The Quest

I have been busily applying for all sorts of jobs. A few administrative assistant things with the state, several instructor/professor positions.
It's a grind and the rejections suck, but something will come along.
I'm looking into alternative certification for teaching, probably high school. Expense and my own health are likely to be the most significant issues there.
I average 2 -3 migraines each week. I am semi-functional through some of them - as in, I can do some limited computer work if I can be in bed to do it. That's mostly how I manage my current part-time online teaching gig.
Often, at least 1 migraine each week leaves me fairly incapacitated.
All of them leave me with a "hangover" of exhaustion and derpiness. And my executive functioning during a migraine is, um, limited. Driving is agonizing and if I have to drive I can't take my most effective abortive meds.
And that's just the suck from migraines. Other health issues add their own excitement.
Obviously, that won't work with a traditional full-time job.
Online work with a flexible schedule is ideal. So is anything with the option for telework from time-to-time.
Teaching at the college level has worked very well for me too. I can usually hold it together long enough to hold class and office hours. Nearly everything else can be done from bed or couch if necessary.
Plus, I love teaching.
So, hold out hope for a wicked cool job for me, eh? I've got to get my own place and start up with the decorating.
So far, the themes include velociraptors and Cthulhu.

Identity Crisis

Image via Wikipedia
How did they do aerobics in those robes?
And what exactly is dude measuring with his hands?
And is Jesus pearl-clutching?

So I finally got around to checking the academic schedule to see when I'm teaching next term. I thought I'd have to be ready to go on the 2nd of January as long, painful, sometimes hung-over experience at the University of Chicago had taught me, but it turns out I have until near the end of January to procrastinate updating my lectures and junk. My textbook samples arrived last week (I had requested them in September) and after a grand total of 5 minutes examining them, I adopted two of them for this term in the hopes they'll be slightly less confusing than the textbooks I used last time.

Cool.

It occurs to me though that I am not quite sure what to say when people ask me what I do. I already had a preview of this after my Nana's funeral. Someone asked what I did and my uncle told them I was a teacher. So the guy asked what grade I taught. And I said "college." And there was sort of awkward silence.

Ahem.

Then the guy asked what class I taught and I said "ancient Egyptian history" because that's the easiest answer. And every few minutes for the rest of the afternoon he kindly (and loudly) warned me to watch out for mummies. Why, yes, there was drinking involved, why do you ask?

I decided that was probably not the best time to bring up excavating cemeteries and storing skeletons under my bed for safety (of the skeletons).  Seriously, though, that got really damn annoying.

Anyway, thus my identity crisis.

I'm not a professor. Technically I'm an instructor. But I can already see the hilarity possible in that conversation.

Random person: So, what do you do?
Me: I'm an instructor.
Random person: Of what?
Me: (Gripping cane tightly) Aerobics.¹

Also, the campus where I teach is in a mall. As in next to JC Penny's. Because surreality is my reality.

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1 Other potential responses include: "Karate" and "Your Mom"

Moving

Image via WikipediaSo, we should be up for grand adventure soon.  Tom has gotten a job in Biloxi, MS as an archaeologist which is, you know, what he's trained for.  More money, equal or greater benefits and more opportunity for advancement.  So, YAY!!!!!

I know very little about local history and archaeology, but am really looking forward to hearing about stuff from Tom and exploring stuff myself.  I'm especially interested in colonial/cultural contact archaeology and history topics and there is a lot of history with various European powers and local tribes interacting, playing off each other, etc.  Very cool.  

I actually lived in Biloxi for a few years in my early teens - my family moved from Nevada when gaming was legalized.   We have friends in the area and before I got sick I was an adjunct instructor there for a summer.  So we already have a bit of a support system in place which will make the move easier, I think.

We're very happy but still a little in disbelief that we're actually moving.  We've been in Chicago a really long time.

Anyway, we will be moving at the end of the month.  Tom starts work the second week of September. 

We are hoping to find a rental close to Tom's office so there won't be a huge issue of commuting. 

Moving will be awesome - we should be able to get a place with central air and heating, a dishwasher, and washer/dryer hookups.  All of those things will make a lot of household chores much easier and climate control will probably help with some of my symptoms.

Depending on where we wind up we will probably have regular access to a pool and I'm really looking forward to that as another way to exercise and relieve pain.  

Tom will be able to get back into diving and be closer to some interesting dive locations. 

It will all be very exciting I'm sure.  I'm hoping after we get settled to get in touch with some of my contacts and see if I can get another part-time teaching position or something similar.  I'm also hoping that I'll be able to start driving again at least short distances in an environment that isn't nearly as challenging and hectic as Chicago traffic and parking, etc. 

Current plan is to pack up what we're taking either into a rental truck or one of the movable storage box thingies, move it down, stay with a friend for a while and look for a place to live longer term. 

We've already been sorting through things like clothes and books for things to donate or sell, so that process is already started.  I'm going to start boxing books and craft supplies soon.

Poor Oreo is going to have a stressful month, though.  He gets a bit nervous when we pack things either in boxes or suitcases.  "The den, the den is changing, OMG change!  Are you going to leave me behind?!?!?"  So, there will be extra doggy cuddling going on.  He's a good little traveler by ground or air though, so the actual moving won't be too bad. 

Given the return of the heatwave to Chicago I'm really not able to to think much past AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!  at the moment. 

Obviously, it gets super hot and humid on the coast too, but it somehow doesn't seem as bad there as in Chicago. 

Also, I have a smartphone now, so I can live blog things like "wow, we're driving past yet more soy bean fields!"  I know you will all be at the edge of your seats for that.

And Tom and I tend to manage to have surreal adventures during things like moving, so that should be entertaining. 

Star Trek is back on Netflix streaming

Oh yeah, the epic red tights are epic.  Why the hell did anyone think men in the future would be all about some red tights?  Or was Bill Weiss foreseeing the rise of hipsters?

Wow, that is actually worse than the Shat in tights.  Impressive.



And I am so not getting any work done.

So, Laura Ingalls Wilder was even more hardcore than I thought

Image via Wikipedia

What it looks like outside

We are having a blizzard.

I had to work today.  From 2pm to 10 pm.

At 9pm, the shuttle buses that the powers that be had claimed would run their normal schedule despite the blizzard, stopped running.

Oh yeah.  Awesome.  Lobby full of angry people.  My crippled ass wondering how the hell I'm supposed to get home.  (I didn't call in today because, silly me, I believed the whole "we have no plans to cancel the shuttle service")  The University of Chicago - it's about life of the mind, not life of the extremities.

Tom came to get me.  In the car.  The Saturn sedan.   Did I mention the blizzard?

I was literally whimpering by the time we got from the library to the car across the street.

Tom had to dig me out of the car when we got home.  He is my hero.

The wind is blowing so hard it's being driven through the screens on our windows.

Also, they weren't kidding about the thunder and lightening.  Do you know how weird that is?

Laura freaking Ingalls walked through this kind of shit.  In a skirt.  That my friends, is hardcore.

First Day

I had my first day of work today after being out of work for about 2 years.  It was only about 5 1/2 hours, but I feel like a zombie. Probably the combo of lots of information to take in and having to pay attention for that long at a stretch.  And I'm tired lately anyway - I think doing my PT exercises 3 times a day is a bit too much for me.
Everyone was very nice, though, and it was good to have a fairly thorough run-through of the basics of the job.  I am fairly confident I can manage even an 8 hour shift, especially if I have a day or more of down-time in between.
I'll do a bit more training later in the week and talk about schedules, etc.  I'll be subbing for people much of the time, so I may not have a super-consistent schedule. 
Tomorrow is physical and brain therapy day.  Wooo.

And it seems the heat-wave has finally broken so I should be able to get some chores done and spend some time crafting without worrying about heat-stroke or stuff melting or felting.



Also, we established within the first hour that I'm not allowed to hit or clothesline people with my cane.  The fact that the response to that question was laughter is a very good sign.  :P

Can't Sleep. Don't Think Clowns Will Eat Me

Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder plus migraines plus being over-tired and overheated is awesome for turning one into a vampire.  I slept until 6 PM last night.  So, I'm still awake now.
Since I can't sleep, I decided to play with the new "Template Designer" Blogger has put out.  Yeah.  It makes it slightly easier to move around page elements and probably do stuff from scratch, but I decided to try out one of the pre-loaded templates and just fiddle with width and gadgets.

Thoughts?

In other news, I had an interview for a part time job on Wednesday.  It went fairly well.  I would essentially be filling in for other people as needed, which should be doable for me.  The heat index here has been insanely high.  I'm far more sensitive to heat/humidity than I used to be, so this sucks more than usual. 

Sigh

Already rejected by the place to which I sent the CV yesterday.  Probably shouldn't be surprised, I've been rejected every time I apply to that particular institution (uh, think Arizona and the particular college rhymes with "ataxia" which I though particularly appropriate for me) regardless of what I do to my CV.  Meh.

Sleep schedule is now messed up courtesy of a migraine last night (I typically can't sleep through them, but am exhausted afterward).

And my arms hurt just from the effort of pulling on a pair of lounge pants after a shower.  Awesome.

Anyway, if anyone has any leads on online teaching gigs in anthropology, archaeology, history, or general humanities, let me know.  I have a ton of search agents set up and manage to submit at least one application a week, but it's not doing me a hell of a lot of good.  Part of that is timing, except for some of the primarily on-line colleges, most places only hire around quarter or semester beginnings, so right now is bound to be a dry spell.  I strongly suspect that my degree in "Near Eastern Art and Archaeology' is mildly confusing to some people as it isn't a simple "History" or "Anthropology" and it's also possible that being a U of C grad is also somewhat off-putting as they may expect me to demand premium pay.  And I only have one prior "official" teaching position (even if it was as an instructor at Tulane) and no official TA jobs to list because TA positions were very difficult to come by for my particular generation of U of C grad students due to the weird way funding and fellowships and assistantships were/are set up.

Maybe I should figure out a way to discreetly describe the times I covered for professors who were too absent minded, lazy, or hung-over to show up for class...

Cool?

So, I got a call today rescheduling my cognitive testing for next week.  I guess that means more time to, uh, study?
I figure at some point I'll start having nightmares that I'm retaking my grad school comprehensive exams.  And they're all in hieratic instead of just part of one.

Also, I feel like ass and am staying in bed today at least until my general itchiness wins out and I'm forced to shower, or my laptop battery runs out and I fail to retrieve the powercord.

I also managed to swallow an enormous amount of air from my CPAP.  The results have not been pleasant.

I sent out another CV for an online teaching position today. Everybody do whatever superstitious luck-making thing you do for me.  Maybe for once they won't run screaming from a degree in "Near Eastern Art and Archaeology."  (Dude, it works for history, it works for anthro/archaeology, it works for general humanities.  Just give me a job!!!!)

Also, tweeting for hugs is remarkably and wonderfully successful.  That is definitely cool.

Attempts at time management

As I've mentioned before, I want and plan to eventually open an Etsy shop and see if I can get it going.  Unfortunately, time management is pretty craptastic when you're not only chronically ill, but also unpredictable from day to day.  As in, I have no idea how I will feel from day to day, whether I will get to sleep at a decent time and sleep well or whether I'll be awake until 4AM or will wake up with my brain refusing to function or in so much pain I don't want to do anything but cuddle with the heating pad and whichever of my boys (Tom or Oreo) is convenient at the time.

It's also really, really hard to get out of the mindset of "I'm sick, I should rest."  This might sound contradictory, as I frequently complain that I've overdone it, but the two do sort of go hand in hand.  It's challenging to find a happy medium when the goal posts move all the damn time.  It's also sort of hardwired into people and animals to behave in certain ways when they're sick - to slow down, sleep more, become more sedentary, etc.  Unfortunately, I can't really do that and function.   But it's hard not to.  And it's been very hard for me to set a schedule for myself because I don't know how I'll feel or what I'm really capable of and because it's hard to set a sort of floating schedule.  At some point, I'm going to have to just go ahead and start doing stuff at 1 AM if that seems like the best time for me on that day.

All that said - I've taken the plunge.  I'm experimenting with Remember the Milk as of last night.  I have it set up (I hope) to give me recurring reminders for basic household tasks (like dishes or dusting, etc.).  I also have set up dates by which I'd like to do certain things like actually open the Etsy shop and get things made in preparation for various upcoming holidays.  I'm hoping this is an achievable goal.  I'm also hoping I won't be really upset if I don't manage it.  :P  Anyway, the idea is that I'll look at my to do list with the dates and be able to say, "okay, I feel up to doing X today and it needs doing in the next 3 days, so I'll get started."  I'm also going to have to work on chopping up tasks into smaller bits.  I can't sit in a regular chair or stand up and bend over things for longer than about 15 minutes before I'm in agony. So, until I find a better chair or some other solution, I'm going to have to set a timer.

I also need to quit spending as much time as I do online.  That will be a hard one.  Since I don't go out much and don't really like phones the internet is where I manage most of my human (mostly, I think) interaction.

Anyway, that's the goal for the next few weeks  - to try this stuff out and see how it works.  Wish me luck!