Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Catching up: parties, applications, surgeries

Today is effectively the very first day of my "summer vacation 2012" -  3 months of not much work & no paycheck. I didn't have a paycheck for 5 years before this, but somehow now that I'm back to the "workforce" (though still working in the margins), it does bother me a lot not to have a salary in the next months. Sigh...

Next year I will have it for at least a month when I teach for the study abroad in Brazil which reminds me that I do have to work this summer planning that. And I am being paid (my airfare to Brazil and some other expenses). I am grateful and I will plan this diligently in spite of the fact that the application that I sent on Monday afternoon makes me uneasy as to my future at either place.

Regarding the application, I emailed several colleagues and by the end of the weekend I was not so sure that it was an internal hire anymore. And when K read the posting he thought it was for a one year position (although that is not in the text), so... we'll see. I did send it with pretty minimal stress (phew!) and my former co-advisor thinks the materials look great and that the new class I designed is creative and good. It's always good to have positive feedback, especially from her (if you're a longtime reader you may remember how tough her feedback was when I was writing the dissertation).

OK, on to the next topic, the parties... I still want to post photos of the small wedding shower we had for our friends and... on Sunday we had a HUGE party for Linton's 8th birthday, I have to come back and blog about it and post photos of him finding out about his big surprise (after an exhausting 16 stop treasure hunt with all 20+ kids running around the yard).

Surgeries:
I never gave you an update on my mother-in-law's thyroid cancer, did I? She had surgery and then radioactive iodine treatment (last week, so she couldn't be close to the two grandchildren who live in Brazil for mother's day :( -- the stuff lingers in your body for a while and it would be harmful for the children). We now wait for the result of the full body CT scan she had, but we're confident that nothing will be found, like my in my brother-in-law's (he's doing great, the surgery incision and the burning in his leg from the radiation healed beautifully, but his leg still swells up frequently). Last, but not least, my father-in-law is having his gall bladder surgically removed today. I hope it goes well!

I guess that's it for updates. I need to post a recent photo of my cute nephew who lives in New Zealand. My parents are still there visiting my brother's family, but on Sunday they return to Brazil via Australia (will spend a few days there) and South Africa.

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