So Much Stuff

I don't even know where to begin....

Hubby received a fellowship to study military history at West Point, so he left on Sunday, June 10th (the program is 3 weeks!). His trip last not even a full three days because last Wednesday I was hospitalized for severe back pain, and he had to return and take over with the girls.

I had undergone a second injection procedure the prior week to help alleviate pain resulting from a herniated disc. I had really high hopes following the procedure, but the day after Hubby left, I felt the familiar nagging pain. I went to bed with a heating pad Monday night, but it didn't feel much better the next day. I thought a relaxing day at the beach with another family we're friends with would be a great idea. I loaded the car with kids (even taking Hannah out of school for the day) and we headed to the Cape. The pain slowly got worse and then, while we were walking back to the shore during low tide, I suddenly felt like my lower-right back was "pinched." We still had to eat lunch, go check out the fish market, and drive home, and by the time we got home, I wanted to do nothing but cry, the pain was so bad. I put an ice pack on it and took a muscle relaxer and ibuprofen, but still had no relief in the morning. I started making phone calls to see if there was anyone who could help me out, and by 10:00 a.m., my youth pastor was taking me to the ER while another mom (a friend from church) was staying at our house with the girls. Hannah stayed home again to help while I was gone. By 4:00, the ER doctor decided to admit me to the hospital because the pain was so bad I couldn't walk unassisted, couldn't sit up without screaming in pain...without pain medication, lying down didn't even get rid of the pain.

I was fortunate in that the doctor's son had just recently undergone a microdiscectomy for a herniated disc, so she sympathized with my condition and wanted me to get some relief. Hubby talked with the director of the fellowship program, and they were willing to allow him to come home and help then return to the program--thank God. I felt awful to have to ask him to come back home, but I really had no other choice. Working from the assumption that the disc was the problem, they did another MRI, and I spent the first night just trying to sleep through the noise of the other patient in the room. The next evening, a neurologist ordered a CT scan after his reading of the MRI suggested that the bulge in my disc wasn't large enough to cause such severe pain (nor did it explain the numbness and weakness in my right leg). He confirmed my suspicion that the doctor from the pain clinic was using the injections as a way of padding his pocket, and he decided to explore the nerves to the right of the spine.

While the second night proved much more restful (thanks to my request for a slipping pill and ear plugs), the pain was still significant. Unfortunately, the CT scan was largely normal, only showing some occluded veins in my abdomen, which left the neurologist with no answers. I was beyond frustrated, but determined to go home Friday evening because Hannah's first semi-formal dance was that night, and I wanted to see her in her dress. They agreed to send me home, as long as I took the pain medicine on schedule and followed up with my primary doctor if I had any unrelieved pain. In addition, my mom, who was originally scheduled to arrive yesterday, changed her flight plans and came in on Saturday to help me out with the kids so that Hubby could return to his fellowship program on Sunday. This seemed like a great idea at the time...

To make a long story short, things have not gone well. I'm still in pain (though not nearly as bad as last week), my mother thinks Hubby and I are horrible parents, and she literally yelled at me in front of my children. I'm thinking I should've stayed in the hospital....

Some Details

Yesterday was better, so I think I can manage to write more about what's going on.

I was out of the state b/t Thurs-Sat for the annual, national conference in my field, which resulted in some pretty great things (beyond getting to see my 18th-c peeps). While there, I discussed the professional conundrum Hubby and I are in with my position as an adjunct, and I received lots of advice on how I might push forward through various administrative channels to get more answers on the possibility of a full-time position (not necessarily tenure-track). The advice ranged from "Go to the union rep!" to "Have an open-ended talk with your department chair..." and other ideas about meeting with the EEO officer, the Provost, etc. So, I reflected on the advice, talked with Hubby, formed a plan, and began with a meeting with my department chair on Wednesday.

To make a long story short: there is no possibility of a full-time position for me at New England School. It turns out, the school is actually being SUED by the union for the exploitation/overuse of adjunct faculty, so it's not like the administration is in a position to be "afraid" of union action. The litigation will take months, if not years, and will likely result in little change even *if* the union wins the suit. I was informed that the Dean and Provost both know of the shortage of full-time faculty in English, the fact that we're nowhere near our peer schools in the ratio of full-time to adjunct faculty, and neither of them really care because they know it works best for the bottom line.

My chair was, for the first time, quite personable, empathetic, and encouraging. He completely understands our desire to stay, but also knows that we cannot continue indefinitely without full-time employment for both of us. He was happy to hear about other (non-British lit) courses I can teach and agreed to give me whatever he could to balance out the composition classes. He is happy to observe one of my courses and write a recommendation letter for me when I go back on the job market in the fall. In short, he's just as frustrated as anyone else, but his hands are tied.

The other stuff is all family related. I'm not sure if I can blog about it, if I should, if it would help anything....Essentially, my brother sent me a 7-page "manifesto," which he's been working on for more than two years, about what an awful person I am to be around, how much I hurt/offend/put off other people, how this all pisses him off, how I'm "filling a void" with my foodie nature, and on and on. There are many instances in the letter where he is simply factually WRONG, and other cases where he's referring to old shit. In some examples, he makes no logical sense, and in others I see pure hypocrisy. Ultimately, the entire thing demonstrates his ability and willingness to feel empathy for everyone else around him, except me. He attempts to identify how he and other family members feel without ever thinking about the possibility of any other perspective.

The whole thing occupied every cell of my brain all day Thursday, and even now I must work very hard to concentrate on anything else. I'm incredibly hurt, angry, frustrated, depressed, exhausted, and confused. I'm not sure how I want to respond. Hubby suggested that the letter says more about my brother than it does me, and I think that's a good point. I let him read it in order to get a third-party perspective to see if there was any truth in the accusations. He pointed out a couple things I could work on, but generally concluded it was mostly a heaping pile of bullshit.

This has just been a bad week...next week needs to be better. This too shall pass, right?

It Has Begun

The anxiety, that is. General stress over the move and all the related logistics has been with me for the past two months,but the all-out can't sleep, can't stop moving, feel like I'm going to puke anxiety has hit with full force today. Do you know what our travel/moving schedule looks like? Let me break it down for you:

this Thursday (6/16): Mover come to load up all our things for repatriation. (And we are not allowed to pack anything ourselves, which simply adds to my anxiety).

Friday (6/17): Wake-up call around 2:45 a.m. to get showered, get kids up, and get everyone ready, out the door, all luggage loaded (5 large bags, 2 car seats, 1 pack-n-play), and to the airport for a 6:00 a.m. check-in. Then, we fly for 14 hours, layover in D.C. for a little while, then fly to Boston, where we crash at the Boston-Logan Hilton.

Saturday (6/18): Pick up rental car, drive to New England Town, let everyone explore the new home, shop for appliances, enjoy local seafood, and crash when we all hit "the wall" around 7:00 p.m. (if not earlier).

Sunday (6/19): I fly to Philly with Eliza and Amelia, while Hubby and Hannah fly to my Home State. Along the way, Hubby will connect with his Dad, who is also flying to my Home State. After a very short night of rest, they will hit the road in our minivan and the minivan we're buying from my mom and head to College Town (6-hour drive). By 1:00 p.m., they'll meet the movers at our storage unit and load up All The Things We Left Behind (ATTWLB). Then, they'll make the 39-hour(!!) drive to New England Town.

Thursday (6/23): Hubby meets New England Town movers to load ATTWLB into a storage unit and put one of the minivans into a storage unit. They'll both then fly to Philly and re-join the little ones and I.

We wait....

Wednesday (6/29): We head back to New England Town, and I'll catch a flight out to Home State.

Thursday (6/30): Hubby will hopefully close on the house with the two little ones in tow.

Friday (7/01): Hubby and the littles will fly to FL from New England, while Hannah and I fly to Florida from Home State. We'll all convene at the Orlando airport, where we'll finally be whisked away by Mickey Mouse himself and taken to our luxury resort, DisneyWorld's Beach Club Resort.

For one week, we'll enjoy three parks (Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom), club-level concierge service, and the best pool the Disney park has to offer. This is our reward, our present to our family for working hard, living somewhat frugally over the past two years, and simply surviving Doha. Who know when we'll have the money to do this again, so this is it! At some point, I'm sure I'll be excited.

Thursday (7/07): Hubby and the littles fly back to New England, while I fly Hannah back to Home State, wait at the airport a couple hours, then fly back to New England and drive to the hotel where Hubby is.

Friday (7/08): Please, for the love of God, this should be our moving day! The shipment from Doha will be delivered, the movers will bring our stuff from storage, the furniture stores (yes, plural) will bring our bedroom suite and living room suite, and Lowes will bring our new refrigerator (and possibly some window A/C units).

Now do you see why I'm literally worrying myself sick? Can you imagine the 5,632,218 things that can go wrong in these plans? I can! And that's why I'm freaking out! I have only a limited number of the anti-anxiety meds that my doctor prescribed for me last fall. I've been exercising to help work off some stress and try to help get more restful sleep. Unfortunately, I'm still overwhelmed. I feel like there's too much to do and not enough time to do it. I'm afraid I'll forget something important or that air travel will get screwed up, or worst thing ever....something falls through with the house at the last minute and we're left freaking homeless!!

I could desperately use some prayers for zen, peace, and calm if you have some to spare.

The "Interview"

As I hinted in my last post, my "interview" with New England School (NES) was a fiasco. I went there on word from the Dean that I was "already on the schedule for the fall" and "teaching three classes." I arrived to meet first with the English department chair, who apparently had no idea that the Dean--his own wife--had made such a claim! Before this clusterfuck was realized, however, he proceeded to tell me the one decent piece of information that came out of the whole day. Basically, while the previous unwritten policy was that Visiting Lecturers taught nothing but composition and introductory literature courses, he has instituted the practice of "using the untapped resources" that are the PhDs who are working as lecturers to teach whatever class(es) need to be filled. Generally these are not 400-level courses, but 300-level courses are entirely possible. Unfortunately for me, between the retired professor who still teaches the Rest/18th c. in the department and the new hire they made in the same field, my chances of teaching a Rest/18th c. class are pretty much -0-.

The department chair was neither warm nor welcoming. He freely admitted that there were plenty of lecturers that he wouldn't even know if he passed them in the hall. He explained that NES doesn't "do" spousal hires, and that even if the most tenured member of the department came to the Dean and said "if my wife doesn't get a full-time placement I'm leaving," he'd be told "See ya later!" When I asked if the school had a faculty retention officer, he asked me what that was. And finally, he went on at length about how there has only been ONE lecturer to ever transition into a tenure-track job within the department, and that was only due to the fact that their first two candidates declined the job and the union stipulations required that his application be given preferential consideration. Sounds like a great place to work, huh?

I felt all the optimism I'd walked in with fall to the ground as he walked me over to meet the Associate Dean, who is in charge of all part-time faculty. After sitting down, she quickly asked if the chair had already told me that there were no sections for me this fall. What?! The?! Fuck?! "Um, no, actually he didn't," I replied, trying to hide the bewildered look on my face. That's when I started to get worried. Basically, the Dean hadn't told anyone except my husband that I'd be teaching in the fall, so not only was I not on the schedule for the fall, they explained that they'd have to work hard just to see if they could create three new sections of something for me to teach. I struggled not to break into tears as I explained to the Associate Dean, who actually was friendly, warm, and seemingly enthusiastic about me joining their faculty, that we had just put in an offer on a house and we only did so because I had been told I had a job for the fall. She said she couldn't promise me anything, but that they'd do everything they could to get me three sections for the fall. She had the chair walk me over to HR to get started on paperwork despite having no assignment.....and guess how happy they were to help me? Yeah, it didn't exactly fly. So, the department chair left me sitting in HR signing paperwork, while he went off to "scold the Dean." WTF??

I have never felt so humiliated in my adult life, so completely caught off guard and vulnerable. I've never felt so hopeless about a potential job either. This week, I got my course assignment for the fall, and the good news was that I'd been assigned Women's Writing to 1900 (excellent for my CV). The bad news was that I only had two classes! The e-mail also contained my assignment for the spring, which does have three courses, but for now, we could very well be completely fucked in terms of our mortgage loan for the house without that third course. So, I sent a very appreciative and thankful reply to the chair, expressing how happy I was to have this assignment and asking if there was any possibility of a third course being added. I mentioned that I am also qualified to teach the intro to women's studies course (which is offered as an interdisciplinary studies section), I offered to teach at the off-campus location, and I told him I was willing to take on another evening class (one of my classes is already in the evening). I even explained that I would be happy to take on any administrative opportunities that might be assigned in lieu of a course (i.e. Writing Programs Office). In short, I said I'd do anything, and I explained why (the situation with our new home purchase, which we wouldn't be in if I hadn't been told I could expect three courses). Again, I was very careful in my tone, and I closed with the acknowledgment that there may not be anything further he could do. I got a response that was basically along the lines of, "we're trying our best, but it's very difficult this late in the game...in fact one of your courses may be reclaimed by a full-time faculty member...I'll be in touch."

I'm doing my very best to not be negative and to focus on the fact that we'll be within driving distance to an OMG ridiculous number of schools with whom I could find employment. Not only or primarily community colleges either, we're talking really good, small, private colleges and research universities. It might take some time, but I'm willing to wait if Hubby is happy with his position and our family is happy in our new town. I know I have no reason to whine or complain given that there are so many PhDs who have been contingent faculty for years on end. So, I won't...at least not much and not right now. Right now, I just need the Assoc. Dean to reply to my e-mail requesting a letter to verify my employment. The mortgage lender has said that it would help to have it sooner rather than later (i.e. when the paperwork gets to underwriting), and I haven't gotten any reply since I sent the mail on Wednesday. I'm chalking it up to end-of-the-semester business and that she may be holding out to see if she can get that third class on my schedule.

It's all just utterly disheartening. There's no doubt I'll be going back on the market again this fall, though I'll focus primarily on our new area. None of it makes any sense...Hubby and I have the same credentials, we both have extensive teaching experience and research awards. I have two publications forthcoming and a dozen conferences. But only one of us will have full-time employment come the fall. It's nothing short of a fucking lottery at this point folks.

A Whole Bunch of Stuff

Individual follow-up posts on some of these will probably come later, but for now there's too much venting and not enough time. I've been in New England Town since Wednesday, and I have accomplished the following:

1 - looked at many houses
2 - selected a house
3 - put in an offer on a house, countered a counter-offer on said house, and accepted final terms for our offer to buy the house
4 - selected beautiful living room furniture and a bedroom set for the new house (all under budget!)
5 - met the neighbors (who are delightful and with whom we share some strangely coincidental things)
6 - took a day trip to Providence, R.I. with my Mom, because one day was all about her and what she wanted to do
7 - eaten vast amounts of clams, mussels, and a whole lobster...YUMMMY!
8 - celebrated Easter at the local Methodist church, a blessing in so many ways
9 - determined a daycare for the little ones to start in the fall
10 - started the mortgage loan process for the new house--PLEASE PRAY that this proceeds with success!

Unfortunately, the trip has not been without its disappointment, namely New England School, or to be more precise, the English department chair of NES (New England School), who apparently knew nothing of the assurance that I'd already been given three courses for the fall. Yeah, that was a fantastic fucking meeting, let me tell ya. More on this little dandy later, for now, I just wanted to say: HOORAY--I found a house!!

What's it like, you ask? It's a 1,687 square foot Colonial with 4 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, hardwood floors in the kitchen, bedrooms, and dining room, the cutest little reading nook in the living room, a built-in corner hutch in the dining room, an above-ground pool, a finished basement, and a fenced-in backyard.....all sitting on a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood. Wanna see?

You cannot possibly imagine how much I love this house! If you could imagine, then you could also imagine how tragic it would be if the mortgage loan did not go through successfully. More likely than not, everything will be fine. We have the majority of the documents the bank wants at this point, but I won't have an offer letter until they actually CREATE three new courses to put on the schedule for me. Yes, they have to add three sections in order to fulfill the offer the Dean made to me, the offer which evidently never went through the Associate Dean or the English department chair. As long as I have this document fairly soon, we should be fine on the mortgage. My unease and anxiety comes from the fear that something will pop up out of the blue once everything gets to underwriting, and my dream will come to a crashing halt. From now until June 1st (our closing date), it will be hard to sleep, think, concentrate, or do anything other than worry about whether or not this will really be our new home when we move back in June.

So people, if you're the praying kind, I could use a few. If you're the meditating kind, please say some "ohms" for us. And if you fall into some other category, just send some good mortgage loan vibes this way. I'd really love to bring my family home to this beautiful place.

Things That Suck (and things that don't)

I know I shouldn't be bitching, but some things just suck. Like:

• getting into a nasty argument with Hubby the night before he leaves to take H back to the U.S. for spring break


• having strep throat and a double ear infection while being the only parent on duty


• not knowing which town to live in in New England State (there are 2-3 smallish towns near the town where Hubby's university is located)


• not knowing which neighborhood would be best for us (both fit-wise and in terms of what can afford). Although, this website, which provides info on schools, crime, and housing values has been a great help!


• not yet knowing exactly how much house we can afford to buy (a bit complicated since we're going through the VA home loan process)


• the possibility that we'll lose a good deal of money on the minivan we bought in Doha simply b/c there will come a point when we *have* to sell it, even if it's not at our asking price (or anywhere near the fair asking price)


• making new friends all over again


• trying to figure out the logistics for landing in New England State, shopping for and getting new furniture into the house so that we have a place to sleep and sit, and unpacking our things while Hubby flies back to College Town, loads up the moving van and drives all the way back to New State, while also having the 2-yr old and 4-yr old running around. You see, we have stuff from Doha (mainly clothes, crib, and kitchen gear) that will come to New State a few days after we land. We also have all the rest of our stuff in a storage unit in College Town. And then there's the stuff that needs to be purchase upon arrival: living room set and bedroom set, just to start.


• trying to remember what we sold in the garage sale before we moved and, thus, what we'll need to replace


• the complete uncertainty of what I'll be doing in terms of a job next year

Lest I seem ungrateful, I'll stop here. I'll go further and balance it with things that don't suck.

• all my children are healthy


• we got approved for a VA home loan!! (up to $36K towards the down payment and limited closing costs, among other benefits)


• in turn, this increases the amount we can afford to pay for a new house


• we have tickets home!! Yes, the last one-way tickets from Doha to the U.S. that I'll ever have to purchase


• my mom is meeting me in New England Town and looking at the homes & towns that are on our list of possibilities. Her advice and input will be helpful, and we'll have some quality time together without children, something we haven't had in a very long time.

Frankly, there aren't enough notepads in the world for me to write down all the lists of things to do, check out, price, keep track of, etc. I have a million decisions to make, and I feel an enormous amount of pressure to get them all right. Many of them can't be made until I'm on the ground and seeing things for myself, but that, unfortunately, doesn't stop me from worrying about them in the meantime.