WE COULD GO TOGETHER.

And make a movie about it! Box-office GOLD.

Someone called the police because a father took off his toddlers' bathing suits so that they could shower the sand off at the beach.

I did that all the time with the boys! It is only my desire not to go to jail that keeps me from doing the same myself.

I'd go back to school too! We could have a study group or something.

Either this or we finally figure out a way to harness Buffista smarts and creativity to open a business and make a fortune.

I'm so burned out on editing, but I don't know if it's editing in general, medical editing, or just my company.

This is why I change jobs every three years -- it's distracting!

In other news, both me and my supervisor work remotely now. Difference is, he doesn't answer email half the time.

I did sign up for a course on Coursera, called The Modern and the Postmodern. We'll see if I get through the initial reading, which is Rousseau, Kant, and Marx.

In general, I'm burned out at what I do, I want to do something else, but I don't know what that is, and I have some deeper personal issues to work out before I can figure out what would make me happy career-wise.

Oh Hello, you are singing my tune.

It sort of paralyzes me to think of going back to school at 46 and making the wrong choice of major, you know?

Also singing my tune. But it's not just about choosing a major, I feel like at 43, if I am going to make big life-altering choices, I better damn well make the right ones this time. And that's paralyzing.

The other frustration with all these jobs I've been applying for is that I am kind of ambivalent about staying in my field and that makes putting the effort into applying less appealing. The appeal of the UN jobs is there is almost a 50% increase in salary and they are in Europe, so I figure, if nothing else, I could travel and save money. Really, I've been more excited about living in the locales, than the actual jobs themselves.

Scola's Law of IT: Given the clear choice of a simple solution or a complicated solution, people will choose the more complicated solution every single time. When you challenge someone and try to explain that the more complicated solution is not necessary, you will be met with blank stares, and you will be ignored completely.

This is also true in education. With the added caveat of everything you did 3 years ago must be scrapped and you must force all teachers to use a new and expensive program that they need to be trained in.

I feel like at 43, if I am going to make big life-altering choices, I better damn well make the right ones this time. And that's paralyzing.

Exactly. Especially because every choice I made up till now was a bad one.

Also, I have the same work malaise that many of you have. I like education well enough and it's different enough each day to be mentally engaging, but I'd like a job where I had a little more flexibility and more respect.

I am whammied, though, because Grace requires expensive health care and my health insurance is AWESOME and I worry she would not be eligible under other plans. Also, I can't change states because I have 13 years in my current district, which means I have 17 more years until I am retirement/pension eligible. Depressingly, if I moved to say the Pacific Northwest where I'd love to live, I'd have to start over and work for 30 years before I am pension eligible.

Kat, you know some plans let you transfer in a few years credit, in various ways? My mom retired (at 65 or 66) after working about 15 years in a school district near us--she was a teacher many many years ago before I was born, in Illinois, and then when I was in high school went back to college and got a degree as a speech pathologist.

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