I've become addicted to the website jobs.ac.uk. Each time I visit, I see more and more postings that might, just might provide me what I want. More and more I see research of interest going on in the UK. Most of it is in [Field 3], but maybe that's where I belong. Who knows? My greatest bane is trying to combine my areas in the humanities with cognitive and behavioral science, with medicine and neuropathology. What could be more humanistic than studying the behavior and minds of humans? Perhaps I'm just out in left field.
The humanists won't talk to the scientists and the scientists don't talk with the humanists. Each has something marvelous to offer the other, each is (in essence, at least in part) interested in the same phenomena. Why should research be one dimensional, when the world we experience is not? And where I sit is on the stern and reinforced fence that separates them, shouting in both directions, hoping someone on either side will notice that what I'm talking isn't nonsense. I've got enough training or background on each side of the fence to feel confident applying, but the question is whether it's enough to convince them to take me on board.
Okay, enough of my rant and plea.
Last night the Rocket Scientist and I engaged in our recent most favorite activity, talking and planning for the future. Her career is on track. Crazy things are happening at her work, however, and there is the perception that this job site may be shutting down in the next couple years, with employees shuttled out to other locations. We're thinking of having a third child, which surely plays into the matter of timing. The opportunities for her to remain in her chosen area and continue to advance are somewhat geographically limited. She'd be willing and able to relocate to the UK (there are opportunities there) but as she put it, it wouldn't be her first choice unless I had something of merit there.
I suggested that she should hone up her resume (which she's been doing this past week or so) and send it along to places that might be of interest. She should pursue her career chances, since mine hasn't exactly been driving us lately. If options or offers arise in either camp (hers or mine) that warrant our attention, we'll consider another move. Paradise doesn't really seem to be a place for us to settle down permanently. So, she looks for new opportunities (to rescue her from a ship that just may be sinking), and I continue to look for opportunities (to get off shore), and we see.
I've said I'll give it one more season. I'm not sure how committed I am to that. If she gets a good job elsewhere, I may open up a cafe/bookstore, and continue my research quietly, writing and publishing as I can. The question is how do I get where I want to be in 5 or 10, not where I want to be next year. Who knows what the future will hold?
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5 comments:
Same questions here, exactly the same.
This afternoon when my husband came home from the university we talked about "plan B" for next year - if none of us gets a job. We actually need more than one plan B. He's planning to apply for a grant to be a researcher in Brazil and then try to get a job there... sigh.
And meanwhile you guys are thinking about a third child? How great is that. I really want a third child (maybe, just maybe, it'd be a girl...), but hubby doesn't want one. Maybe you guys are younger than us (we're both 35).
I'm 38 already! And she is 34. So, nope on that last count. That kind of puts a fire under our feet, if we're going to go for a third. I've always thought 2+1 is the right number.
A third child. . . what an exciting prospect!
I'm getting to the point where I thrive on this kind of chaos--I love looking for jobs and imagining a new life. But when it comes time to choose that new life, I'm not so sure I'll be so excited.
You're certainly more adventurous than I am, looking abroad for jobs.
I still feel quite often (as I've written here before) like the father in Potok's novel In the Beginning who sinks into a depression at his diminished state, then arises like a Phoenix. I don't normally sink so low. I'd say my depressions have mostly been low-grade. Writing helps, being public about it is as much as to say, I am normal... this is normal... just depressing.
So, I look for that inspiration to climb up from the ashes of my professional life. 38. I'm 38. In five years I'll be 43. In 10, I'll be pushing 50. I took that personality quiz that you posted a few days ago, and I couldn't believe they pegged me (by my year of birth) as a "baby boomer". What? Douglas Coupland would seem to think I'm a Gen X'er (basically anyone 18-29 in 1990)... and he wrote the book on it, literally, back in 1991. It was a gift to me for Chanukah 1992. It's still on my shelf.Time keeps on ticking ticking ticking into the future.
We've lived abroad now. I always dreamt of it as a boy. It wasn't until I was 28 that I finally went overseas, for 3 months. With my Fulbright, we lived about 10 months or so in a foreign land. It was less romantic than I had imagined (especially when our car and a few thousand dollars worth of posessions were stolen three weeks in). But home for me has never been about geography. Adventure is good. It's the cumin in my curry.
OK... so you win, but your wife's still younger than me!! :) (I'm still officially 34, but will be 35 on Friday - same day ABD mom defends :)
I also thing 2+1 is cool, but it may not happen to us. Maybe someday we'll adopt a little Brazilian girl who needs a home, who knows?
Oh, my, having a car and and posessions stolen a few weeks after moving abroad must have been awful! Did you have insurance? Wow, you seem to have been through some tough things (many, OK, two of which I've learned in the comment section of blogs - interesting, huh? :) - like the almost accident, and this now)
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