The Silence is Deafening

Oh people....how I long to hear news of an interview request.

Surprisingly, I have been completely unaffected by the jobs I see vanishing into Wiki thin air (as in they've clearly moved on with other candidates). No big deal, I just check them off my list. The torturous part is that the two schools that requested my dossier still have yet to schedule MLA interviews. GAHHHH!!! It's the end of the semester, already. What else are you people doing if not trying to figure out who to interview?!

I haven't yet been obsessive about the Wiki or the interviews, but I'm starting to feel a bit anxious about a Plan B. That is, I think my chances of landing a job in the spring market are even worse (for various reasons), which leaves us with two options: go home and *hope* something pans out over the summer or stay here for another year and *hope* we have better luck on the market next year. Yeah, um, neither of those sound appealing to me. I know we'd save lots of money, have plenty of time to focus on our work/research, and we wouldn't really be "expired produce" yet. But I want to have a HOME. A home that is mine, one that I can tear down, build onto, paint the walls of, pick out furniture for, and raise my kids in. I'm ready to put down roots and return to our "normal" American lifestyle. I feel like we've paid our dues, fulfilled our contracts, and achieved our professional goals for the time we've had here, and now it's time for the rest of our plan to fall into place: get jobs back home!

I'm making slow but steady progress on the essay that's been accepted for publication, but a sick toddler has taken up some of my work time. We leave in 9 days for the States, and I still have to finish a rough draft of this essay (I'm 1,300 words away) before next Wednesday, grade the final papers for my comp class, purchase the two "big" gifts we're getting the littlest ones, and start a packing list. This is all overwhelming right now, but if I just had some good job news, I think I could take everything a little bit easier.

Conference Paper: To Revise, or Not to Revise?

So, I have a bit of a professional dilemma. As many of you know, I'm presenting a paper at an international postgraduate conference in my field next week in England. The paper is based on a section of a dissertation chapter, which I actually wrote early in the spring. Technically, then, the paper is written. I've reviewed it to make some minor changes in wording, organization, etc., but I haven't yet done any significant revision. The good thing is that any revision I do to the paper will essentially also be revision for the chapter. The bad thing is that I just don't feel like doing any revision work right now. I'd rather finalize my itinerary for the trip (a daily itinerary), get all my paperwork in order, get the house cleaned up for my mom's visit, and generally prepare a list of some of the things hubby will need to take care of while I'm gone.

I know I sound totally lame. I know this is completely juvenile of me to think I can just say "I don't wanna...", but that's kinda what I'm saying. I'm also considering two practical points:

a) aren't conference papers supposed to be rough? they're sort of like trial runs for an audience, rather than perfectly revised pieces, right?

b) in the end, all that matters is that i got into this conference, and it's a pretty good line on my vitae; it's highly unlikely that presenting a rough paper will matter to anyone else in the long run.

The question, then, is whether or not to spend two full work days revising the conference paper. What say you? Am I missing something important to the equation? Is this the time where someone is forced to tell me to be a grown up and get my shit together?