(no subject)
GODDAMMIT, I have missed Yuletide nominations and it looks like most of my front-runner favourites are either ineligible or haven't been nominated. Seriously, people, we have to talk. I applaud your good taste in nominating RocknRolla and what looks like Georgette Heyer's entire back catalogue, but where's The Dark Is Rising? Where's The Prisoner? Why in the name of all that is holy is The Sarah Jane Adventures missing?
In addition, I have just rage-eaten most of a tub of Strawberry Cheesecake Haagen-Dazs so that I don't go over to my office-mate's house and punch her in the throat. I think this is, despite two years of her crying everywhere, breaking my stuff, and NEVER EVER SHUTTING THE FUCK UP, the angriest I have ever been with her. She started a year ahead of me and she's just finishing writing up her thesis, right? I have a few months to go before I have to get serious about submitting the thesis, but this July past I got approached by someone who's looking for a Research Associate for a new research project. He's quite happy to take me on while I finish the PhD and we've emailed back and forward, before we had what equated to an informal interview over the phone. This post would be IDEAL, not just in terms of timing but in terms of research focus. It would make use of all the research I've done for the PhD, and it would involve research and teaching, which I love. I'm pretty excited about this as an opportunity because it seems like an excellent avenue for my own specialised research, but I don't want to get too excited. It's not my job; I know that. It's an open interview scenario, even though the project leader has been in almost-constant touch with me and the job specs seem tailor-made for me.
Now, office-mate has spent the last two years (crying and) telling me how she hates academia and doesn't want to stay in it. In the last month alone, she has debated doing another Masters after the PhD, quitting two weeks before her submission date because, and I quote, 'we're all wasting our time with a PhD', getting pregnant, applying for a post-doc about music and popular culture for which she is qualified, and applying for an archivist post which she described as 'her dream job. It's what I've always wanted to do.' In that time, she has applied for exactly nothing and committed to nothing.
That's absolutely fair enough, I think, because she's writing up a thesis: this is a high-stress time, you have to prioritise, she has a lot of commitments. Except today she told me that she hasn't bothered applying for any of the posts that she actually wanted to do, even though the archivist post application date doesn't expire for another two days, and then asked if I minded if she applied for Research Associate post: the job for which, let me be very clear here, she does not have the research background, which she does not actually know the details of, and which, as an academic post, she has spent the last two years telling me she does not want to do. Of course, it is an open interview post and I have absolutely no claim on it, so I smiled as best as I could and said, 'Of course not. You should apply.' But I do mind. I mind horribly. I mind so much that I want to defenestrate her repeatedly onto my landlady's bins. She has had multiple opportunities to apply for posts that she might want and she has done nothing, but when it gets to something that I would love to do and I have a chance at, she's right there, gegging in and simpering at me.
That is why I have eaten all of the ice-cream. Well, that and the fact that nobody has nominated Welcome to the Punch for Yuletide and there will be no James McAvoy/Mark Strong slash for Christmas. OH, WHAT A WORLD, WHAT A WORLD, ETC.
Here endeth the whinging.
In addition, I have just rage-eaten most of a tub of Strawberry Cheesecake Haagen-Dazs so that I don't go over to my office-mate's house and punch her in the throat. I think this is, despite two years of her crying everywhere, breaking my stuff, and NEVER EVER SHUTTING THE FUCK UP, the angriest I have ever been with her. She started a year ahead of me and she's just finishing writing up her thesis, right? I have a few months to go before I have to get serious about submitting the thesis, but this July past I got approached by someone who's looking for a Research Associate for a new research project. He's quite happy to take me on while I finish the PhD and we've emailed back and forward, before we had what equated to an informal interview over the phone. This post would be IDEAL, not just in terms of timing but in terms of research focus. It would make use of all the research I've done for the PhD, and it would involve research and teaching, which I love. I'm pretty excited about this as an opportunity because it seems like an excellent avenue for my own specialised research, but I don't want to get too excited. It's not my job; I know that. It's an open interview scenario, even though the project leader has been in almost-constant touch with me and the job specs seem tailor-made for me.
Now, office-mate has spent the last two years (crying and) telling me how she hates academia and doesn't want to stay in it. In the last month alone, she has debated doing another Masters after the PhD, quitting two weeks before her submission date because, and I quote, 'we're all wasting our time with a PhD', getting pregnant, applying for a post-doc about music and popular culture for which she is qualified, and applying for an archivist post which she described as 'her dream job. It's what I've always wanted to do.' In that time, she has applied for exactly nothing and committed to nothing.
That's absolutely fair enough, I think, because she's writing up a thesis: this is a high-stress time, you have to prioritise, she has a lot of commitments. Except today she told me that she hasn't bothered applying for any of the posts that she actually wanted to do, even though the archivist post application date doesn't expire for another two days, and then asked if I minded if she applied for Research Associate post: the job for which, let me be very clear here, she does not have the research background, which she does not actually know the details of, and which, as an academic post, she has spent the last two years telling me she does not want to do. Of course, it is an open interview post and I have absolutely no claim on it, so I smiled as best as I could and said, 'Of course not. You should apply.' But I do mind. I mind horribly. I mind so much that I want to defenestrate her repeatedly onto my landlady's bins. She has had multiple opportunities to apply for posts that she might want and she has done nothing, but when it gets to something that I would love to do and I have a chance at, she's right there, gegging in and simpering at me.
That is why I have eaten all of the ice-cream. Well, that and the fact that nobody has nominated Welcome to the Punch for Yuletide and there will be no James McAvoy/Mark Strong slash for Christmas. OH, WHAT A WORLD, WHAT A WORLD, ETC.
Here endeth the whinging.