chesneycat

Guess what!

*massive grin*

I've just e-mailed Glasgow, and declined their offer.

Damn, but that was a tricky e-mail to write.  I think I've made the right decision, but shit, I hate letting people down.  I HATE it.  I've been so stressed, ever since getting back from the wedding yesterday, and this is why.  GuiltGuiltGuilt.

The thing is, I'm NOT letting them down at all.  Letting them down would be accepting the job, and then shoving the best possible outcome down their throats in a few months time.

This is the right choice.  For them, and certainly for me, even though I've just effectively fired a bolt through my gift-horse's forehead.

So why do I still feel like shit?

I've been offered the Glasgow Job!

Nothing like the thought of another year of employment to take the pressure off.

And... nothing like the thought of weekending with five hour train journeys each way and the impossibility of scheduling those possibly very necessary conjugal visits (potentially with a turkey-baster, if we don't get lucky with the clomid alone by Christmas - either that, or they start drilling holes in my ovaries) to put the pressure back on again.

I've got two weeks to make a decision.  Hopefully, I should hear back from Heidelberg and MSSL within that time, and I'll also know the outcome of the current cycle. 

Please send "make the right decision" vibes to the usual address....

Well, Glasgow was actually pretty nice.  Everyone I met was most insistent that I didn't judge it on the basis of Tuesday's weather, which was pretty damn glorious.  But then, the second of October is my sister's birthday, and she always gets good weather.  The department was friendly, the talk/interview went well - I may have slipped slightly in one or two spots, but I didn't shoot myself in the foot like one of the other candidates, and managed to point out the massive chasm in another candidate's teaching philosophy with all the subtlety of a blunt object while still keeping my charmingly innocent demeanour.

Yeah, I totally pwned some of them!

But I don't know that I'll get the job.   Or even if I'd take it - Glasgow's a heck of a long way from here.  Two of the other candidates were also pretty strong, and have more direct experience.  They also seemed a little less concerned about the fact that the job itself is a bit of a dead end.  I do worry sometimes that honesty isn't the best policy in an interview, but at least if you're frank, everyone knows what they're getting.

Anyway, while I was stuck at Waverley waiting for the train I couldn't re-schedule, I got a bit more Dragon Days writing done, and Jez went to a free screening of Day Watch. [He was back in Sheffield - just realised this wasn't entirely clear, in case you were wondering why I didn't go as well.] This is a film we've been eagerly anticipating for a while, and he decided beforehand that he didn't mind watching it twice. 

And apparently, it's shockingly dire.  I think I'll end up waiting for the DVD now.

At least I have some other films to look forward to this month - there's quite a few of them, it seems.  Ratatouille, Stardust... and I really, really want to watch Black Sheep too.  It'll probably be complete shit, but looks funny enough to carry it off.


Baaaaa!
 

Well, the interview yesterday went okay.  Could've gone better, could've gone a lot worse.  I think I was very convincing with some aspects, but less so with others.  I won't be surprised if they turn around and say 'thanks, but no thanks', in other words - besides, the fact that I'm not an x-ray astronomer automatically makes me a bit of a wildcard.  If I don't get the job, that'll be the main reason.

Staying with Jo and Ben on Wednesday night was interesting, to say the least.  Seeing her, I didn't react as badly as I'd expected I might, though there were of course tears in a few places during the evening.  She's looking wonderful, and at 31 and a bit weeks, pretty enormous.  We talked a lot, and I felt her daughter's back through Jo's tum, but not any kicking/movement.  And all the while, wonderful, wonderful mental disconnections were being made.  We may have shared the same EDD, but I'm not pregnant, not in a position to be getting excited about a new arrival, none of that - and there's nothing like the evidence of your own eyes to kill off all those should'ves.  It'll get easier again once she's born, which almost certainly won't happen on the exact Day of Doom.  More disconnections in the future, anyway.

But there's more.  She's a good friend, and was very sympathetic to how I was feeling... but.  But.  Her empathy could only take her so far, and there was a real, tangible gulf in our mutual understanding of each other.  I'll get to her position one day, I've no doubt of that and I'm in no hurry to gain that understanding - I want to get to step three before I start worrying about steps nine, ten and eleven.  But miscarriage is one of those things that... yes, you can imagine it, sympathise with it, but the reality goes (or can go) so much deeper.  Infertility, too... I think she sensed she'd almost crossed the line when she (almost) implied that I should 'relax and it'll happen'.  I am relaxed, and that won't make it happen, because I do happen to be one of those people who is biologically Fucked Up.  But that's not the point.  The point is, this experience has changed me.  It's brought Jez and I closer together as a couple, and it's made us different people.  I hesitate to say 'better people' - that's a rather subjective thing, really - but I'm leaning in that direction.  Everything has deepened.  I'm still getting used to my new skin, and I find it hard not to react to everything I feel.  How can I describe this?

Hands up if you've read Bujold's Curse of Chalion and/or Paladin of Souls. (If you haven't, they're worth reading. If you have, you'll know what I'm about to say, I expect.)   There's a concept in those stories which goes roughly like this.  The human soul isn't big enough for miracles, unless it goes through a heck of a lot of stretching first.

That's where I am.  I've been stretched.  Unlike the fictional protagonists, I don't necessarily have a miracle waiting in the wings, but I've changed and grown, and I'm quite capable of finding/making my own.  So, when I was hugging Jo goodbye yesterday morning, a little voice in my head asked whether I'd swap places with her, if I was given the chance.  As I drove away, it suddenly sunk in that I was mentally recoiling in horror at the very thought.  Give up all of what I've learned, all those changes, all that growth? I couldn't possibly squash myself small enough, or cut away enough of myself to fit in to the mould of someone who hasn't walked this particular path.   Back in April, before anything happened, I accepted the possibility that it could, and arrogantly asserted my willingness to shoulder it - better me than someone who's been through enough already, or couldn't cope.  Well, that kind of innocence was never going to last very long.  Now, though...

Now, I genuinely wouldn't change a thing.
 

I have an interview for the Glasgow jobs!  I have to talk for 25 minutes, on a combination of first year lecture material and my teaching philosophies (wtf? time to grill Jez mercilessly, methinks!), and I potentially have to be there from 9.30am on the 2nd October.

Iain - know any good B&B's/restaurants convenient to the University?  I think this might be an overnighter...