State of perpetual finger-crossing.

Reading September Blue's post on academic glass cleaning, I entirely sympathise / empathise. Finding motivation to do any research this summer whilst not really being attached to any academic institution has been nigh impossible for me.

I have also spent a fair amount of time completing job applications for Institutions several of which not only did not short-list me (fair enough) but did not even bother to reply to my application (I know this is standard practice, but that notwithstanding, it is still very rude, and unnecessary in the modern world of inexpensive email communication). I also put a tremendous amount of work into a funding application which in the end I could not submit because of a variety of problems with the electronic submission system. That did not fill me with inspiration to continue with such fellowship applications. And the sense of being set adrift this summer has hardly been motivational.

That said, my colleagues at the University in the City Where the Castle is also a Prison have been very supportive and encouraging. And I have never been sufficiently down or hopeless about all this to give up on academia as a career path. I have a friend whose academic CV is shinier than mine who is thinking of giving up; her work is excellent and innovative, and I hope she reconsiders. I do understand her frustration though. I try to be positive about the job market picking up, and continue to hope that something will come up for me, but some days it is very hard to keep up that sort of optimism. Some days the effort to stay optimistic takes all the energy I can muster, and that doesn't give me much enthusiasm for research. In fact, it leads mostly to watching box set DVDs of American TV shows.

I have been offered some TA work for this academic year. On the plus side, this will keep me attached to an Institution, return my library borrowing rights, give me a shared office space on campus, and, I don't have to move house and try to half-settle on a short term contract again somewhere else. On the other hand, it will not cover even half of my monthly rent, it will not pay the electricity bill (which I am told by letter today has just gone up), or feed me and the Little Dog for the next twelve months. So I need to find an alternative source of income, that hopefully will not take up so much time that I can't make research progress (which is an advantage of not having full time teaching).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Again.

Still.