That may have cheered me up because I was keeping track of my time quite well last summer, and I was reading a lot too. I should make a post, or at least a list, of all the books I read last year. It would be pretty long. (I was going to say, "impressive," but actually I think that's pushing it.)

This spring I was much more consistent on the planner tracker, and I seem to have replaced novels with bad mindless movies. But a lot of those days include a :( or even a "sad. cried and cried." Was this spring more or less depressing for me than last spring? Does :( get weighed more or less than not being even able to open the planner? I can't tell.

The blog posts don't really clarify, either. If I'm complaining, I'm probably in a fairly good mood. When I'm really really upset, I clam up. Then I might post a little light something so that there's not complete silence on the blog for weeks. Then, sometimes I can cheer myself up with my own blog posts, particularly if they are so over-the-top whiny that they are ridiculous and thus make me laugh. So they are never a good indication of my mood.

Collating these documents, I'm struck by how much stuff I don't post to the blog, particularly if it might identify me, something that's gotten way worse as more people I know are on facebook and I try to not post the same type of info to both locations in a single day. Taking events at random from this and last spring, I haven't posted anything about knee surgery, coming in second in a search at a major university, being evacuated from my apartment because of a fire, having to go in to the ER and subsequently be treated for panic attacks, being a finalist for a prestigious postdoc, or having another debilitating bout of labyrinthitis. Wow, the last couple years have really kinda sucked for me, health-wise, haven't they?

I just realized I don't know where I'm going with this post.

Maybe I've come abruptly back around to the question of the future of this blog and what I want it to do. I did a lot of wrestling with the idea of stopping it or yanking it from the internet altogether this spring --- I keep expecting to see months and months of no posts from that time; evidently I posted even more than usual about off-topic random things while I was churning through that quandary.

I debated dropping my pseudonym, moving to a new blog, moving this blog somewhere else I could password-protect things, and wiping any trace of the whole thing from the internet. (I should note that these options were connected with incredibly violent and angry mood swings in all directions.) All of those things are still on the table, I guess, because I might get a job offer and what will I do with something crazy like a blog if I were a new faculty member? And if I move and pick up some regular nonacademic job somewhere, what will any of this matter?

I dunno.

I should note that halfway through the writing of this post and after perusing my own posts and notebooks for several hours (narcissism how I love thee), my family called, and in the course of chatting with my dad I surprised him and myself with my statement that I was ready to move back home into the basement if this job thing doesn't work out.

I don't know where that acceptance came from, either. I guess I have been angsting about it and ranting about it for so long as part of wrapping my head around it, and I just abruptly realized it was time? Or maybe I am just positive that I will get a job offer out of this. Or perhaps I am tired of sitting around here avoiding applying to jobs and I want to do that in a new and different location. Maybe I have become more cynical, not less, and have decided that plenty of unambitious stoner thirtysomethings mooch off their parents in their basements and I should jump on the bandwagon while the jumping's good.

No clue.

Even when I was most angry at the world, going "I'll show 'em!" I didn't actually delete my blog because I thought it had useful advice for future grad students. And I'm damn funny. On this rereading I believe more in the latter than the former. But whatever happens, don't expect a play-by-play, and don't expect the updates to be either timely or emotionally accurate.

After all, I'm nothing more than a fictional character.

I am tired of waiting

I can only do interview prep in small spurts without freaking out. That's ok, because I have weeeeks and months and years before this thing comes up. And then I will have to wait even more, unless I bomb the interview so badly I know it's all over right then and there. But obviously I don't hope for that.

I skipped my workout today. Haven't been sleeping too well and I didn't want to bother getting up this morning.

My neighbors have cats. They are huge and orange and quite cute. I should snap a picture of them for you. Sometimes when I walk past the window one will run up and *plomp* leap onto the back of the sofa that is up against that wall. Then he pokes his face through the bottom of the horizontal blinds to get full information about What Is Happening Out There, which I know cats have to be on top of at all times. Then I will hear a rumbling and a *PLOMP* and the hugest orange stripey cat you have ever seen will have himself onto the sofa back, making the entire apartment shake gently. Then they will both stare at me intently.

Today they are playing with a jingle ball in the bathtub next door. I can hear it. (Our bathrooms must back up against each other.) I left the door open after showering and my cats are fascinated by all these strange noises that sound like pouncing and jingling and yet they can't see anything. Ghost cats! I like watching their fascination. If there was any way to have cat play dates, I'd be all for it. Except that bringing new cats into a cat's home territory often provokes litterbox problems, so I'm not really for it at all.

Sunday I spent time on the beach of joblessness instead

It was ok. I'm not actually as close as you might think so it always feels like a full-day ordeal. And I get tired of the beach after an hour or two, especially if I go alone and don't have any beach-related stuff like sandcastle building equipment or even a decent chair (tossed the old one when it broke), but then I feel like I should spend a whole day as it's such an effort to get there.

But I bought a hat! Although now I am thinking I should have held out for the one at the travel store that said it was treated to level 50 sun protection. What if I get even more severe hair cancer than I would have, because I am relying on the false promises of sun protection from a regular old hat? It's sorta tightly woven straw, but not lined with fabric like the SPF hat was. Mmm. Too late now!

In other news, I finally tracked down Sleepy Woman. That did not do me much good. Turns out there was only one more slot left for an interview so I took it. But she was not able to tell me what it would involve or if there was a teaching demonstration or what. In fact, I had to talk over her when she was trying to hang up to get in my question about whether it was a phone interview or an in person one. And as of now she still has not sent me the itinerary or map or search committee names or "scenarios" or anything. Hmph. I will give her until the end of tomorrow. At this rate the committee has probably already seen everyone else and made their choices and submitted her the paperwork and she just hasn't found it on her desk yet. I do not have high hopes for this one. And in a related question: is it standard for community colleges to have nonlocal candidates pay for their own travel costs?

Still crawling through the desert of joblessness

Sigh. This week is exactly like last week: nothing to report, but nothing completely over with either. Argh. I'm still playing phone tag with someone in the HR of a CC that, I think, wants to interview me. But Sleepy Woman, from the lack of energy and interest in the messages she leaves on my phone (or her own voicemail message, for that matter), doesn't sound like that is a very likely or exciting possibility.

A while back I had decided that I need to just give it up and move back into my parents' house, but then little things keep popping on the horizon that look like possibilities, and I think, hey, I might be able to get this one and why bother dealing with moving if I'm going to be moving somewhere permanent soon anyway? Then that oasis turns out to be a mirage, and I keep crawling along.

What's worse, I keep seeing interesting postdoc-type things and other job possibilities appear on the chronicle and whatnot. And one of my friends keeps sending me everything she can find for me to apply to. I could extend this waiting and wishing stage and my underemployment straight on through to next fall's job search. Siiiiiiiiigh. I don't want to do that, but I feel like I should be applying to stuff, you know, trying harder, actually doing something to solve my life, instead of just sitting around waiting for the latest search committee to reject me.

Thing is, it's very hard to apply to nonacademic jobs while I still have academic ones on the string. I've basically given up and can't bring myself to apply to The Gap or whatever else local is hiring when I have this feeling of "any moment now my time will come" on these jobs that are juuuust out of reach there, full of cool shade and shining water. I think I need to move away and force myself to completely give up on academic employment before I can make myself really go for the nonacademic search in a serious way. Which then leads back to the thinking above. Why can't search committees just hand you the job at the end of the interview and say, here, have a beer! You're hired!

And I certainly haven't been doing anything to make my candidacy more attractive, like writing anything or even reading anything. Not even fun stuff like going for walks or to the beach. Basically, waiting around and sitting around feeling depressed are full-time enterprises that do not leave room for actual activities, not even for applying to more jobs. It sucks. Basically I have totally failed on my new year's resolutions, cause I haven't even been cooking, what with all my health things still going on unresolved, and haven't been pushing myself to go outside or socialize with people or anything else I dedicated myself to doing. Even the poor cats are feeling neglected ---- not for food or petting, but I haven't brought out the cat toys and really exercised them for months. Poor kitties.

Bleah. This may stay like this until the end of the month. I keep trying to start some project or read something or watch something or just break the lassitude, but it falls by the wayside after a couple of days. I'm just keepin' on keepin' on. Thing is. that's both really boring and not doing anything for my sense of having a life.