Job Updates and the saga of Schroedinger, the 3-legged hamster
Some brief notes before I go into my current epic. For those of you whose packages were promised by me to have been mailed some time ago: they have been mailed today. Damn Indiana and their stupid mailing-of-alcohol hangups. Infinite apologies for the delay.
Some depressing news on the job front: I received a rejection letter (a form letter, no less) from the Minnesota Historical Society a few days ago, which was somewhere I really wanted to work, because I've heard it's a really nice place and also because my best friend lives in Minnesota and we have been talking for years about how cool it would be to live in the same state, which we haven't done since we were 12. Also, it seemed like my qualifications were quite well suited for the position. But alas, they did not seem to think so. But the annoying thing is that they have just re-posted the job on a new job database (had originally seen it on the AAM website; now in the American Job Bank). So here's the two questions of the day, boys and girls: 1) Do I reapply for the job again, or would that be too pesky? And 2) If I do reapply, should I mention to them in the altered cover letter that I send that I have already applied for this position, but feel they consider me further because...? (I don't want them to think that I am just blindly applying for jobs and am such an idiot that I can't remember what I have and haven't applied for.)
I've also just sent off an application for a job with the Western Historical Manuscript Collection in Columbia, Missouri. It pays much, much less than I was hoping to get for my first real professional job, but at this point I can't afford to be picky, and it's not unbearable pay. It would just mean that we couldn't get our student loans paid off as fast as we'd hoped. Plus, Columbia looks like a nice place to live, with lots of colleges nearby for Jeremy to look into if he wants to go back to school, and the manuscript collection looks interesting as well as a lot like what I have been working with at the Mathers for the last couple of years. And it's about a 6-hour radius from Bloomington as well as Tulsa, Kansas, and Arkansas, so we'd be about equidistant from our families and friends in all locations. So if you have any to spare, send the job karma my way! :) Thanks muchly in advance...
So on to the hamster part. We are now the owners of a 3-legged hamster. A very recently 3-legged hamster, I might add. Long story short, we somewhat morbidly named him Schroedinger because he spent the night in an empty Christmas popcorn tin with holes punched in the top (and food and water and bedding of course) and he was pretty badly injured when he arrived. We wanted to disturb him as little as possible, and since we wouldn't know if he was alive or dead until we opened the tin...hence his christening. The full, long, and somewhat detailed manner of his acquisition can be perused behind the cut...
Jeremy's boss (he works as an administrator in the IU dormitories) heard a weird noise in the ceiling, and had a maintenance man come out to investigate. What the guy found was in fact a little hamster, undoubtedly escaped from where it was illicitly being kept in someone's dorm room. It had gotten its little leg tangled in some wiring and was caught. Jeremy says that the guy said his leg was broken when they found him; however, since Jeremy described the hamster as "a champion screamer," and the screaming didn't start until the maintenance man started messing with him, I have my own theory on how careful the maintenance guy was in getting the little dude out. The poor little rodent's left hind foot was twisted all the way around, and the vet said when I took him in this morning that there was even a little bone stump sticking out. :(
So Jeremy brought him home, and was going to take him to the Monroe County shelter, but they were closed for staff training. So instead he found an empty Christmas popcorn tin, punched some holes in the top, and filled it with some of Jackie Stripe's bedding and food, and water in an empty Altoids tin. When I got home, I didn't want to let J take him to the shelter, because I was afraid that they would put him down instead of trying to help his poor leg...and he is a very bright and cheerful little guy, and even with his nasty little leg he was still sniffing our fingers and taking some of the food and water we gave him. So I managed to get him an appointment at our vet (plug to Bloomingtoners: Combs Veterinary Clinic are really super nice people!!! I highly recommend them!) for the next morning, and we left him in his tin overnight (and he obtained his name).
The vet took a look at him, and said that he seemed friendly and perky and interested in everything--she said if he had been depressed and not eating, she would have recommended euthanasia, but as it was, if I was willing to spend the money on him, she thought he had a good prognosis if his leg (which was getting black and foul-smelling by this point) was amputated. So we paid a sum that could have bought us many more hamsters (not to mention having to buy a second cage, since it would be really stressful on him to have to deal with another hamster, and they're not really social even under normal circumstances)...but I think that it's not fair to put a dollar value on the little guy's life, or in other words, to kill him just because it's less expensive to try and save him. He's an otherwise healthy animal and was still eating and drinking and hobbling around the popcorn tin on his poor little stump when I left him at the vet this morning.
He survived the surgery. The vet said he did extremely well, actually, although I thought he looked MUCH worse than he did when I left him there. Which is not to say that his leg would have been better off if it hadn't been amputated...but the hardship of his situation was devinitely beginning to visibly set in. The vet was very cheerful and seemed to think that he would be just fine, so here's hoping. He took his antibiotics and pain meds with relatively good grace, and seems to have swallowed them (I didn't see any of the yellow antibiotics on his chin, which is a good sign). Although he's been huddling miserably in the corner of his cage since I put him in there, he has also been feebly rearranging his bedding, and he drank quite a bit of water when I offered it to him, and he has been grooming himself over in his little corner (although I have to watch him so that he doesn't chew his surgery wound, which has been sealed with absorbable stitches and then medically glued shut), and he seems to have nibbled a little on the hamster strawberry treat I put in, and has either eaten or hoarded a few Cheerios, which is also a tentatively good sign, although I would have been happier if I could have seen him eating them.
So since the little guy is still very, very much in the throes of the healing process (at least, I hope it's the healing process, and not the other end of the spectrum), any happy rodent karma you have kicking around would be welcome as well.
If he makes it, I will be the only person I have ever known with an amputee hamster. Which will have to be my interesting introductory factoid if I ever go on the game show "Distraction." Not a particular goal of mine, but it's a funny thought nonetheless. As I am tired and punchy, I am going to log for the night, but despite the fact that an actual scientific study has shown that prayer doesn't have the power to heal that various parties thought it did (surprise, surprise), in the event that good thoughts might have an effect--or at least in an effort to make me feel better for the poor little rodent--please send happy thoughts Schroedinger's way, if you could be so kind, and I will be updating on him as his healing progresses one way or the other.
On that cheerful note, adieu et bonne nuit...
Some depressing news on the job front: I received a rejection letter (a form letter, no less) from the Minnesota Historical Society a few days ago, which was somewhere I really wanted to work, because I've heard it's a really nice place and also because my best friend lives in Minnesota and we have been talking for years about how cool it would be to live in the same state, which we haven't done since we were 12. Also, it seemed like my qualifications were quite well suited for the position. But alas, they did not seem to think so. But the annoying thing is that they have just re-posted the job on a new job database (had originally seen it on the AAM website; now in the American Job Bank). So here's the two questions of the day, boys and girls: 1) Do I reapply for the job again, or would that be too pesky? And 2) If I do reapply, should I mention to them in the altered cover letter that I send that I have already applied for this position, but feel they consider me further because...? (I don't want them to think that I am just blindly applying for jobs and am such an idiot that I can't remember what I have and haven't applied for.)
I've also just sent off an application for a job with the Western Historical Manuscript Collection in Columbia, Missouri. It pays much, much less than I was hoping to get for my first real professional job, but at this point I can't afford to be picky, and it's not unbearable pay. It would just mean that we couldn't get our student loans paid off as fast as we'd hoped. Plus, Columbia looks like a nice place to live, with lots of colleges nearby for Jeremy to look into if he wants to go back to school, and the manuscript collection looks interesting as well as a lot like what I have been working with at the Mathers for the last couple of years. And it's about a 6-hour radius from Bloomington as well as Tulsa, Kansas, and Arkansas, so we'd be about equidistant from our families and friends in all locations. So if you have any to spare, send the job karma my way! :) Thanks muchly in advance...
So on to the hamster part. We are now the owners of a 3-legged hamster. A very recently 3-legged hamster, I might add. Long story short, we somewhat morbidly named him Schroedinger because he spent the night in an empty Christmas popcorn tin with holes punched in the top (and food and water and bedding of course) and he was pretty badly injured when he arrived. We wanted to disturb him as little as possible, and since we wouldn't know if he was alive or dead until we opened the tin...hence his christening. The full, long, and somewhat detailed manner of his acquisition can be perused behind the cut...
Jeremy's boss (he works as an administrator in the IU dormitories) heard a weird noise in the ceiling, and had a maintenance man come out to investigate. What the guy found was in fact a little hamster, undoubtedly escaped from where it was illicitly being kept in someone's dorm room. It had gotten its little leg tangled in some wiring and was caught. Jeremy says that the guy said his leg was broken when they found him; however, since Jeremy described the hamster as "a champion screamer," and the screaming didn't start until the maintenance man started messing with him, I have my own theory on how careful the maintenance guy was in getting the little dude out. The poor little rodent's left hind foot was twisted all the way around, and the vet said when I took him in this morning that there was even a little bone stump sticking out. :(
So Jeremy brought him home, and was going to take him to the Monroe County shelter, but they were closed for staff training. So instead he found an empty Christmas popcorn tin, punched some holes in the top, and filled it with some of Jackie Stripe's bedding and food, and water in an empty Altoids tin. When I got home, I didn't want to let J take him to the shelter, because I was afraid that they would put him down instead of trying to help his poor leg...and he is a very bright and cheerful little guy, and even with his nasty little leg he was still sniffing our fingers and taking some of the food and water we gave him. So I managed to get him an appointment at our vet (plug to Bloomingtoners: Combs Veterinary Clinic are really super nice people!!! I highly recommend them!) for the next morning, and we left him in his tin overnight (and he obtained his name).
The vet took a look at him, and said that he seemed friendly and perky and interested in everything--she said if he had been depressed and not eating, she would have recommended euthanasia, but as it was, if I was willing to spend the money on him, she thought he had a good prognosis if his leg (which was getting black and foul-smelling by this point) was amputated. So we paid a sum that could have bought us many more hamsters (not to mention having to buy a second cage, since it would be really stressful on him to have to deal with another hamster, and they're not really social even under normal circumstances)...but I think that it's not fair to put a dollar value on the little guy's life, or in other words, to kill him just because it's less expensive to try and save him. He's an otherwise healthy animal and was still eating and drinking and hobbling around the popcorn tin on his poor little stump when I left him at the vet this morning.
He survived the surgery. The vet said he did extremely well, actually, although I thought he looked MUCH worse than he did when I left him there. Which is not to say that his leg would have been better off if it hadn't been amputated...but the hardship of his situation was devinitely beginning to visibly set in. The vet was very cheerful and seemed to think that he would be just fine, so here's hoping. He took his antibiotics and pain meds with relatively good grace, and seems to have swallowed them (I didn't see any of the yellow antibiotics on his chin, which is a good sign). Although he's been huddling miserably in the corner of his cage since I put him in there, he has also been feebly rearranging his bedding, and he drank quite a bit of water when I offered it to him, and he has been grooming himself over in his little corner (although I have to watch him so that he doesn't chew his surgery wound, which has been sealed with absorbable stitches and then medically glued shut), and he seems to have nibbled a little on the hamster strawberry treat I put in, and has either eaten or hoarded a few Cheerios, which is also a tentatively good sign, although I would have been happier if I could have seen him eating them.
So since the little guy is still very, very much in the throes of the healing process (at least, I hope it's the healing process, and not the other end of the spectrum), any happy rodent karma you have kicking around would be welcome as well.
If he makes it, I will be the only person I have ever known with an amputee hamster. Which will have to be my interesting introductory factoid if I ever go on the game show "Distraction." Not a particular goal of mine, but it's a funny thought nonetheless. As I am tired and punchy, I am going to log for the night, but despite the fact that an actual scientific study has shown that prayer doesn't have the power to heal that various parties thought it did (surprise, surprise), in the event that good thoughts might have an effect--or at least in an effort to make me feel better for the poor little rodent--please send happy thoughts Schroedinger's way, if you could be so kind, and I will be updating on him as his healing progresses one way or the other.
On that cheerful note, adieu et bonne nuit...