This week has been insane: I cannot believe how much nit-picky detail and work has gone into all of this preparation for applications, for the academic CV, cover letters, and statements of teaching philosophy.
friede, who is also going through the process, has been really cool in letting me bounce ideas off her and for offering quick and useful criticism. But it's been a week of getting my own stuff done in the morning, at the library by noon, and working through midnight or later before starting the process all over again – and that just being this work stuff. I'm almost desperate to get back to the dissertation. I've been pretty purposely underground for the last several days, although perhaps that didn't take much purpose, given how driven I've been with all this extra work. Last week left me kind of spinning, and so it was good that this week already did have a few scheduled breaks. I babysat for Dan and Amy on Wednesday, so they could take Dan's uncle and aunt to a Brewer's game, and so an evening of dinner and Cinderella with Anna and Owen was actually a fun change of pace. Amy came over for a few hours last night to watch the two-hour Grey's Anatomy season premiere, and so I zipped home for a few hours to do that and to clean my living room to make it more hospitable. I had two bookshelves worth of books piled on the coffeetable. Total bachelorism. So that was fun as Amy got a night off of getting-Anna-to-stay-in-bed duty and, since we weren't watching it over at their house, we didn't get the usual heckling from Dan for watching such a goofy show. Diane had tonight only as a gap in her schedule for the next several days, and so she summoned me for dinner and port tonight, and so that will be my reward for getting the first application out. She's made reservations over at Roots, and so I'm excited to finally get around to trying that out.
The job process, even just in its beginning stages now, is already creating a feeling of instability, of the sense that I'm not really living here in Milwaukee anymore, but am on the preliminary edge of moving. And I so hate moving. I was just saying to someone the other day that, no matter how much I like traveling, even for weeks at a time, I have a rest and confidence that comes from the knowledge of a "home base" somewhere behind me. Now I'm wondering where I'll be in a year's time, and what kind of place and home I will make for myself there.
