And the moral of the story...

... is that my sinuses decide that two days on planes in a row is not something I should ever do again, even on medication. Forgetting my water bottle (I fill it after going through security) doesn't help. Seriously, I'm just glad one day of travel didn't stress my sinuses out too badly, so I didn't feel like crap at my interview. (And of course, just now I remember the prescription nasal spray I have that is supposed to enlarge my nasal passages to improve drainage.)

As for the interview, it went well. Everyone seemed really friendly and collegial, so most of my questions about the job are the existential 'what do I want to do with my life' ones: basically I'm nearly 30 years old and still don't feel like an adult. Maybe taking time off between college and grad school would have helped, but grad school classes were hard enough with just a summer between them and physics classes. Being an authority in my job -- whether it be 'you are in charge of XYZ course' or 'do you have any ideas for research projects?' -- scares me.

Maybe that's one reason I wasn't in a hurry to finish grad school: being a grad student is a pretty comfortable life for me.

Random musing.

One thing I really appreciate about my mother is that she seems to understand that not everyone is made happy by the same things. Which is really good, because she and I are very different in terms of likes and dislikes: for instance, Mom hates living alone, while I am really picky about the people I can live with* and need my own space or at least people who can give me my own bubble (I do fine during Christmases with Mom and my brother, even if I'm sharing a room with my brother and generally camp out either in the recliner or at the kitchen table to do things). (My sister takes after Mom; Jenn has never lived alone in her life, actually. Nor has my brother, but he also hasn't moved away from home yet.)

It also comes up with matters of money. During the job hunt, Mom reminded me to ask about salaries because, while I'm happy living on my grad student stipend, she wanted to make sure I had enough money to do things I like doing (traveling to visit friends and family, having a place I wanted to live, buying a car which I admit I'll eventually need) and suggested things like 'if you have the money, why not look into a weekly cleaning service, since we both know how you feel about housework?**'. I don't know if that's something Mom would spend her money on -- she might if she had more income, given she works long hours and not having to spend her days off cleaning would be pretty nice, but right now it would probably mean fewer trips to see her family -- but it's something she thinks I'd like, so I should totally look into it and see if it fits a budget. (This is also why Mom got laser eye surgery: the improvement in her vision was totally worth the money and pain of surgery, so she saved for it.)

It's nice to know that whatever I do with my life, I know Mom is proud of me and will help in any way she can, even though it is so far from what she wants for herself. (Mom once told the head of the UNL physics department at a job interview that, if she could have any job, it was the one she used to do as a nurse's aide at a retirement home; our chair joked that at least the physics department had its share of old people.)

* Thankfully, all of my biological family make this cut, or I've learned to adapt to them and they to me.

** I don't think many people like housework, but I guess there's a point of 'do I hate it enough to justify the expense of paying to have someone else handle it'.

And now for something completely different.

I'm stealing a meme from swan_tower. Basically, post the opening lines of the last 21 fics you wrote.

Because I did at least 20 drabbles in January, I'm going to do this twice, once for all fics (which should all be at invoking_urania, but I have a backlog of things to post there), and once for all my longer fics (which I usually archive over at beccastareyes). You can play guess the fandom, but I name canon characters or use fandom-specific terms in nearly all of these lines, so it'll be the least exciting game ever.

Warning: I spoil a very long list of fandoms in this, because apparently I like to write drabbles that are reactions to Shit Has Happened. The non-drabble list is moderately safer, but I still mention at least one 'this character dies in canon'.

( All Fiction )

( Excluding Drabbles )