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Starkess

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Everything posted by Starkess

  1. Applied for 29 jobs this week. I can already tell they're all going to be ghosts or form rejections. Job hunting is The Worst, especially for an introvert who is allergic to networking. Had a call with them yesterday and they can do a payment plan, as long as it's within this calendar year. Better than nothing. She was also willing to take my request for some relief to her manager, but mentioned that she did not know of that ever having been done in previous cases. She clearly felt bad for me but I understand this is a big org and not something anyone is personally doing to me. Will wait and see. Not much I can do but keep looking for work, taking deep breaths, and crying a lot. Hm, at least in my field the entire post-doc application thing is quite the process. It has a pretty defined cycle too, which I've missed out on, and would require finding at least three letter writers, when I really only have one. Plus it would require location flexibility, which at the moment I do not have. Especially after this relocation debacle, and we're on a lease, it doesn't make sense to move again right now. So unfortunately, no.
  2. Unfortunately, yeah, I resigned, am not eligible for unemployment, and the contract was quite simple and stated that I would repay in full within 90 days if I left within a year of the last service being rendered. I am going to try to talk to them about it and work out some sort of payment plan and ask for proration, but with the full understanding that I signed that dotted line. Didn't even think twice about it, I was so excited for the job...ha. I knew all this when I decided to quit, of course, but the amount was more than I expected and having been over 2 months and still not having a new job, I do not exactly feel composed now in the face of it.
  3. The Ramparts trilogy is so good!! I should check out Infinity Gate, then!
  4. An update for those following along at home: I have not received any job offers, and I just got notified that my former job wants me to repay my relo bonus. Which I know they have the right to do, but seeing as I left over 2 months ago, I was kinda hoping they weren't going to...anyway, now I am having a huge meltdown because not only am I unemployed and paying for a wedding this fall but now I need to find almost 30k to payback a relo bonus for a job that crushed my mental health and made me question everything about my future career path. Have redoubled application efforts and am contemplating selling a kidney. fml
  5. I finished re-reading The Shadow Rising. This is one of my favorites of the series, and it did not disappoint. Tanchico is a bit of a weak link, but this is Perrin at this best and the entire Aiel storyline is excellent. Will probably hold off a bit before getting into the next one. I finished listening to Dune. It had been a while since I read it and it was fun revisiting a great book. Didn't love the narration style with voice actors for the dialogue though. Now I am listening to Royal Assassin, a great book though suffering a bit from middle book syndrome in the first Farseer trilogy. Am loving being frustrated and sad all over again!
  6. Yes, I know a lot of people are down on that workshop model, but it's clearly been very helpful for a lot of people and I am still interested in the program. I've not heard of ISU, sounds interesting! Not sure I'm looking for more education at the moment after getting my PhD, but I'll take a look! I was going to apply for that as well, but after paying application fees for both Clarion workshops I balked a bit at doing another. Also the hassle of having to physically print and mail the application AND pay for the privilege of being rejected again...yeah I didn't do it. FYI applications are due tomorrow so I think you may be too late unless you can overnight it.
  7. Given my unemployment status and the fact that I've had a couple short stories picked up in the past couple years, it felt like a good time to apply to Clarion again. I knew it was a longshot, but I did think I might actually be competitive. Apparently not...
  8. I don't think it's the world that's sad, I think it's the wringer she puts her main characters through. The core of her books are not, to me, the happenings of the Six Duchies or the Liveship Traders. That's subplot that helps add interest and depth, but the center of the books are the characters and they go through some really awful shit in ways that feel so heartwrenching. It's very well done but it leaves me emotionally exhausted.
  9. Yeah it's very heartwrenching. I have to take her stuff in small doses!
  10. Oh please, this is a discussion forum. People are allowed to join the discussion even if they have negative things to say.
  11. Finished listening to Assassin's Apprentice, Hobb just kills me with how much she tortures Fitz. Needed another audiobook for my run so I picked up the audiobook of Dune, which I've read several times. Good thing, too, because it's a lot harder to follow as an audiobook. Also it's the type of audiobook where all the dialogue is acted by different voice actors (different from the narrator), which I do not really like much. But it's okay.
  12. Yeah I've heard rumors that things are very slow and very bleak in publishing right now. Well, what can you do. Keep on keeping on!
  13. I finished listening to The Woman in the Window, which I found disappointing (overly long, idiotic MC, and it made me have trouble sleeping because I don't deal well with anything scary and, again, the MC was such a f'ing idiot that she kept placing herself in danger). Then my hold on Assassin's Apprentice came in, so I'm listening to that now. This trilogy is one of my favorite of all time, and I've never listened to the audiobook before. I'm enjoying it as much as ever, and damn this book hits so hard after having read the series a few times.
  14. On the writing front, things are going really well! I'm about 30k words into my novel, been getting 3 dedicated writing sessions in per week, and having the fun "this is the best thing I've ever written" feelings (surely will not last lol). The other day I found myself being like "I should pick that book up and see what happens" before I remembered that it's my book and nothing is happening until I write it! My fiance is being immensely helpful and covering our rent, and I'm using savings for the rest of my monthly expenses. But I feel too guilty to fully become a burden, so I am still looking for jobs. Hopefully will finish this first draft by then! I also started sending out queries again for my last manuscript. I stalled out at ~25 last year after getting a 0% positive response rate, my absolute worst ever experience with querying. I'm still at 0% and I don't know if it's just harder than ever out there or if this really is a terrible novel, but I'll at least grind through another few dozen before I give up (yes, I am updating/revising/completely rewriting my query letter from time to time, though with no change).
  15. I am very supportive of EVs, but to say that we are "there" with charging is absolutely not true. I bought a car a few months ago in CA, and I couldn't get an EV because I don't have a reliable place to charge it. Not to mention the points above about electricity generation.
  16. Well, after crickets for a month, I attempted to contact [third party] recruiter with no response. Reached out to hiring manager directly (she had encouraged me if I had any questions and "are you still hiring?" is a pretty valid one IMO!) and she did not respond either! However, 2 days after emailing her, the recruiter contacted me and said the hiring manager had asked her to get in touch with me and let me know that yes, they were still hiring and yes, I am still in consideration. That was a month ago now and nothing since then. Like I don't care (much) that I didn't get the job, but jfc ghosting me after multiple interviews and meeting me in person?? Taking over 2 months to make a decision when you claimed to be "moving fast"? Give me a break. Insulting. Anyway, fiance and I decided I would take all of February to relax (well, work on personal projects mostly) and not worry about job hunting. That time flew by, and now I'm trying to get 2 applications out a day. I still don't totally know what I want to do, so shooting out a lot of arrows with the idea that, if I get a hit, I can learn more during the interview process. So far had one firm very similar to my past government consulting gig reach out (hard pass, I hated that job) and have a phone screen for a financial quant job that is probably way out of my comfort zone. Found I've been gravitating a lot towards data analysts job descriptions, so may try to specifically focus my search and brush up on a couple weak spots for the field. While I'm unemployed, continuing to work on my SciComm channels, which I really missed doing, and writing a new novel, which has been a lot of fun. Stupid bills meaning I need a stupid real job
  17. I finished listening to Invisible Things, a political satire wrapped in sci fi. Didn't totally work for me. The setup for the politics was a bit unbelievable, and it was just the same frustrating and/or exaggerated shit that happen in real life without like going anywhere. At least in Don't Look Up the damn Earth got wiped out and we got the death-by-alien coda. This book literally just ends with the stupidest cop-out. Meh. My WoT re-read continues with The Shadow Rising, which is one of my faves but also it's a bit hard to read these all back-to-back, so I probably need to take a breather after this one.
  18. Ugh, got too fed up with that Half-Blown Rose novel. Had a new hold come in at the library so now I'm listening to In A Garden Burning Gold. This was another I picked up without any context. So far it seems to be a story about a family that are kind of like gods for their nation? It's not terrible but hasn't really grabbed my interest yet. It feels very disjointed. Like on the one hand, they have to manually place the stars every night, but on the other, they're constantly worried about being deposed by humans? The fairy tale aspect and the politics aspect just don't line up for me so far. We'll see. I also finished EEtW and am onto The Great Hunt in my WoT re-read. This has never been one of my favorites in the series, tbh. The middle section where everyone is split up and kind of killing time and the horn gets stolen back and forth feels a bit useless and everything to do with Selene is so annoying. I understand she's using some sort of compulsion so it's not exactly Rand's fault that he's such a dumbass, but still...! I've just reached the part where they're about to head to Falme, though, so looking forward to it picking up again. Also just our first big glimpse of the Seanchan with Domon and gods it's fun to be reminded how much I hate them!!
  19. I used to go to street fests and stuff with my parents, one of the first shows I remember is Spin Doctors at Summerfest. Must have been 1994ish? But the first like actual concert I went to was No Doubt when I was 15 or 14. I got 2 tickets as a birthday gift (it was well known No Doubt was my favorite band--I had previously asked for tickets for Christmas and did not understand the concept of touring and thought you could just always get tickets for bands? haha oops), and my sister drove me and a friend up to the Twin Cities for the show. She dropped us off so we were on our own and felt very cool. Good times. ETA: Okay, I hate not remembering exactly, so I did a little research and Spin Doctors were at Summerfest in 1993, so that was the year (I would have been not quite 6). The No Doubt concert was in St Paul on October 9, 2002, so they were for my 15th birthday.
  20. I started listening to Half-Blown Rose, which is so far the worst of literary fiction tropes. Kinda want to quit but I don't have another audiobook lined up so I'll probably continue on. Given extra free time this month, I started re-reading Wheel of Time. Almost done with Eye of the World, enjoying it a lot as always.
  21. Thanks everyone! I'm sure I'll find something. Job hunting is always nervewracking though and I know I violated the cardinal rule by quitting before I had another one. But I know it's all going to work out, somehow! My current position has now been listed and my boss posted about it on his LinkedIn and I was like "damn that sounds really cool!" and then I was like...but wait...haha. It's hard that something that sounds on paper so perfect for me felt so awful, but that's how it goes I guess. Just makes me second guess everything that even sounds interesting now...
  22. I finished up my PhD last year, but wasn't interested in the typical academic route. Pivoted into science communication, but my first job in that vein was a poor fit, so now I'm leaving after just 6 months. I think I still want to do scicomm, but feeling pretty skittish about it after such a big fail. Possibly considering moving into a more techy track, data science or similar, but I'm not sure yet. I'm feeling pretty discouraged about ever finding something that works for me, but I guess all I can do is keep trying!
  23. I mean it seems pretty logical that if they have to pay a lot more for grad students, they're going to take fewer students. Hopefully it doesn't affect you! Well, I did it and quit my job, last day is next Friday. As relieved and happy as I feel, I know it was 100% the right decision. But it sure doesn't feel like good timing... I'm waiting to hear back on a job I interviewed for--I was one of the final candidates and they said they wanted to "move fast" so I think I should know soon. If that doesn't pan out, I've got some real thinking to do about my career path.
  24. My fiancé is indeed awesome. I've reached the breaking point with my job so I am going to resign next week (at least, that's what I've decided today, will be TBD come Monday if I chicken out I have a potential job lined up and if that doesn't work out, I might actually just take the break and do it. If someone tells me a hundred times they're happy to do something, I suppose I ought to take them at their word and not worry so much that they don't really mean it. In the meantime, I'll try to do some writing this weekend!
  25. I love that the mods have just let this thread trail on to 28 pages and counting Writing goes slowly for me. Was excited about my new manuscript but since the holidays progress has come to a standstill. My fiance is being super supportive and trying to encourage me to take a year if I want and really focus on writing. So far I'm of the opinion I'd feel too guilty not being a contributing member of the household and knowing that I probably wouldn't have any success in that time period which is a bummer. So trying to convince my stupid brain to get some stupid writing done now while I have still have a job and a shred of sanity.
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