Susan, I think if I were you I would be making spreadsheets of what-if scenarios. Tot up the dream vacation if you could take it today an dthen play with strong/weak currency, inflation, extra things you might tack on and extraneous things that you want to include but won't be heart-broken if you have to cut. Because that would be fun and might even be useful in just getting a ballpark idea of what you might expect.

This ad is interesting.

The Department of Mathematics at the University of Utah invites applications for the following positions: Three-year dual post-doctoral Assistant Professorships. Couples who have obtained PhDs in the last 18 months are invited to apply. At least one member of the couple must be a US citizen, national or permanent resident.

The rest of the ad is just the usual Equal Opportunity Employer stuff, and where to send your CV and recommendations. I'm also finding it interesting that they're not defining "couple" anywhere. I've got two friends who graduated last year, who'd been living together for years and got married a few months before graduation, who ended up with jobs several thousand miles apart because they couldn't find two academic math jobs closer together, at least not jobs that would let either of them get any further in their careers. I think they were planning on getting out a bunch of publications and contacts in the first year or two and then applying for jobs again when they had more to go on.

do I escape early from work... or wait around for another 90 minutes for free food (Baja Fresh catering)? Ugg. So bored. I really don't want to do anything either. Much rather be home doing nothing. I know as soon as I leave, they will need me for something.

Ugh. We got the sheet to put in our preferences for which course we'll TA in the fall. I generally fill this thing out by first looking for the courses which have no 8 AM sections -- there are usually two or three of those -- and then picking from among those based on which classes I'd like to teach and which professors I'd like to work with. For the fall, though, every single class has at least one 8 AM section. And also, every single class has the recitations all on the same day, so it's three hours of teaching in an hour on, hour off schedule throughout the day, which pretty much makes it impossible to get any other work done that day.

I'm sitting on my balcony, enjoying the gorgeous weather, drinking a glass of wine and posting on my wireless internet. Despite all of the random shit I'm unhappy about, my life is pretty fucking sweet.

The way I travel?

I say, "I've got $4k (or whatever)". And I make that amount stretch to whatever it is I want to do. I can't imagine trying to use a spreadsheet for something so far into the future. Why not just list the places you really want to see, plan the time you'll need to see them, and save as much as you can every month to put in the bucket for the trip?

Or am I missing something? I traveled all over China for a month, and some days I spent $200 and some days I spent $35. I just made sure I got to see the top things on my list, and scheduled days for absolutely nothing.

I'm sitting on my balcony, enjoying the gorgeous weather, drinking a glass of wine

Sounds nice. I could go up on my roof and enjoy the weather, but no wireless internet and no alcoholic beverages up there.

I'm having so much trouble with this teaching assignment form. I don't want to teach any of these classes! There's one that I will avoid at all costs (Finite Math for the Social and Management Sciences -- about half the semester is spent on how to solve systems of multiple equations in multiple variables, which is long and tedious and completely pointless, and I have no idea why they teach it), and then a bunch of sections of single-variable calculus, which I can teach, no problem, but I've taught it something like four out of the past six semesters. This department has a whole bunch of other classes listed, but none being offered next semester.

Sounds nice. I could go up on my roof and enjoy the weather, but no wireless internet and no alcoholic beverages up there.

come here! :)

Hil - my friend lived in Africa for years and years and years and years, and she loved Botswana to pieces. fwiw.

So, on a lark, I signed up for the Guardian's "Soulmates", an online match service. The Guardian is a liberal UK newspaper that I read occasionnally. I signed up like 6 months ago. I don't know what they did, but in the last few days, I've gotten several nods of interest. (go me!) One of them is even in DC! But, I digress. Of course, sign up is free, but in order to talk or email, you have to pay. They have a series of "one liners" that you can send for free, though. One of them is "I'm not a subcriber, how about a gift subscription?" How tacky is that?

V. tacky. But Guardian readers = for the win, and it's a lovely site. Still, despite the fact that there are gazillions of interesting and attractive people signed up, I'm not willing to pay up cash money in order to communicate with them - thus my wee ad sits there all useless.

...actually, I found Buffistas via the Guardian, now that I remember - so it's a pretty good matchmaker, all in all.

I've been told that I need to be more social. (And my mother has been dropping hints that I ought to be getting married and giving her grandchildren.) Just got an email about a trivia night for young Jewish professionals. This seems like about my level of sociability, plus I'll be meeting a bunch of Jewish lawyers in my age range. Who will probably all be Republicans. (I don't understand this. Jews are one of the most Democratic demographics in the country, and yet, it seems like every Jewish guy I meet is Republican. And while I don't have issues with dating Republicans per se, I've not yet met one who I wanted to date for more than a few weeks.)