kareina

It seems like the day only just started, yet here it is nearly midnight. Some day I am going to catch the person who sneaks in when I am busy doing something and changes all of the clocks to show that hours have elapsed when I think it is only minutes. Sadly, I don't have any idea what I will be able to do to them when I do.

Last night I accidentally stayed up so late I was able to attend a meeting. I think that I may have mentioned here that I was lucky enough to attend an amazingly wonderful high school. Steller is an alternative school aimed at "self motivated" students who are interested in taking charge of their own education, and the six years I spent there (grades 7 to 12) were an amazing experience that simply can't be understood by people who went to schools that didn't provide that sense of community and student power. This year is the 40th anniversary of Steller, and a bunch of us are organizing a celebration and all-school reunion, which will take place both in Anchorage, but also on line (a huge part of why I am part of the organizing committee is to make certain there are people on the ground there who are willing to provide a direct internet connection so that those of us who are far away can still participate).

Early on in the planning while we were discussing the fact that nowadays there are options for those of us who can't be there in person I started thinking about those of us who can't be there in person because they had died, and I thought "someone should put together a memorial wall for them". And, because I am a Steller graduate, I understood in that instant that since it was my idea, "someone" = "me", and set to work asking for help gathering information about the few people I knew of from Steller who had died.

That list has grown to more than 50 people since then, and each time I sit down to work on the project hours elapse. Last night was no exception--I sat down at the computer after yoga, around 23:30, and the next thing I knew it was after 03:30, and I was finally ready to upload the first draft of the set of memorial posters to GoogleDrive so that others could look at it, and hopefully, fill in some of the missing information for me. Buy a convenient coincidence last night also happened to be one of the scheduled meetings for the planning group. They usually meet in early evening, just after work Alaska time, which translates to 03:00 in the morning in my time zone. Needless to say, I don't often make those meetings, even though they are done via an internet connection. I made it to one of the early ones because I happened to wake up for a middle of the night toilet run at exactly the right time, so I dialed in with my computer. Last night, since I only just got the document unloaded right before the meeting I opted to stay up and check in.

Much to my surprise and delight, despite not getting to bed till nearly 04:00 after the meeting, I still woke up around 09:00 today. lord_kjar and I spent a lazy morning enjoying one another's company and wandering around our property discussing what we want to do in terms of landscaping, repairs to the little barn in the lower property (which, when built, wasn't put onto a stone foundation, so really needs to be raised before the bottom logs rot), building on the earth cellar, etc. I am looking forward to starting that project up again, just as soon as the last of the snow and ice is finished melting, the ground dries up a bit, and we get temps consistently above freezing so we can do stuff with concrete again.

After that we decided to head to the store because he wants to make some rice porridge, and for that we need lots of milk (and cream to turn the left over porridge into ris alamalta), but then we decided to call a friend we haven't seen in ages who lives near the small grocery store over by uni. He was in, but would't be in for that long, since he had a gaming session in the evening, so we went first to his place, where I returned the silk outfit he had purchased in China some time back, then discovered that the seams were giving out (they had serged them, and since that leaves only a single line of attachment points the stitching holes were growing and the seams were about to fail), so he gave them to us to fix for him. He wasn't in a hurry, which is a good thing, since he handed the bag to us some time before we bought this house, which means that we have had it for at least a year and a half. At the time he gave us the bag I suggested that since we are often busy, but if we used a sewing machine the repairs would go quickly, that what he should do is drop by to visit, and while we chatted we could do the mending.

That never happened, and when I started the SFI course I needed a sewing project, so took his mending with me, and re-did the trouser seams by hand. They are now flat-felled, and should last him for years. Then the bag has sat, ready to return to him ever since. So today I brought it back to him, and he returned the book that his former housemate had borrowed from me over two years ago. Good thing none of us was in a hurry!

We had a pleasant visit with him till it was time for him to head to gaming, and then we went to the store. Arrived at the one near his home at 18:03, which, most days, would be hours before closing time. However, this is a holiday weekend in Sweden, which means we were 3 minutes after closing time. Oops. I hadn't looked at a clock in hours, and though it was maybe 16:00. So we drove over to the larger grocery store, which is open every day till 23:00, even on holiday weekends.

Then we had a bit to eat, I read a story in Swedish from a collection of Astrid Lindgrin's stories to lord_kjar, and he settled down to his computer to play a game and I sat down to the hammer dulcimer to try to learn the notes for the song Hårgalåten, which we sing in choir, and I noticed a typo in the version I had typed up last week. So I moved to my computer and sat down to quickly fix that, and while I was at it decided to do some major changes to the layout and design of the document, and the next thing I knew nearly three hours had elapsed. Oops. Then I did "just a little" for the Steller memorial wall project, and this time really did manage to get done with it in only 40 minutes. However, it is now 20 after midnight, and I still want to go try to play from the new, improved, version of my document which links the names of the notes to the words that I sing, so that I can learn how to play the tune, and there is still yoga to do before I go to bed. Good thing it is a holiday weekend--today wasn't actually the Saturday it felt like, but was rather a Friday with no work or classes, and we get Monday off, too, so, with luck, I will actually manage to get to most of the things I want to do this weekend, despite regular visits from that time thief.

Thanks to the very generous offer made to me by the parents of clovis_t, I will continue to live here, at least for the next few weeks, while I focus on finishing up my thesis. I spent the day on useful tasks (like getting my new bank account active and completing the task of separating our finances) and settled in to uni work this evening. I enjoy being resilient enough to need only one day truly off before returning to work when faces with unexpected life changes.

Today has been spent acquiring data. Now I need to actually think about the data. Not thesis data, but data as to my options from here. I now have:

Solid offers of places to stay in Alaska, Seattle, and right here in Tasmania. Yup, that's correct, Crian's parents, bless them, say I am welcome to continue living with them while I finish my thesis. I've spoken to my advisor about my options (before I knew I'd be welcome to stay right where I am), and he encourages me to stay in Tassie if I can, because finishing up the thesis will be much easier. (I totally agree with that!) I've found several options for short term, casual work through the geology department, and if I try I can *possibly* manage to scrape up enough hours to support myself in a tiny apartment within walking distance to uni. I found two such places near uni, one of which I will look at in the morning, and another that I can look at on Tuesday. I also determined that the one place available through the student housing office will not suit my needs--that one is a shared house, and the stuff that is already present in the house would make it difficult to open up all of the boxes of stuff we'd packed for shipping wherever I can find work to pull out clovis_t's stuff. I've opened a bank account of my own, and as soon as I get the associated cards for that account, I'll be separating out our finances.

I can see three major short-term plans from here to finishing up the degree

A) head over seas, staying with friends/family and try to finish up that way. This would, likely, take the most amount of time to completing the degree, but would entail much fun.

B) get a place of my own, and try to earn enough money to afford it while also working hard on finishing up. This would, likely, lead to a degree much sooner than A).

C) keep living at clovis_t's parent's house, get back to work on my thesis ASAP. This would, likely, lead to the fastest completion of the degree. Alas, clovis_t, having never broken up with anyone before (I was his first girlfriend), is under the somewhat odd impression that he needs to make a "clean break", and therefore would like to not be living in the same house, even though there are sufficent rooms available for each of us to have our own.

Tomorrow, after I've caught up on sleep, I intend to actually sit down and write up all of the pros and cons associated with each path, and pick one. I am itching to *do* something towards the goal--if I'm moving locally, I want to move. If I'm heading overseas straight away, I want to be re-packing/organizing stuff and arranging shipping. If I'm staying put, I want to get back to work on the thesis straight away. But nothing is happening without sleep!

I am very, very grateful for all of the kind words, offers of assistance, hugs, and encouragement from everyone! It is much appreciated. Please also everyone who can offer the same to clovis_t as well. He is a dear friend, and I will miss him, but it is very much time for us to head our separate ways.

In a comment to a recent post I was asked: "What will you ever do when you are finished? Start something new? Do some travelling? Tell us the stories of whatever it is, please."

So I thought I'd answer here, on the off chance that she's not the one one who'd like to know what I'm hoping to do "next".

I would very much like to do some travelling between finishing my degree here in Tassie and moving on to wherever we go next. There are ever so many old friends I'd like to visit, new friends I'd like to meet, and places of wonderful natural beauty on this planet I've not seen yet. Should the timing work out that way, I wouldn't mind taking a good six months off to just travel, but if only a week or two are available, that would be fun too (I'd just focus on the "seeing old friends" part rather than the "explore new places" part of the dream).

But at this point it is all very much in the "dream" category. I don't really want to start a serious search for a post-doc or teaching position until I've got a good, solid first draft of my thesis, because I want to have a good idea of when I can reasonably expect to be finished (and therefore available). This works out well in timing, the positions I've seen advertised over the past four months or so are for teaching positions are still mostly in the "start August 2008" category, which I am certain is too soon for my schedule. Hopefully this will mean that a bunch more will come available that start in August of 2009--that would give me the opportunity for travel between degrees!

Of course, that is assuming that I go for a teaching position--all of the web pages suggest that folk are more likely to be hired for teaching at Uni after they've held a post-doc research position, and those positions are less likely to be advertised, and are more likely to have random start times, based upon when funding is approved.

Where do I want to go? Ideally I want to live somewhere which has an active SCA community, with plenty of camping events and lots of good bardic circles to fill my evenings with song. I require topography, preferably actual mountains, though rugged hills can be acceptable for a short-term home. I do not wish to live in a major city, but do require a university or small US-style "teaching college". Not too hot would be nice, real winter would be a bonus. Ideally my home would be outside of town, on a largish property with no nearby neighbours, with plenty of trees and good views of those mountains, yet still be quick and easy to get to my Uni. Even better if my home were on the sunset side of the mountain, so that the sun was at my back when I went in in the mornings, and at my back when I went home in the evenings.

What do I want to do? I'm torn--on one hand, teaching at a small, "teaching college" (US, not Australian style--I don't wish to teach teenagers!) sounds very appealing--a position wherin I do some research, but the primary focus is teaching classes. On the other hand, a strictly research position as a post-doc sounds like fun--the chance to just learn new stuff, work on projects, etc. I don't think I'd be interested (yet?) in teaching at a major university wherin I am expected to do huge amounts of research, publish my results in high-impact journals *and* teach undergraduate students as well. At least in the sort term I think I'd be happier focusing upon one or the other aspect.

And of course, all of this will be influenced by what clovis_t decides he wants to do. He's doing his honour's year for his Bachelor's in History at the moment, and hasn't yet decided if he wants to be done with Uni after that and head out into the work force, landing some sort of job that doesn't require "homework", or if he wants to plunge on ahead into academia and seek out a graduate school. If the latter, it could, in theory, be possible for us to be at the same uni, but that would require a bit of luck, in that we are in such different fields--some schools will have better geology departments, some better history departments.

It would be nice to wind up in Drachenwald (that is Europe for you non-SCA folk), since I've not lived over there since Kindergarten. clovis_t has a UK passport (his mum comes from Scotland), so if I landed a job, he'd be legally able to work in any EU country. But I'm willing to keep an open mind and look pretty much anywhere, so if any of you know of positions for which I should apply, given a background in geology/structure/mapping/metamorphic petrology/pressure-temperature-time paths/chemical U-Th-Pb monazite dating/garnet zoning, etc. let me know!