I'm a consultant, dammit.

I thought I should provide a brief update on my employment situation.

When I started this, I had no job, and, well, to be honest, no real prospects at the time. Not to mention, when one comes off of a PhD program, you may not even feel like doing anything remotely like what you just spent the last six years doing. This is complicated by living in what is basically a dying town. Each week I hear of another friend who has lost their job, or is nervously awaiting the next round of layoffs. Not only is this disheartening, but it leaves me little hope of someone desperate for an employee with solid structural equation modeling experience.

However, as we are nearing the two year point in our new situation, I am happy to say that the years of education have not gone to waste. I am an adjunct professor and I am doing some consultant work that has made me very happy. I get to feel like I have a hand in things, and when people ask me what I do, I don't have to say "unemployed" or "stay-at-home mom." Instead, I'm write down "consultant" for every line asking for employment.

I have found the consulting work to be quite fufilling and challenging enough that I feel like I am a useful part of a team. I am also optimistic that my continued experiences will only lead to more of these opportunities. In my adjunct world, I've been working on committees this quarter, and have found it absolutely fascinating to look at the comprehensive exam and dissertation experience from the other side.

So there is life, after dissertation and after mourning the tenure track.

I guess we are in Kansas now, Toto.

The family piled into the family sedan on Thursday to head back to our dear hometown of C-bus (well, it's my hometown at least. But we lived there for 12 years, so I consider it Mr. H's hometown since adulthood). It was the student recognition ceremony, and all the students who had presented something or were awarded a grant had their name read and then got to eat cheese and sip fruit punch. I won a dissertation award, quite shocking, and I was very humbled by the honor.

Anyway, there was an unspoken tension going down there this weekend. While we have been in this rust belt community for about 10 months now, I still considered C-bus "home" and, not to sound snobby, but in some ways superior to our current location.

And there were definitely things I miss about C-bus. It feels clean and new. There are a plethora of the cute and yuppie (for lack of a better word) markets, stores, bakeries, wine shops, restaurants, etc. It is, for the most part, a very educated city, and because of the many high-tech and white collar jobs, there is an air of civilized living. But my god I forgot how much you have to drive to get to all those places. Friday morning, we drove around for over 4 hours, and only ran 5 errands. There was no place we could ride a bike to, even if we wanted to. I went to a yarn store, hoping for something cool and interesting, but realized that everything they had there, I could find at home.

We did get to do some favorite things. Croissiants at La Chatalane at the Saturday Farmers Market. I wanted to get some strawberries for jam, but they weren't there, unfortunately. The Whole Foods there is ginormous, much bigger than the Ann Arbor one, and carries some very specific items that we can't seem to get up here otherwise. We feasted yesterday on candied salmon, our favorite Spanish goat cheese and stocked up on our Indian frozen dinners. I also bought close to 15 pounds of chocolate.

By the end of the weekend, C-bus started to feel like an old boyfriend I had idealized after I had broken up with him. You know, the guy who you clearly broke up with for a reason, but over the years you forgot those reasons, and you spend days pining over all the good points. But then you run into him again, and realize, eh, he's not that great.

I am officially in business.

On the same day that I won Best Dissertation for my section in the college (seriously! How crazy is that! My first question to my advisor was "didn't anyone else graduate this year besides me?"), my small business license for my very non-academic company arrived. Somehow I think the cash prize I was awarded was supposed to go toward funding additional research, not funding liability insurance for my candy company.

The job hunt... Part 1

I have been pondering my job possibilities for quite some time now. A week does not go by without someone commenting on my job hunt. And by that, I do not mean my hunt for a job, but rather, the distinct chaos that goes along with finding a tenure-track position. After all, I spent many productive years avoiding work by pursuing academics instead, surely it is time for me to make something of myself.

It was about a year and a half ago that I first went on the market. While I had not completed my PhD, I had an approved proposal, a data collection schedule, and a plan to graduate in the spring. Approximately 30 applications went out. I did not have the luxury of single candidate. Every time the jobs were posted, Mr. H and I sat down and went over them. Applications were decided on as a family. Is this a place we could live? How do we think that Miss Thing would do in this area (she was preparing to start kindergarten the following year)? Is it conducive to Mr. H's career as well? And, is it close to a major body of water (Mr. H's major criteria)?

For six months I got rejection letters. Sometimes, I didn't even get notified if my application was received. I got a couple nibbles, people commenting on the strength of my vita, only to find that an influx of even stronger candidates (those who already had a position elsewhere) made me not as appealing. Plus, I'm not a "typical" PhD in my field. My expertise lies squarely in the middle of several different areas, and I think I had some problems finding my niche, or people envisioning me in the department. After the fact, my advisor got a lot of positive feedback on my vita, what a good candidate I was, but there was just someone else who had X. X could have been anything - it just depended on the school. I liken it to a house on the real estate market - people all loved the house, but nobody wanted to buy it.


A very disappointing six months. It was much like going through infertility treatments - a whole lot of trying and waiting only to find a big ole negative on that stick. My advisor assured me that I always had the following year. Which didn't exactly turn out to be the case, but never the less...


And then there is the reality of the tenure track. As I already have a young child, and a spouse with a promising career as well, I feared that my situation would never lend itself to a tenure track position. Mr. H travels a lot, with very little notice ahead of time. I know how stressed out I was trying to balance it all while in grad school. Articles in the chronicle did not make me feel any better about my prospects to have a normal life, let alone a child who recognized that "mommy" is not her nanny, but rather, me. But even with all of that, I still, in my heart, thought I would land a tt position.

After a period of moping feeling sorry for myself mourning I have come to a peaceful place about this. The tenure track was not for me, at least not right now. And I'm okay with that. Most of the time.

It's still hard, everyone once and a while. Graduation, where everyone was talking about their post-docs and their new assistant positions was hard. There are times when I read something research-based and cringe, and wish I could do something about it, but without a faculty position, some of those opportunities are limited. I fear that I am letting my advisor, or some of mentors down because I'm not pursuing this more aggressively at this point.

So that's where I am. Part 2 later...

Spring days.

The Marvelous Miss Thing and I rode our tandem bike to and from school today. It was a beautiful day. It's only a mile to school.

I have been pondering the reality of my situation, the tenure track process (and prospects of such), and my previous experiences over the past twelve years or so.

I realized that a year ago, I would not have ridden my bike with my daughter to school because it would have taken an extra 20 minutes total. I couldn't waste that kind of precious time when I could use it for prepping for a class, working on my dissertation or reading some article. Even twenty minutes was a precious commodity.

I was writing up a post about my pursuit of a tenure track position, but I think I'm going to let it simmer for a while. It's not that I don't want one. Or, that I didn't want one. But these past three months "off work" have made our family so much more balanced and happy. Mr. H and I don't fight about work and whose career is more important. We're not trying to schedule personal and couple time in conjunction with work time. No one is worrying about Miss Thing getting her homework done.

I still enjoy working. I've got my little gig on the side, and Mr. H and I are seriously discussing starting a small business in conjunction with my candies. We think it has legs. I've gotten some really positive feedback recently.

However, in reflection, I would hate to be too busy to ride my bike with my daughter to school on a beautiful day again.

The Dissertation Scarf

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The present for my dear advisor was completed. On time. Even in time to block it. Amazingly enough.

This scarf is officially known as the dissertation scarf because of all the similarities between this scarf and my dissertation. First, there are many flaws, but I pray that no one looks close enough to find them. Secondly, there are sections of it that I had to redo an ungodly number of times (I think that 11th repeat I knitted, ripped out, and knitted again 6, count it, S-I-X times). Thirdly, I put a lot of myself into it, and I'm darn proud of it. Fourth, they were both, at times, pushed to completion because of the hovering spector of my advisor.

Fortunately, I think she loved it. It's the perfect color her. It was a little longer than I had thought it was going to be, but all in all a beautiful piece of work. I found some beautiful engraved shell buttons to sew on the end.

Things I learned from this scarf:

1. How to use lifelines (thank you Emily)
2. How to troubleshoot mistakes. I learned how to fix dropped yarnovers and all sorts of errors.

Just one in a sea of many...

All the PhDs get to wear the red and grey robes, bachelor's and masters wear black. There were about 120 PhDs yesterday that received their hood with their diploma. I also got to see two of my previous students graduate with their bachelor's, as well as a very good friend of mine from my previous staff position at Big U.

My advisor (about 5 inches shorter than I am) managed to get my hood on even though I hugged her too soon. I cried. They called my name. I cried. I shook the hand of the president of the university, and I think I had snot running down my face when they took my picture. I txted Mr. H and waved to Miss Thing through most of the ceremony.

I think about 700 people received their degrees on Sunday. The stadium was packed. But now, it is done.

No, I haven't abandoned this already....

It has been a busy week, too busy even to blog. I haven't cooked. I've barely knitted. I actually *gasp* worked most of the week on two very different projects. One academic related, one food related.

Tomorrow is graduation. I get a snappy hat and for once, my name called. I have informed most of my family (my parents, Mr. H and Miss Thing excluded) that they are not to attend, but rather encouraged them to watch the streaming video from the comfort of their homes.

After tomorrow, I am officially a PhD.

Sick kid

I'm at home today with a Pitiful Miss Thing who decided at about 9:00 last night to run a 103 degree fever. Thursday is her favorite day to get sick, because Friday is just a little too soon to see a doctor, and by the third day of a fever which is usually when I take her in, it is Sunday, and there is no one who will see her. By the time we have spent 4 or 5 hours sitting an an urgent care, she will somehow become miraculously cured just as we finally get a doctor to see her.

This also means we have been cooped up at home for two days straight since yesterday was a snow day. Mr. H has been swamped with work this week so I rarely even see him come out of his office. And if he does, he has his stress hat on.

While I have an inferno child pressed up against me for the next 12 hours, I hope to get close to finishing the present for my advisor since graduation is next weekend! I have saved all my crafty karma from the past ten years to pull this one off. Under the care and advice of my highly crafty mother, I think I have several nice things planned, which I will share later since it is a gift. I hope I can pull this off. I have been so unsuccessful in the past. Feel free to sacrifice a small animal to the crafty gods for me.

i have two emails now...

in which the greeting reads...

Dear Dr. E


It makes me do a double-take every time. Can't believe they are talking to ME.

Vocabulary words

One of the clear dangers of a free-range doctorate is the inclination to correct other people's vocabulary.