If something's not easy right away, it's probably not worth doing.
So I’ve survived my first week (actually half-week) at my new job. I think it’s going fine. I’ve had a few ‘oh my god I have no idea what I’m doing’ and ‘holy crap I’m bored I don’t want to do this for forever’ panic attacks, but I think that’s pretty par for the course. I’ve had enough things blow up in my face in the last year to be super-paranoid about even minor mistakes, and I’ve always been commitment-phobic, so any kind of ‘life changes’ tend to set off the voices in my head something terrible.
The work is fairly non-descript office-type work - a little higher level than I was doing at Somerville, at least when I started (so no filing, but lots of answering phones, checking emails, managing budgets and reimbursements), much more like what my job became in later years. I think I like my coworkers - I gather there have been personality clashes in the past, so everyone is acting very sensitively around me, asking how I’m doing, offering me space to voice concerns, checking in with me, all of which I don’t doubt comes from a good place, but all of which sets me on edge. If you’re going to walk around eggshells around me, I’m doing to presume that some horrible is going to happen to me. Paranoid? Sure. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not all out to get you.
I haven’t really done any work on my thesis since I got in this time (I was rewriting a chapter when I was here earlier in the month, and left it about half-done). Unfortunately I was in the midst of a migraine cycle when I flew out, and the combination of migraine, jetlag, new job stress . . . well, I thought pushing myself this week was probably not a great plan. Jane sent me a letter of introduction for Harvard’s library, but still hasn’t said anything about the examiners’ report (and I haven’t heard from Hugh since my viva), and as much as I know from past experience that the only way this thing will get done is if I stay on them, having no feedback about the referral at all makes motivating myself difficult.
The only that’s really not coming together is finding a place to live - my sister is a saint for letting me stay with her, but two people in a studio apartment really isn’t ideal. Unfortunately, because Boston is such a college town, it’s apparently nearly impossible to rent a place not in August or September. There seems to be a decent number of places available after the New Year, so I think my new plan is to find a short-term let or a sublet until then. It seems doable, and might even save me money, but it also screws up a bunch of other things. It means I probably won’t have my stuff until after the New Year, as I have no interest in moving it twice, and it probably rules out recovering my cat or seeing Sarah until then, as well, as most short-term roommate listings seem to specify both no pets and no overnight guests (because who doesn’t want to live with a friendless weirdo?!). It also means having a roommate, which I am against on principle (on the principle that people are gross and I don’t like them).
For better or worse, though, find a place to live is one of those things that I’ll just have to keep plinking away at it and hope for the best. Maybe I’ll find something, maybe something will come up, maybe I’ll end up living in the sewers and training alligators to do my bidding. Who knows!?
Stayed tuned and find out!