The Final Offer

The final job offer came through this week. This makes five total. So, here's the lowdown:

• 21 first round interviews
• 12 flyouts
• 5 offers

Of the 12 flyouts, he cancelled the final 2, which leaves 10. Of those 10, 1 told him that he was their first choice, but they knew that one of his other offers would win out (no contest), so they made an offer to another candidate. That leaves 9. 2 of those 9 made decided not to make any offers, one because of financial reasons, and one b/c they couldn't reach consensus. That leaves 7. Of those 7, 2 were flat out "no, we gave the offer to someone else who was in a different area."

5 out of 10 is a really great rate. Really, 5 out of 9, excluding the school that got its funding taken away. I don't think anyone else from his university has done as well. The other guy in his department who has four offers doesn't have quite as good of a spread, and he only got offers from places that hadn't seen DH. Anywhere that had to pick between him and DH at the flyout level picked DH. So there.

This 5th offer is from a department at a university that he has already gotten an offer from (another department), so it doesn't add a new geographic possibility. Good thing, too. It is getting too confusing!

A Not-As-Depressing Book on Working and Motherhood

I just finished reading a fascinating book called Kidding Ourselves by Rhona Mahony. I am surprised that I hadn't heard of this book until recently, given the relatively large number of depressing feminist tomes on working and motherhood that sit on my bookshelves. As it turns out, many of these books (which include Flux and The Price of Motherhood, to name a couple) actually cite Kidding Ourselves, which made it doubly surprising that I hadn't heard of it before, although I think I have figured out why. It is a fairly academic book that might not appeal to the masses in the way that the anecdotal Flux or the "written by Wall Street Journal Economic Reporter" Price of Motherhood might. It also deals with a topic that I don't think many women want to face- the prospect of househusbands. Mahony argues that until men do as much childwork and housework as women do (which will end up decreasing the total amount that women do), women will have a hard time getting ahead professionally. Much of her book details how women can negotiate with their husbands to have them take on more of the household tasks, not just in approach, but also how to strengthen your own position.

Unfortunately, much of the strengthening goes on long before you have children. Mahony argues that one of the best ways to improve your outcome in a negotiation is to improve your BATNA. BATNA stands for "best alternative to a negotiated agreement." How do BATNAs work? Say you want to buy a new car. You go to the dealership, and try to negotiate the price on a car. Your BATNA is what happens if you and the dealership can't agree on a price, and you end up walking away. If you don't have a car, your BATNA might be "don't take that job across town, but find a job closer to home, and I can ride the bus." That is a pretty bad BATNA. Being able to take that job across town might be worth a lot to you- more than the blue book value of the car. When you have a bad BATNA, you are more likely to do worse in a negotiation, because your reservation price (the most you are willing to pay) is going to be pretty high.

But if you can convince your parents to lend you their car for a while to get you to and from work, your BATNA then becomes "borrow Mom and Dad's car." This is a pretty good BATNA. It doesn't cost you anything. Maybe it's a 1992 Buick, and maybe they will only lend it to you for a couple of weeks, but it means that your reservation price goes down. You can still take that job across town, and you don't have to pay anything extra in the immediate future. You are willing to walk away at a lower price.

This is a really simplistic example, but you get the idea.

So women need to improve their BATNAs. Part of this BATNA is your employability, your ability to earn money. In other words, how dependent are you on your husband? More dependent = worse BATNA. Less dependent = better BATNA. Your education and qualifications largely determine your employability, your ability to earn the big bucks. Mahony isn't saying that women should leave their husbands if they don't help out, but your ability to exist on your own factors into how you and your husband approach this negotiation. She also suggests that having a better BATNA can prevent physical abuse. I am not so convinced on this point- I think it probably helps women get out faster, as I know at least one well-educated career woman who stayed in an abusive relationship for a little too long, but as for preventing it... I am not so sure. Anyway....

What earns the big bucks? In short, math and science. The more math and science that you take, the more options that are open to you. My husband and I found this out when hearing about my dad's experience getting his plumber's license at the age of 59. My dad is a smart guy (and a licensed contractor for 25 years), and has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. He lacked confidence about his abilities to pass the test (supposedly it's hard) and get his plumber's license. He signed up for a prep class at the local community college halfway through the term. It turns out that he was outperforming the other guys in the class by leaps and bounds. Why? Because he knew geometry. He passed the test the first time. (go Dad!!!) My DH and I said that high schools should put up posters everywhere that says "If you don't take this math class, these careers will be cut off for you!" Who knew that if you didn't know geometry, you would have a hard time becoming a plumber???

So girls need to take more math and science in high school. Taking 4 years of math and at least 3 years of science in high school keeps potentially lucrative college majors open to you. This is the second part of increasing your BATNA- majoring in something that will help you get good-paying, gainful employment. Mahony is sympathetic to the liberal arts perspective (I get the feeling that this is her ideal, but she knows she lives in the real world), but one of the nicest things about this book, as compared to most of the other books on this topic that I have read, is that it is not just for upper-middle class women. This book is intended for women of all walks of life. It's not a pretty fact of life, but if you are scraping to put yourself through college, your time might be better spent majoring in economics, chemistry, or engineering, rather than something like English or philosophy. The first group of majors positions you for more lucrative employment than the second group. And more money = better BATNA.

Okay, check! I took 4 years of math in high school, 4 years of science, and majored in something eminently practical (and am pursuing a graduate degree that might be a waste of time in one sense, but will also make me more employable, at least in theory). Phew! At least that's one thing I didn't screw up.

To make that money, women also need to put themselves in positions where they keep making it, and not gear themselves for the flexible, part-time work that many women consider when picking a career (okay, I am at least a little guilty in this respect- most women I know are, even the well-educated ones).

Another part of the equation that is very, very important is picking the right person, a person who is willing to chip in and do his fair share, has a certain mindset about equality, etc. Mahony argues that women should be willing to marry down- marry men who make less, have flexible careers, men who will be in a position not to say no when you tell them that they need to do housework and help with the kids.

Here is where we part ways. I think that marrying down and having the flexible career matters less than marrying someone who is willing to help and is sympathetic to the values of equality. Mahony admits that she herself married laterally (she married a college professor), and she writes, which is a relatively flexible career, yet she has managed to work out a 50-50 agreement with her husband.

Everyone that I know who has married down has paid for it. Yeah, if your husband is in a law firm or a McKinsey consultant, he's not going to be doing the childcare, but I've seen too many guys in flexible, low-paying careers who don't pull their weight either. And then they get their egos all in a twist and pissed b/c the woman is the breadwinner. Guess what? Some of these guys are in these flexible, low-paying careers because they are lazy. A lazy guy is not going to do the work around the house no matter what. If I'm going to have to do all the housework on my own, I at least want to marry someone who brings in enough money to hire it out. I think the solution is to go for a happy medium- marry someone who is smart and ambitious but working in a maybe not-as-high-powered job as he could be (for instance, college professor instead of investment banker), but liberal-minded enough to not be squeamish about doing house and child work and nice enough to want to make his wife's life easier.

My parents are a good example of this. My mom stayed home until I was about 12. Since my dad was a licensed contractor who worked for himself starting when I was about 5, he had a relatively flexible schedule. Although I swear to you I can hardly remember my dad doing ANY housework (my mom is a perfectionist, so she just did it all), my perception is that he was quite involved with the day-to-day things that you have to do to raise kids. He insisted on helping bathe us as babies, would tell us bedtime stories, take us on outings so my mom could get a break (I remember one time, he took us fishing at a local pond, and I ended up catching a HUGE snapping turtle. Talk about freaky.), help us with science fair projects, etc. Probably my mom did do a lot more of the day-to-day nitty gritty, like making sure we ate, were dressed properly, did our hair, and did most of the laundry, but I really do remember my dad being very involved.

There is another twist to this story. My mom was agoraphobic, and didn't get treatment until I was about 12 (just before she started working part-time). This meant that my dad took care of lots of errands. He took us to school every morning (he was great, because he would drive fast and cut through parking lots on the corners, so we would get there quickly!), did a lot of the outside errands, and also he and I would go grocery shopping every Sunday morning. My mom would make the list, give us the coupons, and he and I would go. We would park our car in the middle of Kroger, split the list up, and divide and conquer. We were a very efficient team.

All of this happened, despite the fact that my mom had a pretty bad BATNA. She does have a college degree, but it was in French education, not something she really wanted to do. She was agoraphobic, and had stayed home for bunches of years. If she had asked my dad to do more (like make dinner once a week, etc.) he would have. The reasons why she didn't are mostly related to her own perfectionism (Mahony talks about this too- if you want your husbands to help you, you've got to lower your standards.).

So what did I take away from this reading? Most of all, marry a nice guy who wants to make you happy, and recognizes that this doesn't necessarily come in the form of jewelry (although I love bling, don't get me wrong), but often comes in the way of taking away the daily drudgery of dishes, cooking, and laundry.

Latest job market update

Wow. The job market has gone really well for us. I say "us" because I view my husband's success as my own success. He has four offers, one from a top 5 department, and 3 from well-respected departments in other areas of the universities. We expect another offer from a top 10 department this week.

We will be taking a tour of the top 3 schools and their respective geographic areas, two of which we both are pretty unfamiliar with. There are so many things to think about. Do we go with the swanky, old-money town? Or the ghetto-but-regentrifying town? Or the big city, with tons of people of my ethnicity and career opportunities (both academic and industry) galore? Where can we buy a house? How much house can we afford? What about schools?

In reality, the geographic concerns are relatively unimportant. All of the top 3 are located in places that I think would be acceptable. Now, if we visit a place, and I hate it, that would mean something. But right now, the most important thing is the academic environment that is most conducive to my husband's success. His advisor even took us both out to lunch, ostensibly to "strategize," but in reality, we just ended up talking about my family, his wife and kids, and all his former roommates/grade school friends who are in positions such as Chairman of the Fed, dean of the nation's best law school, top professors in similar fields, etc. He has his own opinion about where my husband would be happiest, and we take this opinion very seriously. I think he and my husband are a lot alike, so his recommendation holds weight with me.

His advisor is now on my good side, after getting off to a rocky start. The first time I met him, he insulted me. It was the summer after our first year, and my husband had rocked his exams. I mean, completely blew everyone away. His exams were at the beginning of the summer, and mine were at the end. He mentioned this to his advisor upon introducing us, and his advisor replied, "Well, there's no way she can do better than you!" He was trying to compliment my husband, but instead, insulted me. He apologized to my husband later that day, but I was the one who was insulted! Wasn't I the one who should have received the apology? Harumph.

He completely redeemed himself this summer, though, after my car broke down 90 miles from home, four days before our anniversary, when driving to my husband's university, where he was (approximately 400 miles away). I couldn't just leave the car (I did rent a car and drive back home), the repair shop had a hard time finding the part (it was a part that was still under warranty and shouldn't have broken). Our second anniversary was just days away, and it wasn't immediately clear that I would be able to make it there. We didn't really have the money for a plane ticket, and we were stressing out that we wouldn't be together on our anniversary. We weren't together on our first anniversary (he had a really important conference, I had my sister's wedding), and we were really angry that we might be apart again!!

My husband happened to have a meeting with his advisor that day, and when his advisor asked "How are you?" my husband launched into the whole story, leaving out the plane ticket money part. His response was, "That is terrible! You definitely need to be together on your anniversary! There is no excuse for that! How much is a plane ticket?" My husband replied $120, and his advisor just pulled out his wallet, and pulled out 6 $20 bills, handed them to my husband, and said, "Happy anniversary!" Since that day, his advisor is now on my good side. He is also really good to my husband, and is a terrific advisor, so that helps him too!

People keep asking me, "Where do YOU want to go?" Truthfully, if I were single, and just looking to move to a new place, I would pick the big city. Obviously. One of the strange things about marriage, though, is that my interests become almost indistinguishable from his interests. Almost. Not entirely, but if he does poorly, I end up suffering as well. We will have to move (rather than deciding to move, and moving to a similar or better university with a pay increase), he will be more unhappy and less pleasant at home, and he will have to work harder to accomplish the same amount. We will ultimately go wherever we think he will be most successful.

In the meantime, we are imagining that things like grocery stores and housing prices matter. Ooh, which place has a Wegman's? Which place has Trader Joe's? What about Whole Foods? Where do we live? How far is the commute? It's fun to pretend that these things will actually impact our decision. In reality, we feel very fortunate that we have any choice at all. It is not the normal outcome.

Go Colts!

I was delighted to watch Peyton Manning win his first Super Bowl today. I have 2-3 degrees of separation between the two of us (2 is possible, 3 is definite), not to mention the fact that we used the same cake lady for our wedding cakes, so I have been rooting for him since he was nominated for the Heisman Trophy (and lost... BOOOOO!). From all accounts, he is a decent, solid guy.

He has been ragged on a lot b/c he hasn't been able to get to the Super Bowl, but boy, did he do it this time. What a champ. And Phi Beta Kappa to boot.

Job market update

My husband is kicking ass on the job market. It is a huge relief. He has 11 (count 'em! 11!) flyouts, 10 of which are for really good schools. The 11th is also to a good school, but a troubled department within that good school that doesn't seem like it would be the best fit. He wasn't sure whether or not to take it.... even though he has 10 other great flyouts, he didn't feel like he is in the position of turning down flyouts, which I guess means that he would take an offer from them over going into industry, which I had thought wasn't the case.

I went with him to his big conference, to provide moral and practical support while he did 21 interviews in 2.5 days. Wow, did he ever need it.

What we did not expect:

1) He would sweat through his shirts by lunch time. We had planned to have an extra shirt for each day in case he spilled something on himself, but hadn't planned on undershirts. I had to go to Marshalls to buy more. I also had to take shirts to the cleaners, because some of the "extra" shirts weren't that nice.

2) the fashionable but still nice looking blue striped tie was TOO fashionable. Go conservative. One of his interviewers, whom he had interacted with previously, saw him after lunch in the new shirt (white) and different tie (red with traditional looking stripes) and said, "Oh! I'm glad you changed your tie." It didn't really matter that much, but it freaked us out.

3) He would throw up at least one meal a day, out of sheer nervousness. Huge drag and very demoralizing. We should have expected this, and kind of did, but we didn't expect how annoying this really was. Also not great for energy levels. However, apple juice and fruit seemed to be relatively successful when it came to keeping food down and energy up, at least temporarily.

4) How bad we would sleep. Not hugely surprising, but I really thought we'd sleep better than we did.

5) How stressful and exhausting it would be for ME, the spouse. I was doing a lot of running around and errands, etc., plus his performance affects the rest of our lives. Talk about stress for both of us.

6) How fast the flyouts would come. He had 3 by Saturday night, and he hadn't even finished his interviews yet. We were expecting Monday at the earliest.

He is getting them all done by the first week of February. Maybe we will have an offer by Valentine's day!

New Finds

I heard about this guy on NPR yesterday morning, and I'm hooked. Doesn't hurt that he used to be a Yale Whiffenpoof. I admit to falling prey to those Ivy League a capella guys once or twice in my time... although in general, I have had bad luck with Yalies. Well, one Yalie in particular. (ugh!) I think this guy isn't that good looking, though, although his music is hilariously captivating.

Jonathan Coulton

I highly recommend the songs "Code Monkey" and "Chiron Beta Prime," as well as his addictive cover of "Baby Got Back." You can get a lot of his songs free through his podcast on iTunes, but you can also stream everything free.

Speaking of falling prey, I saw the new James Bond movie Casino Royale. I am not crazy about action movies, although I will occasionally see one that looks okay just to be sweet to DH. When I first saw the pictures of Daniel Craig, I thought, "Ugh, HIM???? Bond? He is not attractive at all. And look at those ears!"

Then I saw the movie. Holy smokes. He is the hottest thing on screen that I think I have ever seen. I am usually indifferent to the attractiveness of male movie stars; sure, George Clooney is really good looking, and I was partial to Robert Sean Leonard in his Much Ado About Nothing days, but I have never seen anything like the raw sex appeal of Daniel Craig in this movie. I have seen him in a lot of other movies, but never noticed him (I did walk out of Road to Perdition, which I saw at a really bad time in my life, so I was preoccupied with other things) in particular. Oh my goodness. I would buy this movie on DVD JUST to watch him over and over again. Yes, he is that good looking.

Running

In other news, DH and I ran an other 5K over Thanksgiving weekend. He won his age group (!!!!), and I shaved FOUR AND A HALF MINUTES off my time from early October, even this course was incredibly hilly, and I ran alone without even company from my iPod. We were pleased with our successful endeavor. DH now wants to get his 5K under 20 minutes. He was at 21:08 this time. I was at 33:08.

Busy

Hey folks (if anyone still reads this anymore....)!

I haven't been updating lately because I have been busy with school. I have a big deadline in a few months; I basically have to pass to candidacy by then, and they sprung the new deadline on us a couple of months ago. Yark. I think I can do it, but by no means is it a sure thing, so I have been doing a lot of work lately. I got one paper off to my committee, and I'm working on the data analysis for my second.

My husband is also on the job market, so we have been really involved with that. It is going okay- we wish it were going better, though- he has a high number of interviews, but only a couple at top-notch departments. His committee has been assuring him all along that he will do well, etc., (by well, they mean "place at a top 30 department"), but the students that his advisor had kind of dismissed are getting few interviews, but the ones they are getting are the top places. So this is sort of nerve-wracking.

We are not worried that he will not get a job; he will, but we (well, really me.) are concerned that he will be at a crappy school or in a crappy location, or worse, both. The crappy location is not so bad if he is at a good place, because he can go on the market again in a few years, but the crappy school is worse, and crappy school/crappy location is a really bad combination. If he is at a crappy school/crappy location, we will probably have to go on the market again in a few years, and then again a few years after that to try to claw up a little bit. I have had to explain to my parents that, no, you can't really move up. The exceptional people can move up a little bit (my advisor had a student who moved from a second-tier no-name research university to an excellent state school after a couple of years. He had a major publication come out after getting his first job, and I think that helped him move up. People that I know who have moved up have gone on the market again practically immediately- maybe they waited two years.

He just has to get an academic job that is better than working in industry. He is not very inclined to work in industry. He would do just fine in industry, but is more suited for academia. If he wanted to go into industry, he would have done it already and skipped the academic path totally.

Why does my heart feel so bad?

So after my advisor had the "come to Jesus" talk with me two weeks ago, she asked for a new draft of my paper with the expectation that it would be beefed up and filled out. She also suggested that I "talk to someone" to figure out why I am having trouble working.

So I did just that- I made an appointment with a dissertation coach, who was very helpful just in the fact that it's someone that I feel understands how I feel about the whole process, understands that I don't like it, yet isn't telling me to quit and is supportive of the idea that I just want to FINISH the darn program and GET OUT.

She suggested that I do this two-week teleclass for overcoming procrastination. Procrastination is a big problem of mine. I don't do work because I don't want to work.

So for the last 2 weeks, I have been doing a great job of working every day, and I've gotten myself up to 2-3 40 minute blocks of writing/working every day. This might not sound like a lot, but considering that many days I do nothing.... it makes a big difference. I have written 10 and a half pages in the last 2 weeks. That is a BIG deal.

And yet... I am still going to miss my deadline (today). How depressing. Instead of feeling good about working consistently and making decent progress, I feel upset and angry that I am missing this deadline. I think I can have it to her on Monday. I just need to not let this depression and upset-ness prevent me from working. All I want to do is crawl under a rock and hide.

Hysterical

I found a great website today- Ivy Gate, a blog that discusses all things Ivy League. Hysterical. Being an alumni of said league, I find it especially hilarious. It hasn't been around that long- maybe since July? Anyway, I am definitely adding it to my links.

Errata

I have been knitting very diligently on the Child's Placket-Neck Sweater from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I get to the neck placket, follow directions, knit for 8 more rows, and realize that the placket is crazily off-center. I KNOW I counted right, because it didn't seem on center the first time, so I counted twice.

I check for errata, and of course, there it is. Instead of ending 18 st before the marker indicating the start of a new round, I am supposed to end 24 st. Duh! (insert eyeroll here). I had to rip back eight rows, and now knit them again. Grrrr.

Running and Reading

I completed one of my New Year's Resolutions- I ran a 5K! The whole way! This was rather unexpected, as DH and I decided to run the 5K with two of our friends, knowing that I wasn't prepared enough and that I would probably walk part of the way. Hey, I know I would be able to finish, though, so why not? I told DH that we could always run another one in a couple of months, when I would feel more confident about being able to run all five kilometers.

As it turns out, I was able to do just that. Color me surprised.

I also mentioned a while ago that I wanted to start reading fun books more frequently. I mentioned Prep, and that is what I am reading now. It is pretty interesting. I am waiting to see what brings about Lee's downfall. You know it's coming.

Baby Knitting Update, Part Whatever

I just started the first sleeve of the Placket-Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I've done two of the increases- the bar increases (kf&b) look pretty crappy in KnitPicks Shine- maybe it would look better if I did an m1 instead? I think I will try that on the next round, and if it does, I'll rip back (ugh ugh ugh) and redo. It can't look any worse, that is for sure. One of the nice things about knitting is that it encourages experimentation and just jumping in and trying new skills. If you suck at it, or it looks horrible, you can always frog and redo. My DH cursed me this last time when I was working on the baby booties. After I completed the first one, he commented that that was the first time he had seen me NOT frog the early part of a project. Of course, I started the next bootie, and had to frog b/c it looked bad, and all it was was 30 rows of garter stitch. Lame. I told him he cursed me.

I even frogged back the early part of a prayer shawl I started knitting for a friend of mine. I feel called to knit this person a prayer shawl, even though I could think of about 5 other people I know who might "deserve" one more, in the sense that knitting is a lot of work, and I have some mixed feelings about this friend and some of the actions that she has taken in the last couple of years. She is having a tough time, and has been having a tough time for the last several years. Some of the difficulties are due to her own actions, and some are out of her control. I just keep praying for strength, wisdom, clarity, and compassion for her, and maybe it will rub off on me too.

I am knitting the prayer shawl using the pattern from Shawl Ministry, which is put together by the same women who wrote Knitting Into the Mystery: A Guide to the Shawl-Knitting Ministry. I did throw in a few rows of popcorn/trinity stitch, but decided it required too much attention for something that should be meditative. I am knitting the shawl using Patons SWS. I was hoping it would be a softer, but it IS 70% wool, and most people on the KnittyBoard think it's plenty soft, so maybe it will be fine for her.

Sometimes when I knit, I pray while I'm knitting, and sometimes I listen to mp3 sermons from the former minister of the church that I attend, or read religious stuff online. The ideal (for me) is that I pray with every stitch, but I am cutting myself some slack on it. I am not letting myself knit on it while watching TV, though. I had to draw the line somewhere, and besides, I have other projects I can work on during TV time.

There is a new book out from Interweave called Knitting for Peace. I flipped through it in the bookstore, and it seems really nice. Not in the sense of amazing patterns, etc., but really telling you how you can knit to change the world, to make a concrete difference in people's lives.

Knitting for Baby

Not my baby. My DH's cousin is having a baby. I knit a baby blanket for him/her (the parents aren't finding out whether it's a girl or a boy in advance), and my MIL convinced me to knit these booties. Super cute. The blanket is the Big Bad Baby Blanket from Stitch N Bitch by Debbie Stoller, and the booties are from Knitting for Baby by Melanie Falick and someone else. The blanket is in double-stranded KnitPicks Shine Sport, and the booties are in Koigu. I think I can squeeze another pair of modified booties out of the rest of the skein of Koigu. Not bad for a $12 skein.





The kleenex box is for scale. The double stranded Shine shrank up a good bit. I was expecting some shrinkage, but it did shrink up a lot. That's okay- it's a good size for a blanket, I think.

I have a bunch of baby knitting on the horizon- my friend is having a baby in November, and I'm knitting the little kid sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, plus maybe another pair of booties if I can manage it with the rest of the Koigu. Another friend is having her third baby in April- I knit Baby#2 a Big Bad Baby Blanket, so I don't want to knit the exact same blanket again- I will probably modify the inside bit to be more of a basket weave. I am going to measure the gauge of the washed/shrunk blanket to see what it is, and try to make it more square. I will wait until they know what the baby's gender is before picking the color. I am tired of yellow and red!

R&R

My DH got a revise & resubmit from his field's top journal this week. We are VERY excited. This means that he is pretty much set for first-round university interviews. Yay!

Counting my blessings!

I found a wedding picture of an ex-boyfriend of mine from high school. I looked at it, and thanked my lucky stars that it wasn't me in that picture! For more reasons than one. Dude, he's not even cute.

Memories of 9/11

Five years ago, I was working in DC, at a government agency, just down the road from the Pentagon. I had driven to work that day instead of taking the metro, because I was going to go look at an apartment, since I was planning on moving at the end of the month.

We didn't have internet in my office, but I had on NPR, and they announced that a plane hit the World Trade Center in New York. My initial thought was that it was some drunk pilot in a Cessna. Then, not that long afterwards, they announced that a second plane hit the other tower. We still didn't know what was going on. A second plane was suspicious. Some people will say that they knew right away when they heard that a second plane hit that it was terrorism. I didn't know that at all. We were confused; we didn't know how serious it was. Then, the guy down the hall came out and said that his daughter had called him and said that a plane hit the Pentagon. We had no idea what to believe- at that point, it wasn't on NPR yet, and there were so many rumors and so much speculation. I thought about leaving work, just b/c it seemed like a good excuse, not because I thought I wasn't safe.

Then my mom called me at work, crying, because she had heard that the Pentagon had been hit, and begging me to go home. I distinctly remember saying "Will it make you feel better if I go home?" and she said yes, while sobbing. I told her that if it would make her feel better, I would go home.

I tried to call DH (who was just a boyfriend at the time), but he hadn't gotten to work downtown yet. At that point, we started realizing how serious it was, so I started getting scared. I couldn't get hold of DH, so I decided to just leave without getting hold of him. I was scared, because I was in a government building, and we had no idea what would happen next.

I refused to take the highway home; we seriously had no idea what would happen next. DH called me on my cell when I was in the car, so I drove to the closest metro station and waited for him until he got there.

Sept. 11, 2001 was about five weeks after my best friend died, and I was still really raw emotionally. My DH remembered reactions that I had to the attacks that I don't remember at all, that sound really crazy now, but were a result of just not thinking straight. The two events are always pretty closely associated in my mind, and it seemed unimaginable that my best friend wasn't around to see the world changed so much for the worse. In a way, I was glad that he didn't have to see it.

Sick again.

Well, I got sick again. This time after my cross-country flight back home. It was rough, with the no-liquid ban. On my flight out, the attendants were great about going through plenty of times with water (3 times on a four hour flight), since we could bring none on ourselves. On my flight home, though, there was no beverage service at all on my first 45 minute flight (due to turbulance), but I chugged a 16 oz bottle of water during my layover (I did this in the airport before my first flight as well).

On my second flight, the 4+ hour one, the flight attendants went through once with the beverage cart, I got my 8 oz bottle of Dasani water, and then several hours later, went through again. NO WATER. They were completely out. I had assumed this was an airline issue, not a flight attendant issue, but I was wrong. I overheard the flight attendant saying that she forgot to check their supply of bottled water, and assumed that catering had left enough. WRONG. It was terrible.

I ended up coming down with a cold two days afterwards, I am sure it is from the plane- a combination of dirtiness plus the incredibly dry air plus dehydration. Nice, and oh-so-fun. I am finally on the mend, mostly, though.

My friend says I have "grad student syndrome." Meaning that I am so stressed out that my immune system is depressed and I keep catching these low-grade bugs. I totally agree.

Books

Despite the fact that grad students generally don't have much time to read, I say "Screw that!" and read for fun anyway.

In the last year or so, it seems like I've been reading A LOT of non-fiction, and I am kind of sick of it. I am slowly slogging my way through Collapse by Jared Diamond, which is good, but way too detailed, depressing, and pretty dry. (How can it be good, then? The information in it is really thought provoking.)

I am now in the market for some good fiction. I like to read relatively smart, yet accessible fiction (what some people call "middlebrow."). Possession, by A.S. Byatt is a great example of this. I tend to like books that have won the Booker Prize (now called the Man Booker Prize). Possession won, and so have The Remains of the Day and Life of Pi, both of which I enjoyed tremendously. I also read fun chick lit, when I am looking for something lighter. My all-time favorite in this category is the duet of Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, but other good ones are Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner, Diary of a Mad Bride by Laura Her-Name-Eludes-Me, and most recently, The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger (no, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I want to because Meryl Streep is really good).

So far, on my list, I have Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, On Beauty by Zadie Smith (it's a retelling of Howards End by E.M. Forster, another book that I enjoyed), and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I am looking for more. Any suggestions?

Finally got my password back!

I lost my Blogger password, and only got a new one a few days ago. So I'm back!

I'm trying to get back in a work groove lately. Working 20 hours a week on school sounds totally doable in theory, but in practice, it is hard for me.

It's been really hot where we live, and our AC is pretty crappy. No fun. This has made it even harder for me, because I will go somewhere else to do my work, only to find that I've left my power cord at home, or my data set is in my email account and I'm in a place where I don't have internet access, or I don't have a copy of the survey I gave to students, etc. So after at least three of these episodes, I have my act together, and I've done the tiniest bit of work, which is mostly cleaning up my data set and running a couple of little things. Hey, it's a start.

I had to have a short "Come to Jesus" talk with DH. I am going to try to go without anti-depressants. To do this, though, I told him that it would be a significantly more expensive proposition, because it means things like weekly therapy sessions, and a dissertation coach to get my ass into gear. These are not cheap propositions, especially compared to the $30 a month that anti-depressants would cost. I needed to make sure he was on board with all this money, because things are tight right now.

I currently have a prescription for a new brand of anti-depressant that I filled, but haven't taken yet. We will see how the drug-free, expensive route goes.