Madisanity
"We always want to live somewhere else, no matter where we are," said my friend the owner of a Madison coffee shop this morning. I thought about that. I'm not sure that's true. For the eight years I lived in Madison, I was almost never struck with the urge to live somewhere else (except of course when I was at the ugly end of a transatlantic LDR, but that's extenuating circumstances). When I'm at home in Nowhere, I think "Golly, I'd like to be back in Madison, where restaurants are not only open on Sunday but might sell you roti and dal." When I'm in Chicago, I think, "Wow. A real City. I can be all urban and cool and pretend I know where stuff is and...watch it, asshole! -- See now in Madison the cab drivers don't drive like attack dogs."
So maybe Madison is my ideal sort of place. A city, but only sort of. I was there today, taking a much needed break from the sort of stress that makes me stare terrified into the middle distance, eyes glazed, shoulders twitching, in the reverie that comes from trying to remember what my next deadline is and who I'm meeting and what I'm prepping and when that pile of papers has to be read. Instead, I chatted inanely with my friends J & A, making the sort of pseudo-clever word games that are our wont, watching and discussing Battlestar Galactica reruns, sitting silently by the lake, playing frisbee (or "frizzed bee" as J likes to call it). I spent time in a real library today, found my dissertation on the shelves (hooray!), and did some low-impact research. I also had breakfast with my former dissertation director at an ungodly hour, and managed to get advice on several professional fronts.
One such question, and one that none of you may share with my colleagues at N.C., is the issue of whether I am going on the job market this fall. They do love me here, and collegiality is nothing to sneeze at, but neither is salary and location and professional opportunity. I figured out that if I worked 40-hour weeks (which is, of course, figuring a little short), I'd be making $11.30 per hour (after taxes). While this is comfortably more than minimum wage, of course, it does make paying off the loans that got me this prestigious Ph.D. a bit of a long slog. I'm not wishing I could buy more stuff, I do like this place, and they're really happy to have me, but this consideration does give me pause.
So maybe Madison is my ideal sort of place. A city, but only sort of. I was there today, taking a much needed break from the sort of stress that makes me stare terrified into the middle distance, eyes glazed, shoulders twitching, in the reverie that comes from trying to remember what my next deadline is and who I'm meeting and what I'm prepping and when that pile of papers has to be read. Instead, I chatted inanely with my friends J & A, making the sort of pseudo-clever word games that are our wont, watching and discussing Battlestar Galactica reruns, sitting silently by the lake, playing frisbee (or "frizzed bee" as J likes to call it). I spent time in a real library today, found my dissertation on the shelves (hooray!), and did some low-impact research. I also had breakfast with my former dissertation director at an ungodly hour, and managed to get advice on several professional fronts.
One such question, and one that none of you may share with my colleagues at N.C., is the issue of whether I am going on the job market this fall. They do love me here, and collegiality is nothing to sneeze at, but neither is salary and location and professional opportunity. I figured out that if I worked 40-hour weeks (which is, of course, figuring a little short), I'd be making $11.30 per hour (after taxes). While this is comfortably more than minimum wage, of course, it does make paying off the loans that got me this prestigious Ph.D. a bit of a long slog. I'm not wishing I could buy more stuff, I do like this place, and they're really happy to have me, but this consideration does give me pause.
posted by James at 4:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home