1) Money. I would like more, because it would ease many other problems.
1A) Continue applying for jobs.
1B) Recognize that a job that is better than nothing is hard to come by here, and try to not be discouraged.
1C) Consider further education? This seems ridiculous. Anything other than CPA also seems distance-work-unfriendly.
2) Food. I can/will eat almost nothing prepared* and I have to cook everything and it takes fucking forever.
2A) Try to make larger batches of things? Work on list.
2B) Buy more pre-chopped ingredients despite cost.
2C) Make more meat-things despite personal & financial aversion
2D) Wean baby, so as to have more time with screaming toddler standing on feet while cooking (hurrah).
3) Screaming children. I have reached the end of my patience.
3A) Go to gym a lot, as they have childcare.
3B) Continue applying for jobs.
3C) See about another child swap? Especially for Endless Summer Vacation.
4) My youngest sister who stopped talking to everyone except my other sister in Israel. For no reason. No, really.
4A) Clearly the picture I had of our relationship was completely wrong.
4B) She's having a hard time (maybe? how would I know!).
4C) She is being a crappy person. A crappy person finds time to pick up a dude and have a relationship but not time to do anything she doesn't want, including deal with overdue tax collections in the US, FOR EXAMPLE.
4D) Who knows, but this relationship is on fire and sinking into the ocean floor.
... and time's up, I have to go do the next sixteen things on my list! More later.
* two brands of hummus, some tortilla chips (yuck), two flavors of larabar things but not at home because Sweetpea is dangerously allergic to cashews... fruit and beans in cans (yuck). Everything else is basically 'ingredients' - raisins, oranges, whatever.
1) More money would let you buy time away from the children, and give your brain some exercise. That would be awesome. I wonder if there is anything you could do on the internet. Editing journals, or something.
ReplyDelete2) Your food situation sucks. A lot. Definitely buy th pre-chopped stuff, and meat. I'm working on a personal cookbook so I can have a list of family-approved recipes to choose from when I plan meals every week.
3) Children! When does #2 go to kindergarten? Because more kids in school is awesome. Preschool is good, too. They need socializing, and to get out of your hair.
4) Yes, she's being totally scrappy, and burning her relationship with you to the ground. Btw, a dude?? I'm guessing he's Isreali...
Moooney! Braaaaaaains!!!
Delete#2 goes to K in 2017. Yeah. I'm vaguely considering paying the Montessori school for K... but only if I have a job.
Israeli dude. She is having a Terrible Person Year.
1/3: So I know you are rarely ever seeking actual potential solutions, and are always pretty much in possession of all the possibilities and rejecting them for sound reasons, and maybe when you talk about applying for jobs this is already what you have in mind BUT...is there any chance you could set up as a consultant? One of the other people I read decided against academia and is now a freelance science writer and seems to be managing to make a partial living at it. Perhaps there are people on campus who would pay you to work on grantwriting, data analysis, whatnot? I suppose it would be slow and tedious, but given that you're probably trapped there forever, better than the alternative that is NOTHING AT ALL?
ReplyDeleteIt's crossed my mind! The school here doesn't have enough grant funding to pay me; only two faculty members (total) even have funding for staff. I think it needs an R1's level of funding to support that. The other universities 'nearby' (a couple hours away) have a lot of alumni who stick around and saturate the labor market so I don't see that being a viable option right now. I've thought about it... if we were still in Cold City it would be a better option! (If we were still in Cold City I could go work in Bicycle Company consulting for $$$$$$.)
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