Out of Exile

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Wow, I haven't written in over a month.  Definitely my longest blog-gap in recent memory, but to be fair, I have had absolutely nothing to say.  Aside from getting readjusted to life in Austin, my last three months have actually been rather dull.  Most days have consisted of riding 10 or so miles on the bike, looking for jobs online, and watching hour after unbearable hour of daytime television.  Such is unemployment, I suppose.

It's really quite a depressing state, this unemployment.  There's a combination of factors that really serve to get you down.  It's not just the constant rejection (or worse, non-response) from various potential employers.  Rather, it's the void of having nothing on your calendar, nowhere to be during the day and nothing really to plan for or even plan around.  It's maddening.  The experience has given me infinitely more empathy for those who are in an even worse position than us in this economic morass.

In any case, the three-month exile that is unemployment is now at an end.  Kellie will be starting work in two week and I will be starting just after we get back from Thanksgiving.  This will be an interesting transition, I expect.  On the one hand, I am incredibly excited that I will have something to do, a way to use my talents and contribute to the projects of an office.  On the other, this will of course be my first full time job, which is no doubt a change from full time school.  Moreover, because of the nature of my program in Edinburgh, I haven't actually had a daytime schedule since early March of this year - it has actually been eight months since I have had any kind of schedule at all.  So, things will be very different.  But, in a good way, I think.  I suspect that it will be much easier to make full use of my free time when it becomes a more scarce commodity.