I am pretty sure that I have said this before, but I am done. Have applied for so many jobs that have gone beyond being frustrated and no longer care anymore. A good analogy for the way I am feeling is going for a run (comes to mind since have just finished Haruki Murakami – What I Talk About When I Talk About Running). When you start out you are excited and energetic, but then you start to feel the pain and wonder what you are doing before eventually breaking through so that it becomes mechanical and your mind can wander onto topics other than the pain (on which the volume is turned down). So, I am in the mechanical phase at the moment, just flicking off ‘academic’ job applications and looking elsewhere at other options.
Right now we are looking at the options downunder. Eyes were on the ‘lucky country’, now have turned to consider the home country as well. Funny, the decision to consider home was driven by someone saying to P at work that NZ is like paradise on earth. Not sure I agree, but would be a nice break from here. P has found an interesting job there and is looking into it. This is not something that I saw in my future, at least not short-term, funny how things roll around over time and what pops up.
The lack of progress in academic jobs has led me to start looking seriously at ‘normal’ jobs. One thing that I noticed after a quick search is that there are a LOT more jobs that I am able to apply for. Skills much more transferrable when you get out of that game. P says that now that I am looking at normal jobs I will be offered an academic position. I do not agree, yet will keep trying anyway. The other thing is that I am actually excited about the idea of entering the workforce in a non-academic setting. While there are lots of good things about academic settings it is a very insular world, when you start looking outside the world really starts to open up. The pressure to produce and put up with bs is just not the same, hard work and merit are rewarded, rather than everything depending on who is backing you and where you have published. Is a nice feeling.
The hard copy of the thesis showed up in the post yesterday (from Australia). It was significantly cheaper to get the thesis printed in Australia and sent to the University (with one copy coming to me here in the UK) than it was just to get printed and bound here. The printer/binder I contacted here over a month ago has yet to respond. Is yet another example of the fact that Australians are actually much more efficient than people in the UK. Never would have guessed it before, things here just do not get done with the same degree of care and attention to detail.
P is on holiday for three weeks from this evening. Has been a long time coming and she is certainly ready for it, the level of managerial incompetence at work is rapidly rising despite being quite high originally. Have nice breaks planned in Cambridgeshire and Northumberland (remote coastal cottage), with day trips to Sheffield and York as well. I am looking forward to getting away from Rotherham and my daily view over the town for a while. The place gets you down after a while. It is not so much the town itself (although is a bit gloomy), rather it is the feeling that we have reached a dead-end and can’t find reverse (until February).
Anyway, that is enough for now. Time for me to go and apply for some jobs…




















