Batch One out there

Well, I've sent my first batch of applications: 10 brown envelopes somewhere in the postal system waiting to reach someone who may or may not read all of my hard work. I'd like to say I'm relieved, but I still have at least that many more to do (with a week or so before the next deadline), and now I have a strange sense of anxiety about having them out there -- like I'm up for display and the powers that be will be judging me -- harshly. I guess the real core of the anxiety is that 58% of new Ph.D.s don't get tenure-track jobs their first year. And I feel certain that it won't be the graduates from Yale and Harvard that are jobless.

Sigh.

I wish I had something nice to say. I've been thinking lately how life seems to me to be much like a swing through the jungle on vines. I move from one problem to another, hanging on for dear life, when in all probability I could just walk along fine without all those vines. I don't seem to be much good at that kind of traveling.

Tonight I'm going to a poetry reading in town. That should be fun. I need some poetic encouragement.

I notice all of your blogs are silent. Are ya'll swinging on vines too?