the progress of women

Overheard on the train platform this morning:

Woman 1: Why you here?
Woman 2: I going to work.
Woman 1: I didn’t know youse got a job. Why you git a job? You got a nice booty, why you git a job? Girrrl, you should get yo self a man instead.

I kid you not.

ok, so...

I start work on Monday. This is excellent for a few reasons:
a) I'm broke
b) I'm broke
c) I'm bored
d) I'm really unproductive when I have nowhere to be

And I think I'm really going to like my office and it'll be a good position for a couple of years. I figure I'll have to stay in some capacity at Penn for 5 yrs or so if I opt to go for it and pursue an Ed.D. starting this spring (and figure if I should take out more loans to cover the taxes on that or what....)....but that's ok. I think I like Philadelphia. I've seen more of it the last few weeks since school ended, and its pretty cool. Its amazing how much time school takes up (which makes me not terribly excited to do a doctorate part time but I'll cross that bridge when the time comes).

I'm also kind of hoping going back to the working world gives me more time for my extracurricular life, er, rugby. This year I missed two games and probably half a dozen practices, which is about what I missed in the last 6 years. I may not be a super-star (or even a plain star) but at least I'm reliable (that count for something, right?). While I have a horrid guilt complex, the priority shifting that paying massive tuition (read: over a year's salary) brings also inadvertently helped me realize its ok to not make rugby tops all the time. Given the time of year, I haven't seen any rugby people in weeks (which is true, though I doubt it was noticed since I didn't really have the opportunity to hang out this season anyway)...and there were actually events the last two weekends, but I missed them for long-standing plans with family. That priority shift probably is a good thing, seeing as I hardly ever see the family and noones getting any younger...

I have a question

What do (chronically) unemployed people do all day?

On the one hand, having lots of time on my hands is nice. My apartment is pretty clean. I've started cooking again. I've opened books with titles other than "Declining by Degrees" and "Higher Education Finance" recently. I bought a couple of trashy magazines (eg. Glamour, such guilty pleasures). I've not only been sleeping more than 6 hours a night, but I've been sleeping well past 7 am!! And I think I'm finally going to wash my car and clean the rugby dirt out of my drivers seat today...

But on the other hand....daytime tv is is awful (not that nighttime tv is much better!). I find it really easy to spend hours doing nothing, and then wonder how its 7 pm and I haven't been to the gym yet. And while its been nice this last couple of weeks, I know I'm going to need more in my life soon....

And that's a real possibility!! A job I'm interested in checked my references...and I had another good interview....so...we'll see....with some luck, things will be more in line in the next couple of weeks!! YES. I hate having life "pending". Organization is so important to me.

checklist

• papers: check
• comprehensive exam: check
• degree: check (though the diploma proof is pending in the mail!)
• job: hmm, working on that one.
  

3 out of 4 isn't bad, right?