Hil, you can talk about looking for new challenges academically/professionally, and personally wanting to explore other areas before settling down to a "forever" place (or something like that).

Hil, do you have to let your boss know you're looking? That would make me very uncomfortable.

All the jobs I'm applying for require several letters of recommendation.

Hil, you can talk about looking for new challenges academically/professionally, and personally wanting to explore other areas before settling down to a "forever" place (or something like that).

Hmm. I can try something like that.

Also, you could bring up proximity to medical facilities.

Honestly, with the state of the academic job market, no supervisor of Instructors should be at all surprised at their supervisees looking for other jobs. Unless the supervisor is a jerk, you just say, I am happy at [this place] but am also on the broader market this year.

Has your University had budget cuts? If so you also indicate that you are happy here, but want to have a backup offer in case unexpected further cuts endanger your job. Of course that makes you sound insecure so I'm not sure ...

Yeah, what flea said -- it's pretty much universally assumed that all non-tenure-track faculty may be on the market EVERY year. (And all too often have to be)

meara - I'm about 10-15 mins from work now instead of 50ish minutes. So that's a better commute.

I looked at the calendar and for the past 12 days every day has included either moving, cleaning, or running errands post move.

And I went to change the curtains to mine and realized the brackets were loose, I don't have a good screwdriver (a good set of tools is on the list of things to get and I forgot today when Will and I ended up going to Home Depot) but I was going to be careful.

Then Penny went to jump on the window ledge and missed somehow and pulled the side and center brackets out. So now I have to deal with replacing those and trying to figure out what the problem was.

Stupid freaking ducks are following me around.

I did finish Discount Armageddon and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, both of which I enjoyed.

So, um, hi. I haven't been around these parts lately, but I need to dump in a safe place where everyone already knows my baggage. I've been asked to talk to a couple about my experiences with PTSD. The wife has emailed me a bunch of questions, and they're all so open-ended and broad and not easily answered. Like, she wants to know how long he'll likely be out of work. I've said, "YMMV" about 30 times in my response email already.

I want to be encouraging. I know I'm a success story. But, how do you tell someone that's just getting started in this journey that it's been my whole adult life...that it never goes away...that you can reach a sort of wellness if you work really hard and are really stubborn and change your expectations. I'd even say I'm happy. But, is my life what I thought? In some ways, yes, but in most ways, no. Will things ever get back to normal? No. You'll have a new normal. And that's not bad, but you're going to need to wake up and smell the coffee if you think there's a chance that things will return to normal.

But I can't say those things.

Val, that's hard. You're a good person to be willing to help them.

Given that I don't have experience with PTSD, I would think that you're right that you can't tell someone at the start of this journey that they have a new normal ahead of them. Right now, that would probably be hard to hear.

I guess -- what kinds of things would have been helpful for you to hear when you were where this man is?

hi vw! nice to see you.

a formal colleague of mine recommended a good book to someone who was have serious struggles (not PTSD, but something else). It was a short fiction novel that she thought would help out a teenager.

do you think you could write back with some general language YMMV but then recommend a short video or book or reference that might be helpful. I suspect that both the husband and the wife don't know what to do and are seeking resources to help them understand what he is going through and how the wife can be helpful. It may be that he and she need different resources to manage this situation. I don't know if AMA has guidelines or not.