take it as it comes

Things on the job front are still more or less the same. The final candidate is finished today, which means that they will likely meet to decide later this week. Then, the decision goes up the chain before an offer can be made. This means that I’m likely going to be waiting another week at minimum. C’est la vie. By a stroke of good luck, I found that a local institution (near to Red State University, that is) is hiring two people to do exactly what Spouse did for 9 years. This means that if I got an offer, Spouse would have a good chance of also having a well-paying job that takes advantage of his skill set. I almost can’t fathom what life would be like for us to have good jobs in the same location.

In other news, I took the Foreign Services Officer Exam on Friday afternoon. While I won’t know anything for at least another 3 weeks, I feel pretty good about my performance. Time will tell, of course, but I will remain hopeful. If things went well, I advance to the next stage. The whole process can take a year, so I’m holding out hope that something pans out for us in the meantime.

After contending with a lot of pain and intestinal issues and having a battery of tests (including a colonoscopy…yay), my doctor has confirmed that indeed have IBS. I’ve been put on a highly restrictive diet that is supposed to eliminate my symptoms, but it’s quite difficult. Most of the things I really like are now verboten, so I anticipate losing a lot of weight. This might not be such a bad thing, but on the other hand, it sure would be nice to eat some bread or pasta here and there. To get some perspective on what I’ve been limited to, here’s a handy-dandy chart that separates the good from the bad.

Yeah. This will be interesting.

Advertisements

waving hi

So it’s been a long while, dear readers. I have been insanely busy with finishing an article, teaching a summer class, travel, packing, moving, having surgery, and recovering. (And in my spare time…ha!) In brief, here are some RBOC:

The article is nearly done. Another 3-4 hours of work over a day or two, and it’ll be shipped out. I am averaging about 2 pubs a year, which isn’t terrible when you consider my teaching schedule.

The summer class went well. I was actually sorry to see it end. What a great bunch of students!

At the end of summer session, I flew to be with the Spouse. We took a weekend trip to New Orleans with some friends as a kind of last hurrah. We had quite a time! I also got hooked on bounce, which is a style of rap particular to New Orleans that involves a lot of booty popping. One of my faves is here

Packing and moving the Spouse up to New Job town went fairly well, other than UHaul dicking us over the day before we were going to pick up our truck. Luckily, Penske rescued us. Also, about 2 hours into our drive north, the bike and rack flew off the back of the car on the interstate. I not only stopped in record time, but also grabbed the bike and rack out of the middle of the highway without getting severely injured or killed. Good times.

I had sinus surgery on Monday, and it went very well. At today’s follow-up, my doctor noted that I was doing an amazing job with my neti pot rinses. Already, I am breathing better than I have in years ( or possibly ever). Here’s hoping that I have approximately zero illnesses this fall/winter.

That’s about it. The semester begins next Wednesday, and blogging will normalize then.

rboc

• This song is one hell of an earworm. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I like a top-40 type song as much as I do

• I just finished watching Twin Peaks in its entirety. David Lynch is a sick, twisted man. That shit disturbed my sleep something fierce!

• My first full week of teaching is done, and I feel good. The students are really engaged and smart, and who wouldn’t want a class with only 5 people? Next week is abbreviated so that I can go back to Sleepy Southern Town to be with Spouse for our 5th anniversary. We have no plans, and that’s fine by me. Once I leave, we’ll go over 3 weeks without seeing each other. On the other hand, that marks his move here.

• Earlier this week, I Skyped with a person who served on a search committee for one of the many jobs I didn’t get. She is interested in my work, and so I may be collaborating with her and her research team on developing an assessment on children’s…pastry-making skills. (Keeping up the pseudonyms and all.) This is exciting, but a little weird. I’m very curious to see who they hired and try to figure out why. At any rate, at least I will get to collaborate with a person doing interesting research who is also one of the coolest people I’ve ever met on a campus visit.

• Speaking of hiring, I have received absolutely no response from Farflung U. I am writing them off completely, and just in the nick of time. It seems that things aren’t going so well there, and I would be freaking the hell out if I knew we were headed there in a little over a month.

• Now that we know where we will be living after next month, I’ve been in full force trying to get stuff set up for the new place. I also need to get writing so that I can crank out another article by the end of the summer. I may put off doing class prep until August when I’ll be recovering from sinus surgery. A few afternoons in the office should put me in a good position to meet all of my objectives and still have a little fun in the process. Summer is off to a great start!

a post on health (or lack thereof)

Talking to the Spouse today, I really reflected on how awful my health has been over the past few years. Really, I feel like I have been sick more than not.  Given that I’m not yet 30 and also don’t have any overtly unhealthy habits, this is a problem. People my age should not be this sick this often.

I know that the last few years have not been so kind to me, with finishing grad school, a punishing job search, multiple deaths in my family, moving away, living apart from the spouse, family drama, etc. Even still, at a certain point, I need to make peace with all of that. I can’t keep living like this, if you can even call it living. Stress is of course one component of all this madness, but I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t something else going on, too.

One potential solution may be for me to become more of an omnivore and incorporate more animal products (yes, even meat) into my diet. Under normal circumstances, a vegetarian diet can be plenty, but perhaps I need more. This feels like a drastic step, and one that I will undertake only after some serious thought. I wouldn’t become a full-on meat eater, but once or twice a week at most. I’d still choose humane and sustainable options over the factory-farmed stuff, particularly since I’m trying to be healthier. (I can’t possibly see how an animal who has been fed a poor diet, pumped full of antibiotics, and subjected to abuse would actually produce something edible.)

I’m also going to rethink some of my work habits. Many a weekend has been spent doing work, and I think that shifting my schedule around to allow for weekends off would do me good. I have plenty of time during the week to get things done, and it will be even easier if I set aside the weekends for taking care of myself and my needs (including the need for rest and leisure).

It’s certainly a work in progress, but one that I hope pays off in better health and a happier me.

treading water

Ironically, actual treading water is easy for me, as I played water polo in college.  This more figurative treading water, however, is much more difficult.

I have been faithfully taking allergy shots, irrigating my sinuses, and taking my medications (a steroid pill, two allergy pills, a steroid inhaler, a bronchodilator, and a steroid nose spray) for nearly 6 months now, and I still at times don’t think I’ve seen much improvement.  My morning cough has mostly gone away, to the relief of my spouse, but other problems are afoot.  My allergies have been on overdrive this week with the elevated pollen levels, and I’ve had two vicious respiratory infections in as many months.  I would think that after all of that time, effort, and money that things would be better for me.  To make matters worse, my body doesn’t take well to the shots, so I’m constantly having to step back a dose.  In the long run, things will be better, but the short-term problems are pretty hard to contend with.

I also have a lot of opportunities in the queue, but nothing tangible yet.  I’ve waited nearly 6 weeks about the consulting opportunity that may have not dried up after all and a month for the dissertation review job (he has to hear back from HR about the hiring procedure for me).  I don’t think people understand what their delays do to me financially and emotionally, but maybe I’m just presumptive to think that they’d actually value my time and feelings.  I also wait sometimes as much as 3 weeks for reimbursement from the university for my teaching travel expenses.  It’s not a lot of money, but I resent having to carry a balance on my card (thus accruing interest) for the sake of a university that isn’t paying me jack to begin with.  This wouldn’t be a problem if incompetent people weren’t given jobs.

In short: I’m sick, I’m tired, and feeling a wee bit misanthropic.  More coffee should bring me off the ledge.

And another one gone, and another one gone

Still waiting.

Oh, and now I only have 8 toenails.

I’m going back to yoga starting today. I hope things work out OK for me and that I don’t have any pain. I pinched a nerve in my neck last night (or so I think) and it hurt like hell. I was literally just laying on the bed flat out w/ a heating pad under my neck. My whole body was just tingling, and it was weird. I woke up this morning and was more constipated than I’d ever been in my whole life. I was in an incredible amount of pain and I nearly passed out. I’m still feeling kind of sick, and I have no idea why. I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary lately. Maybe I need to drink more water or something.

I spent a lot of time this weekend working on my survey on survey monkey, and I’ve almost got it completed. I’ll finish it up today after lunch and then send it to my advisor for him to critique before our meeting tomorrow. I can’t wait to start collecting data!   /dorkiness

Currently, we have about a half gallon of vegetarian pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) we made on Thursday, a quart of homemade black bean chili, some risotto, and some broiled Italian eggplant. We aren’t going to need to cook for a week! Tonight there’s some departmental social dinner thing, and I’m thinking that if Scott can’t go, I’m not going, so as to avoid creepy dude. I know he’ll be there, b/c he comes to everything.

This weekend is our trip to Baton Rouge. It should be a hell of a good time! I need to pack my bag and also make the fried olives I promised my friend Sarah. I’ve debated just not going to work today. Why, you ask?

I’m so glad that I did it (and that’s it’s over). The actual insertion process hurt, but it wasn’t intolerable at all. The worst part to me was afterwards. I have kind of a sensitive cervix, and messing around with it makes it angry. I started sweating like crazy and got really, really nauseated. Everyone said I turned white as a sheet, and so I laid back for a few minutes with some Sprite and a cold paper towel. Once I was able to sit up and stay up, I got dressed and all was well. I cramped a bit last night and stayed in bed most of the evening, but I was well enough to help out w/ dinner.

Today I’m feeling the mildest of cramps. I could go to work today, but I may skip for my own sanity.

(Wait, I have Xanax! I can tolerate anything.)

Yo soy scurrrrred

I requested something to relax me a bit before getting the Mirena put in. I went to pick up my prescription this morning before work, and discovered that my gyn called in Xanax. Five of them. I’m hoping this isn’t a case of “they know something I don’t.”

I’m having a Xanax and 2 Advil for dessert tomorrow at lunch.

I didn’t have the best week.

I had to leave early on Monday for a dr. appt. and I didn’t feel too guilty, given that I haven’t had a gaadamn thing to do since I started this job on August 17.

Apparently some heffa was calling up to the lab starting at around 1:30 and then an hour later went to my supervisor’s office to say that there was no one in the lab. Great. I had a sign up on the door, but I guess she neglected to read it. I got an e-mail from my boss saying that I should make sure the lab is covered when I say I’ll be there, etc. I told her the circumstances and she wasn’t mad at me. Phew.

So heffa comes back on Tuesday and wants help learning how to use NVIVO (a qual research software program). Problem is, we don’t have NVIVO in our lab (yet) and I have never used it, so I couldn’t help. She was irritated, but I found some people to help her. Turns out, she has like no fucking data (5 interviews that are no more than 15 pages triple spaced does not equal sufficient data for a dissertation), no theoretical framework, and she has to have her stuff into her dissertation committee by Oct. 1st. For crying out loud, she was just that same day getting in her last interview transcripts! WTF?! According to one of the people who helped her, she basically wanted someone else to do her work for her. Uh-huh. I can help you all day long, but I’m sure as shit not doing your work FOR you. I shudder to think that she may actually earn a Ph.D. No wonder so many people don’t respect qual research…most people who do it have no idea wtf they’re doing. Sigh.

OK, so I’ve had a long string of gyno-related problems. Recently, my birth control pills were making me so ill. Migraines, mood swings, libido issues, skin problems, etc. I wanted to go off of hormonal birth control completely and chart my cycles. I went to the gynecologist on Monday to talk to him about getting off the pill and getting some resources on charting. Unfortunately, it isn’t an option for me because of my endometriosis. Until right before we want to have a kid, I have to be on some sort of hormonal intervention to keep everything under control. I’ve basically run out of options, and the only two I’m left w/ are an IUD (Mirena) and an implant (Implanon). OK. So, both of these involve a certain amount of pain at insertion, and while I’m hardly  chicken, I am so tired of having to do things that hurt. I did a ton of research and decided to go w/ an IUD. I think this will be good for me. Next Thursday, Scott will take me to Birmingham to get it put in. I’m kind of nervous, but I’m going to get a mild sedative to take beforehand and ask for a cervical anesthetic to make it as pleasant as I possibly can.

I’m just kind of sad because I feel like I don’t have a lot of control over my body. Having hormones constantly running through your system will make you completely whack, or at least it made me feel like that. One way to fix this problem for good is for me to get pregnant and have a kid. We could theoretically wing it, but we just don’t want to do that right now. It’s healthier to have time together for at least a few years before changing your life like that. The same day I get all this put on me, my mom calls me to tell me my cousin (who’s 25, not married, and lives w/ her parents) got knocked up by this guy she just started seeing. Right. It doesn’t make any sense, but I’m kind of bitter.