Big Day

Paul had his first teaching demonstration and interview today for a tenure track job at a 2 year college in New Jersey. He spent 6 hours driving there and back. I gave him (and Ian) a haircut on Wednesday night while Nadia was at Cubbies (my throat was not in any condition for choir rehearsal) in preparation for his interview. They are conducting more interviews tomorrow and next Friday. They will submit three names per position (they were considering Paul for two positions), and then the administration picks from the list of three that the search committee submits. So we will be in suspense for a few weeks probably. If they offer him a job, he will accept it unless something better comes along before then.

Over the past few days I submitted several applications for Paul. I am very happy to help him in this way, but I have to say if I never fill out another application again, it will be too soon. I need his signature on one, and then we will have submitted 38 applications (20 of those in the last few weeks) to schools in the following states: NJ, PA, RI, NY, MA, OH, MD, DE, WV, VA, NC, TN, and IN. If any of my cousins in Indiana are reading this, we submitted an application to Trine University (the first application to a school in IN). Paul has extended the radius a little, but he still isn't interested in positions in Iowa, Florida, Texas, California, etc. Seeing how tedious this process is makes a tenure track position even more desirable. We already preferred a tenure track position (over a 1-2 year temporary or post-doc position) because we would like to put down roots after our next move, but after applying for jobs for 5 months, the idea of doing this again in 1-2 years is very unappealing. We shall see what the Lord has in store for us. If you put together all the jobs I applied for from 1989-2013, the total would be far less than 38 (I had 7 different employers over those 24 years). This is a new experience for me to be submitting so many applications in a short amount of time.

Oliver only got up once last night (3:35am). It's been a week since he got more than 9 hours total of sleep in a night, and the longest stretch he's had in the past week has been 7 hours. I think being sick is one of the hardest parts of motherhood because you don't get a sick day. In light of Paul's interview, the kids will be in bed before he gets home, and obviously he didn't have any time to give them this morning so today was one of those "single parent" type days for me, which was a challenge considering I still have a fever and my throat is raw plus I was trying to help Paul with a few things (like ironing his suit jacket). Ian keeps asking why I am being so quiet (because I was whispering when I read books to them because it hurts too much to talk). It doesn't help that when little kids aren't feeling up to par they are fussier than usual. The good news is that this too shall pass. I am very grateful that Paul managed to escape catching the bug.