annoyances, offset by geeker joy
This afternoon I went to two employment-related meetings, one about prospects for teaching appointments next year and the other about the job market. I left with the sense that it is statistically more likely that I will be abducted by aliens than that I will be employed at any point in the next five years. En route to the bus stop, I considered, briefly, the possibility of throwing over this whole professional geek thing and finishing up my massage certification instead.
Then I remembered what my life is like when I'm not teaching, and vowed to persevere. I am, after all, both smart (if lazy) and stubborn, and really, careers have been built on less.
Plus, I came home and started cleaning off my desk while listening to ridiculous dance music, and I came across my graphical representation of The History Of The Novel (it's sort of a flowchart -- lots of arrows), which makes me smile, because as truepenny said yesterday, I really do know about this stuff. Which makes me happy, because -- see above re: stubbornness -- someday I will manage to make somebody pay me to hang out with students all day and talk about it. The mere possibility of having that as a life is enough to carry me through far more depressing days than this.
Also, I have planned a dinner party. Menu's not totally finalized yet -- I have to go to the market in the morning and see whether the first asparagus is any good -- but is likely to be something like this:
- french bread with sundried tomato butter
- cream of asparagus soup; or, possibly, cream of sunchoke soup
- spring greens & chevre tart with anise hyssop (if I can find it) or fennel
- white bean salad with ramps
- chocolate-glazed pound cake