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May. 20th, 2017
March and April
May. 20th, 2017 03:20 pmSo I last posted an update in February. My biggest news is that I guess I bought a car today. Several weeks ago, on the way to work it was raining and still dark and a possum ran out in front of me and I swerved and fishtailed and ended up in a ditch. My car was repairable, but would cost more than it was worth, so we donated it to NPR. I've been driving E's car and E has been driving his friend's little Jag (!!). But today I agreed to buy a coworker's partner's 2004 Honda Accord. We didn't want to buy a new car because we don't expect to be here next year. So anyway, she will get the car cleaned and detailed and then we'll officially buy it.
So - next year it looks like we are really going to Prague for a year. Which is why we didn't want to get into a car payment situation. Some things have happened at E's work which makes him genuinely motivated to leave this university - if we didn't have this sabbatical lined up, he might have already quit. So the plan is to gut out the next year, take the sabbatical and then when we come back, immediately start looking for another position. He will have to stay at the university for a year after the sabbatical, but it will take that long (if not longer) to find something else.
My work is going fine. Our newish boss has turned out to be a pretty dang good boss, and life is so much less stressfull than it was under the evil demon boss of horribleness. We just hired two new people and I will be in charge of mentoring them. The work itself is still fairly tedious and boring, but after all, it's called work for a reason. He has arranged for us to take a mini fire fighting course, which is fairly cool, and has agreed to let me take a week long Hazardous Materials Operations course, so that is cool too.
My marriage is also going fine although with E's current level of unhappiness and stress related to his job, my own levels of stress are somewhat jacked up as well. But, he is dealing and not having a major breakdown so that is a positive. We are definitely in a routine right now and are not the most exciting couple around (for instance, he went to be last night, which was Friday, at like 7:30 and I stayed up and watched a movie by myself), but I am OK with that.
Socially, life pretty much sucks though. I have no friends in town. And thanks to wonders of FB, I'm able to see when people who I used to work with and who I thought were my friends, get together without me. But even before deciding that we were leaving this place, I decided that I was done with chasing after people and begging them to like me or be my friend. I see my two besties from grad school occasionally, and that's it. Eric has an older dude and work and they are very close (basically a father son relationship; he's the one with the little Jag), but otherwise he has no friends either, in fact he hates his department with a passion.
It's been three years now since I finished my PhD and I have published one paper since then. I want to back to work and get another paper in the works, because I don't want to completely abandon academia, even if it has abandoned me. But it's taken me this long to be able to enjoy my field again and to want to read articles and think about my subject again.
I have a bunch of books to post and more to say, but I'm going to end here. I'm going to try and post more frequently, because I do have tons to say and no one to say it to.
So - next year it looks like we are really going to Prague for a year. Which is why we didn't want to get into a car payment situation. Some things have happened at E's work which makes him genuinely motivated to leave this university - if we didn't have this sabbatical lined up, he might have already quit. So the plan is to gut out the next year, take the sabbatical and then when we come back, immediately start looking for another position. He will have to stay at the university for a year after the sabbatical, but it will take that long (if not longer) to find something else.
My work is going fine. Our newish boss has turned out to be a pretty dang good boss, and life is so much less stressfull than it was under the evil demon boss of horribleness. We just hired two new people and I will be in charge of mentoring them. The work itself is still fairly tedious and boring, but after all, it's called work for a reason. He has arranged for us to take a mini fire fighting course, which is fairly cool, and has agreed to let me take a week long Hazardous Materials Operations course, so that is cool too.
My marriage is also going fine although with E's current level of unhappiness and stress related to his job, my own levels of stress are somewhat jacked up as well. But, he is dealing and not having a major breakdown so that is a positive. We are definitely in a routine right now and are not the most exciting couple around (for instance, he went to be last night, which was Friday, at like 7:30 and I stayed up and watched a movie by myself), but I am OK with that.
Socially, life pretty much sucks though. I have no friends in town. And thanks to wonders of FB, I'm able to see when people who I used to work with and who I thought were my friends, get together without me. But even before deciding that we were leaving this place, I decided that I was done with chasing after people and begging them to like me or be my friend. I see my two besties from grad school occasionally, and that's it. Eric has an older dude and work and they are very close (basically a father son relationship; he's the one with the little Jag), but otherwise he has no friends either, in fact he hates his department with a passion.
It's been three years now since I finished my PhD and I have published one paper since then. I want to back to work and get another paper in the works, because I don't want to completely abandon academia, even if it has abandoned me. But it's taken me this long to be able to enjoy my field again and to want to read articles and think about my subject again.
I have a bunch of books to post and more to say, but I'm going to end here. I'm going to try and post more frequently, because I do have tons to say and no one to say it to.