Brain dump

Wow, it's been a while. I hadn't realized just how long until I came back here and looked at the date stamp on my last entry. Almost a month! Goodness. It's been crazy busy around here, so that has eaten into my down time, but that's no excuse. Time to dump some of the things that have been rattling around in my brain, if I can remember them. ;)

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I'm starting my job search - well, really, I'm kind of in the middle of it now - and it's getting to the nervewracking part. I am going for tenure track faculty positions, and I have interviews for four schools. The first one, at my current school, is this coming Weds. There is another one next week. I'll probably get a break of 2 weeks before the next one, and #4 hasn't been scheduled yet.

I have my job talk all prepped, and we've been very careful about my top choices of schools. My husband is going to come with me to the other interviews away from home, to get a feel for the area. We're going to meet with realtors. We're being as careful and deliberate as we can possibly be. That's just our nature.

But the *process* is nervewracking. I had my first anxiety dream last night - that I was late to the interview at my home institution. Something about how I arrived that morning in "comfy clothes". Ha. Can you imagine? Anyway, anxiety dreams and job talk nerves aside, I am feeling okay. I would like to only focus on the job search right now, but of course, life goes on.

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My father had an "episode" when my parents left for vacation a few weeks ago. As in, he lost consciousness on the plane, and they had to turn the plane around. He spent a few days in the hospital - thank god, no major problems, and the loss of consciousness was likely triggered by an easily-avoidable behavior. But in the course of his workup, they found an inherited arrhythmia. So guess who bought herself a cardiology appointment this Friday? I started with a family doc, who did an EKG, but given my family history; heart murmur; occasional PVC's; and slightly abnormal EKG, she felt more comfortable sending me along to cardiology. I hope I'm the healthiest person they see in clinic this week. You know, just a little extra anxiety on top of the job search.

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I'm feeling rather antisocial these days, and I'm not really sure why. Too much going on, perhaps? I just feel like it's one more thing I have to deal with, and my plate seems rather full these days.

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It's going well having N away from Sunday through Thursday. We both get a lot of work done. We miss each other but really enjoy our time together over the weekends. I think he misses the dog. I know it gets lonely about Wednesday night - but then, he's coming home the next day. It helps that we have both been crazy busy. He is going to be traveling a lot - for my interviews, and for work - and I am, of course, working on grants and job talks and everything else that I need to do during my post doc. So, it's working. We're happy. No matter what other people think (and I think the majority of them think that we're weird for being okay with this...).

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I really don't want to move from our house and our neighborhood - and I need to get over this while I go through the job search, so I can keep an open mind. It's more leaving our lifestyle than anything else. I worry about where we would live in each town - what the commute would be like - how I would structure my life - etc. Here, I have things set up so that they work well with my schedule and my life and everything else. But elsewhere, who knows? I've had this before - and I just need to get over it. Hopefully, traveling for the next interview next week will help me see beyond what we have now, to make sure that we make the best decision for us going forward.

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I haven't had any time at all to think about our childlessness, or those ovulation predictor kits *still* sitting in the bathroom drawer. That's probably a good thing. I'm sure the question of whether we have kids will come up during these interviews -whether it should or not. And I know how I will answer. It's just that...I hope it doesn't hit me the wrong way, particularly when I am on an interview and I need to be professional. Maybe it's best that I'm having the interview at my "home school" first, after all.

I'm sure I have more rattling around in my brain, but that's all I can come up with for now.