Filed under: personal
2 steps forward, 1.989234184 back. He’s slowly improving. Thanks for all the well wishes.
It’s just a matter of patience and working with him. Here’s hoping.
Filed under: personal
Remember way back when I was talking about how all I dreamed about was a professorial gig and a house with a fenced in yard for a dog? Well I got the gig, got the house, and even got the dog. Cute, ain’t he?
I love the house. I do. It’s ours… which makes up for little (or big bad electrical issues that could cause a fire) issues. What I don’t like is the complete inability to leave the house besides to go to work.
Our dog is a neurotic mess. He has separation anxiety which results in him trying to escape from the house if both of us leave. In fact, he tried so hard once that he managed to dig large chunks of wood out of the door frame of the little room we had kept him in.
He’s also afraid of his own shadow. He’s afraid of Blue. He’s afraid of the cats (though with good reason). He’s terrified of his own reflection. He doesn’t play with toys… at all. He’s afraid of the tennis ball. He won’t let me move more than 3 feet away from him. He is my constant shadow. In fact, he’s watching me write this RIGHT NOW. In order to try to give him a bit of backbone, we named him Courage. Two weeks in, doesn’t seem to be working.
Don’t get me wrong. Love the dog. Really do. But if we aren’t allowed to go to a coffee shop to get a drink just for 15 minutes, I may go crazy. Lots of advice… little of it seems to be working as of yet. We’re trying to be patient. I’m about ready to hire a babysitter so I can eat out with Blue.
I’m sick of being socially awkward and unsure of myself. Screw it. I’m just not gonna do that anymore.
That is all.
If you were in any doubt, the job market sucks. Hard. Imagine waking up and not feeling so wonderful about yourself, as many ABD (and other grad students, and probably new faculty, and older faculty, and all people) tend to do now and again. You didn’t get enough work done this past weekend. Your not physically feeling the best. You are waiting to hear about a paper that you were told should have a decision any day now (over a week ago), and are now sure that you are being rejected because it seems that everything in your life is a fail. So you go and teach your class. And it goes okay, but not great, because you are in a negative place and can’t seem to get the energy up to normal level. And then, you go back to your departmental mailbox and discover two rejection letters from a University. Talk about kicking you when you are down.
The job market is psychological warfare. It is cruel. It’s enough to make you seriously consider another line of work.
But then you realize that you are qualified to do absolutely nothing else. And, even what you are qualified to do (data analysis, consulting, something like that) has been made into some special kind of hell because you would have to answer to someone else and do what they are asking you to do rather than your own work.
You see why I stopped blogging? I’ll be over it tomorrow, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, something actually worth reading can be found here.
Filed under: personal
My “I Voted” sticker.
Blue and I went to our county auditor office today and voted. I haven’t felt so excited and nervous to vote for a long time. I had to check my ballot about 10 times to make sure that I filled in the Obama oval. Oh, I’m gonna be sick until this election is called (correctly).
Get your vote on.
ONE ART The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. ---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. -- Elizabeth Bishop
Posting from Seattle! Thanks CJ for the great suggestions. I touched Lenin’s finger, climbed on the troll, and bought some great fruit at Pike’s Place Market (among other activities).
Today I went to the Experimental Music Project in Seattle. It was as good as advertised. There was live music where the musicians traced the roots of American music trends. Attached to EMP is the Science Fiction Museum, which I loved. Just thought I would share this:
Also, not Sci Fi related, but I also came across the following:
I spoke in my broken Spanish to one of the workers who said it was okay for me to take the picture. Unfortunately, I couldn’t much get past “My name is, What is your name, Pleased to meet you” to ask him about his experiences and what type of work they were looking for. He did tell me I had a beautiful name, and I was a little happy I managed to converse with him at all.
So, I’m going to Seattle this weekend. I know some of my regular readers are from this area. Any place I must see?
I know, I have to, by obligation, go to the top of the Space Needle. I’ve been to the top of every other tall structure in this hemisphere, so I’ll finally have a complete set. I’m thinking the fish market is a must. But, outside of watching horrible reruns of Real World Seattle and Fraiser, I have little knowledge of the place. I’m not sure where else I should go.
As seen on In the Form of a Question:
Online miniseries from the creators of Firefly (best TV show ever).
Info here. Watch a teaser here.
I know where I’ll be these days:
ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.
ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.
ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.
Shiny.
That’s right. I’m dropping out of grad school. Forget that I’m ABD with only one year of school left. I’m dropping out to join the team at National Geographic as a wilderness photographer:
Okay, so maybe I’m full of shit. But, I am absolutely in love with the Northwest. I don’t know how I’m going to return to the Midwest. If it wasn’t for Blue, I may just go renegade, learning sociology by stalking professors here… But, perhaps that’s not such a good idea.
How much of your professional dreams would you give up to live in the region you wanted to?
