The lyf so short

Meanwhile - not while helping Felix to sleep, but more generally - I have been feeling restless.

I am currently absurdly addicted to checking various internet job search sites on an almost-daily basis, looking for stuff that's in my area of expertise AND desire. (There actually is a thin line where my education and my dreams sort of coincide; and around that line, there are things that a) I would like to do and I'm almost qualified for them, or that b) I'm qualified for and probably wouldn't mind too much doing. I've actually sent out a couple of applications and am considering sending out more. If I could bottle my current mood, it would be a smash hit with the job office.

I'm questioning my motivation, (more than) a bit. Yes, I need a job at some point - I don't want to be a housewife forever; I'm crap at housewifing, except for cooking - and we definitely could use a proper second income. On the other hand, is now the right time? We'd have to pay someone else to look after Felix (all his grandparents are still working), and there are no jobs of the sort I'm looking for nearby, I'd have to drive everywhere. Relocation is not an option, we're married to this house. So really, with the entry-level salary I'm looking at, I'd either bring home very little of it or would actually pay more than I earned. Which is not worth it if the true reason why I'm taking a job is "I'm tired of sitting at home with the toddler all day, all week". But that is certainly part of the motivation. The only hobbies I currently have are those I can do at home, like sewing, gardening or writing; all of these are seriously hampered by Felix, who of course has no patience for mommy doing other things. What little time I have for creative work is mostly used writing articles, which at least pay between $5 and $10 per each, to feel less useless. I would love to start Kyûdô again. I would love to join one of the local choirs. None of that is possible, at the moment, because everyone who is actually making money around here has such erratic schedules that I don't have a regular babysitter even for a few hours every week. And I'm feeling like something in me is withering, I seriously do. I'm not much of an extrovert, but I do need social intercourse every now and then. Good grief, at the moment my only source of social intercourse is Family Church on Sundays, because that's a social gathering where toddlers are explicitly welcome!

But I mustn't be selfish; I must leave other people their hobbies, particularly if those hobbies pay or if they are their only outlet from work. It's just that I need an outlet, too. And apparently, I'm currently channeling that need into applications, because if I had a job, everyone would understand that I'm not at home watching the kid. (Whom I love dearly, by the way. My frustration has nothing to do with not loving Felix.)

Oh well. So far, I haven't heard back from any of the applications, anyway. One place at least sent a "Thank you for applying, we'll let you know about our decision in due course, don't call us, we'll call you" letter; since then, nothing. I guess "part-time" and "one child" are kind of off-putting to employers. If I do hear back from them after all; if they would actually hire me for one of my dream jobs; well, it would at least be a foot in the door. It's all two-year contracts, anyway. Two years: Is not that awkward, with half a year probation; and what about our plans to have a second child about now? But I guess I shouldn't bother with the less-than-dream-jobs.

I'm officially self-employed, but I think I shall call that off; I didn't want it in the first place, but it seemed like a chance at the time. Now that the person who initiated it has turned out to be rather less reliable than expected, and myself not exactly apt at promoting myself to find another employer, and sort of burned on that, anyway, there isn't much sense in it anymore. The little writing I get done doesn't pay enough to even get close to the line drawn between "recreational freelancing" and "professional freelancing".

I am obviously long enough out of university that I'm looking back at it with a longing eye. (One of the jobs I applied for was actually a university job -- teaching English linguistics at the university in Essen.) I'm wondering whether maybe I should try for a Ph.D.. I did enjoy doing research; after a couple of years being forced to do it, I even enjoyed presenting the results of my research. And if I wanted to go beyond the entry-level two-years-only internship step of any of my current dream jobs, I'd need a Ph.D. anyway. And it would probably be at least vaguely compatible with childcare -- as compatible as my article-writing is, at least, and rather more prestigious. On the other hand, I spectacularly failed to impress with my master's thesis. I'd have to go back to the professor I disappointed by failing to impress with that thesis, apologise and convince him that I can do better, honestly, I swear, give me another chance. By now, even that sounds vaguely appealing, at least if it worked. So, to Ph.D. or not to Ph.D.?

If I don't hear from any of the jobs, particularly those starting on Nov. 1 :P, I would like to participate in NaNoWriMo. There's a story snippet I wrote for B2MeM that has been wanting to grow into a novel ever since March. Actually, I would file off the serial numbers (the only thing that made it fanfic was the appearance of Maglor at some point, anyway, and he could easily be some other nobleman with a reputation for music, doesn't even need to be Elvish) and turn it into O-fic. Thanks to The Hobbit, there will soon be a market for traditional fantasy travel literature again. Thanks to PJ's decision to turn it into a trilogy, I'd have three years to finish that novel and find a publisher. That, too, sounds appealing.

But the chances of succeeding are probably higher with a Ph.D. thesis. :/

And that concludes your update on the state of the Lyra, Desperate Housewife (M.A.). And yes, I know, I know, First World Problems.

Today, the first exam results have been published. Most people have got the results of at least one exam. Some even know the results of two.
And some haven't got a single result yet.

Guess which group I belong to?

Yeah. [Image censored to protect the guilty.]

Next publication date: January 6th. Aside from the fact that I'm surprised that anyone at the university of the Holy Roman City Of Cologne is pretending to do anything work-like on Epiphany of all days*, that's so far away. I mean, that's like, NEXT YEAR! :p

I'd really hoped that at least one of the three professors might have made up their minds. Not surprised that Japanese professor isn't done yet, since she's got a shitload of work to do practically single-handedly (...), but the others don't quite have that excuse. And it's not like I wrote insanely lengthy essays. Twelve hand-written pages, that's not too much for a four-hour exam. Bah.

(Says the girl who managed to review exactly two stories for this year's MEFAs between *drumroll* June and December... :p)

To make things even better, office hour on Tuesday was cancelled due to illness. I don't mind that professors fall ill, that sort of thing happens. What I do mind is when I make my way to Cologne after heavy snowfalls, have to deal with the incompetence of Colognian drivers, manage to find a parking lot, rush into university, and THEN find a notice on the professor's door saying "Sorry, office hour cancelled". Dear professor's assistants: There were six people on the wait list. Each of them left their e-mail address in case of something going wrong. How much work would it have been to send an e-mail to these six people about the cancelled office hour?

And thus I don't know yet whether my choice of texts pleaseth the examiner. Could as well have procrastinated. :p

Don't I love being in Limbo.


- - -
*Cologne cathedral supposedly holds the bones of the Three Wise Men, so Epiphany is a bit of a Big Thing (TM) there.

When I went into the whole final exam thing - that is, when I registered for the whole mess - I was having a fairly good relationship with academia. As in, when people asked (as some people were prone to do) whether I was considering to add a PhD. after my M.A., I said "Sure, if the opportunity offers itself, I think that would be cool."

At the moment - having writen my thesis, and having taken the first written exam, and ten hours before the second written exam - I am having a lot of second thoughts.

Well, firstly I am doubting that the opportunity is going to offer itself. I am not even certain that I'll manage the bloody M.A., not because I am stupid but because I function the wrong way. Even if I manage to pass, it definitely won't be with the grand results I've been secretly expecting (and this is not just my usual pessimism; with the grade I got for my thesis, I'd have to write positively brilliant exams and excel at the oral exam, something I have always been naturally bad at, in order to still get a 1.something grade*. Not likely.). Nobody is going to come to me going "You know, we have this postgraduate office to fill, would you like it?" Nobody is going to ask me to write my Ph.D. thesis under their tutelage.

And I am pretty certain that I am not going to struggle for some postgraduate university job or a Ph.D. supervisor myself, at the moment. I am, at the moment, so sick of academia. In the past weeks, I have been reading a shitload of texts that were obviously just published because someone somewhere had to write it in order to keep their job. I have read a shitload of texts that were practically just a review of previous research, the sort that students have to do (without getting paid for it) for classroom presentations. Or where four pages of a six-page thesis discuss the history and use of a certain term, the validity of said history, and the use the present author is going to make of the term in the face of said history and for what reasons. Then follow one and a half pages with some illustrative examples, and a conclusion along the lines of "fascinating topic, further research necessary". I know that these people aren't doing this to make me roll my eyes. They're doing it because it's academic convention, and because they're working in a publish-or-perish system where instead of the common-sense "If you don't have anything to say, just keep your mouth shut" the rule is "If you don't have anything new to say, sum up something old". And make it sound important. And make it sound like you believe it.
And at the moment, that is not what I want to do with my life.

A few years ago, I was reading a book by Pam Houston. It was full of autobiographic episodes, and one of them concerned how one day she was standing in the office at her university, waiting for a signature on the final credit certificate she needed in order to qualify for her final exams, and she overheard two of her professors utterly absorbed in a discussion about the difference between (I think) "immanent" and "innate". And one of them, she knew, had serious personal trouble in his private life, and here he stood discussing "immanent" and "innate" as if anything depended on it.
And she quietly turned, and left the office and her certificate behind. And she never returned.
At the time of reading, I thought something along the lines of, "Wow, way to throw the efforts of the past years away." I mean, she had ploughed through 95% of her university career. Even if she now realised that it was all pretty pointless, couldn't she have done the final 5%? Tsk, really.

But right now? Right now I really, really sympathise. Right now, I look at people discussing the difference between "postcolonialism" and "post-colonialism" for four pages as if anyone cared. And I think, I can live without that. I do not need to be able to rehash a lot of problem-mongering only a fraction of which actually matters to anyone outside of academia, and most of which doesn't even matter to academics. I can read and enjoy books without knowing what literary theorists think about them. I can write stories that some people like, and I can paint pictures that some people think good, and I can travel and think and grow plants and restore an old farmhouse and design things and sew historical clothing and -- I can do all this without all that.
And I am so, so tempted to just throw it and skip the rest of the exams and extract myself from the Matrix exmatriculate and do - well, something that makes at least a small bit of sense. Something that doesn't force me to pretend that the difference between postcolonialism and post-colonialism matters. Something that doesn't force me to pretend that knowing the half-cooked opinions of Sigmund Freud enhances my understanding of Shakespeare's work just because someone who never left her ivory tower thinks so and I have to please her in order to pass.

I won't throw it. I am going to leave university, but I'll do it with an M.A. degree in my pocket. I'll do the final 5% because even if at the moment it all feels not only pointless but actively repulsive, I suppose even a bad M.A. may be of use. I'll do it because I am not a quitter, and I can still try and do something that makes at least a small bit of sense come January. I have wasted so many years, I can waste two more months.

And perhaps in a year I'll feel differently, and I'll feel the urge to discuss immanence and innateness and postcolonialism and post-colonialism, or the Freudian Uncanny² in Shakespeare's comedies, or whether Beowulf was composed orally or in writing. And then I can return into academia because I'll be a postgraduate and all set to go.

But at the moment, I don't think I'll want to. And at the moment, I am almost envying Pam Houston for the courage to just throw it overboard, to turn her back on all the bullshitting and all the do-gooder self-flagellation and all the "We cannot solve the problem, but we are really aware of it!", and to do something else entirely.
I am definitely envying her for landing on her feet and being a published author these days. ^^

Eh well. Time for bed.


- - -
*Note on academic grades in Germany: 1.0 is the best passing grade, 4.0 is the worst. You do not have to understand our system.

²And you don't want to get me started on the Uncanny. The entire notion is based on an etymological assumption that is not actually tenable. And literary critics my exam professor still believes it.
Sometimes - and I know that this is embarrassing and arrogant - I think that it's not that I'm too stupid for all this. Sometimes I think I'm too smart.

I just got an adorable call.

My cousin Alessio was in summer camp and befriended a Japanese boy.

"I can write his name in Japanese!" he tells me proudly.
"Oh?" says I.
"Yes! First there's a kind of slanted cross with an 'equals' sign next to it, and then there's something like a 'less than' sign, and then there's like a Pound sign."

I translate this to た く ま.

"Takuma?" I say.
"Yes!" shouts he. "That's his name!"
"Good job!"

And it is. I mean, that was a working oral transliteration of an alien script. On the phone. I stand amazed.
Clearly we are looking at the beginnings of a grand career in descriptive linguistics.

- - -
In other news there's a heap of things I should be writing about, including the wedding of two dear friends, the return of another friend from Afghanistan, new catastrophes around the construction site, new catastrophes around my Magistra thesis, Akallabêth in August, the MEFAs and just general emoness, but I can't muster the time or motivation. My sincerest apologies.

At least I managed to put a new chapter of the travel diary (text only in German, pictures with bilingual commentary) up at nakatsukuni.

So I heard from a friend from school again. She made my life hell for a while in grade six, and then we were best friends from about grades 8 to 13. And then we kind of lost touch; she went to Kiel to study medicine, I stayed at home and studied geekiness in Cologne.
Her boyfriend has the same name as mine, though, which amuses me. (Not as much as the fact that my best kindergarten and elementary school friend is engaged to her former German teacher who also teaches karate and is much older than her, seeing how I'm together with my former Jûdô trainer who is much older than me...)
She's almost through with studying. She's currently doing her hospital internship in Spain. She's travelling to Rome in two weeks, to Cordoba, Granada and Gibraltar in December, toto Morocco in January. Oh, and she's beginning to write her doctor's thesis in January, too. (See, in Germany you don't automatically get the title of M.D. once you've finished your internship and resident year. You are a medical doctor, but you don't get the nice title to affix to your name until you've written a thesis, just like people have to do for a Ph.D.; you don't have to do this, but if you want to be Dr. Whatever instead of Mr./Mrs./Ms. Whatever, you gotta do this.)
She's younger than me - only by four months, but still. (I don't even know when I'll do my final exam, let alone write a doctor's thesis, if I ever get to that.)
She'd be, like, my mother's perfect daughter.
I am frustrated on so many levels even though it's great to hear of her again.

I'm disgustingly emo at the moment. This really, really, really isn't my month. (And I'm sorry about the griping because I know a lot of people are having a rather worse time for better reasons than my petty whinyness.)

I shouldn't be surprised and certainly not annoyed that the five worst stories made it into the final round of the Ring*Con story contest. I didn't expect mine to get anywhere (it was a) English and b) Silm fanfic, both factors against it), but I had several favourites among the posted stories, and none of them got any further. Instead--- one of the stories is almost exactly like a Wickie fanfic I wrote when I was eight and didn't know that what I was doing was called fanfic. I liked that kind of story THEN, and it was okay for an eight-year old, I guess, but we're all older than that now, and how on earth can a majority vote for THAT kind of story above the five or so acceptable ones?
Note to self: Do not forget that just because your friends are intelligent, well-educated and have good tastes similar to your own, there are a lot of other people in your fandom. (This shouldn't piss me off so much, really. Perhaps it's just IMS (because for PMS it'd be too late).)

American vote, stop confusing me. In Germany, the conservatives are blue/black and the social democrats are red. (But then, in Germany the "Republicans" are neo-nazis, anyway. >_>) So I'm going "Huh WHAT? - oh wait, that's good" a lot.

At least the sickness mysteriously went away for the most part, and I managed to get all my work for the week done these past three days, so I can use all of tomorrow for packing, doing some NaNo and travelling. YES. Damn all this. Cannot cope, off to Fulda.