Whatever Happened to me Last Week?

By Friday evening, when I was 100% recovered from my angst and blog-post filled week, I thought about all I wrote and felt a little puzzled as to why I got so worked up in the first place!

Why in the world did I start stressing out about how I'm never going to have a tenure track job, blah, blah, blah... when the one genuine worry I had starting on Monday was whether I will have my lecturer job back in the Fall or not.

I was not expecting to be interviewed for the TT position. I applied because I knew I should and that was that. I have blogged multiple times about the issues I was stressing about last week and although it is very true that I love research and would like to continue to pursue it, for the time being I am happy simply having a job.

One of the things that happened was that I got worked up again regarding the whole adjunct position situation and the dismal state of the academic job market and academic departments and universities hiring practices.

And the more I thought and wrote about it, the more worked up I became. Sigh... (I admit this now rather sheepishly). I believe in every word I wrote, I don't retract any of it, I just hope I can be more rational and even-minded in the future (nah... I don't think that's going to happen).

I have calmed down considerably. If worse comes to worse I'll just teach two classes at each school and make considerably less money (24k+16k=40, maybe 42. Which is similar to what I have this year). I will continue to have health insurance through my husband and I guess the saddest thing to lose will be the retirement savings. :(  The problem is that I NEED to schedule the second class at the first university in the next few weeks and I wish I knew when to schedule them.

I hope the talk tomorrow will reassure me that there will still be teaching for me, maybe part-time.

The hard part will be driving the same 152 miles not being full time.

The hardest of all will be if they really cannot reassure me that there will be a job and I won't know for a few more months. In this case, I'll go right back to freaking out mode. Wish me luck at this meeting tomorrow!

P.S. and in case you're wondering, closing went SUPER smoothly on Friday morning. It took only about 20 minutes and the rate is actually 2.625% (not 2.65 as I had shared earlier). Unbelievably low!