Joooerrrrrrrrrbb

I am looking for a job. I have six more months until my current contract ends, but I like to get a head start on anxiety. And really, this is pretty big for me; I tend to stay in positions for several years, and have gone back to one employer in multiple guises, so I'm looking for what will essentially be only the third or fourth job of my adult career. And I don't just want a job, I want this one particular sort of job. So, I fret. And apply. And network. There is nothing so nervewracking as putting oneself out there for judgment, over and over and over. And thus far, not a nibble - despite my excellent qualifications for the jobs I have applied for. Ulp.

Also, this week month is crunch time at my current job, and things have been painful lately. I end every day feeling flat as a pancake. You say "edit," I say "completely rewrite," potato, potahto, can I call the whole thing off? Actually, the job content and politics of my job would be totally bearable, if it were not for the isolationist aspect of working at home and having no colleagues. I am so over that, I can't even begin to express it. I want to work in an office again, with a team. I crave structure.

Putting the crowning touch on the whole thing, of course, is that I just emptied all my (admittedly meager) savings to pay Stanford University $3,000 for my diploma. "Didn't you get your master's two years ago?" I hear you asking. "What do those avaricious bloodsucking bastards want now?" Basically, due to a stupid administrative fiasco right before my graduation paperwork was due in 2004, I didn't officially "graduate" with my class, despite having completed all the requisite coursework, etc. No big deal, I thought. I'll submit the paperwork next semester and graduate then; I'm already employed, so it doesn't make much of a difference.. Wrong-o. See, according to the vampires in the Registrar's office, you have to be enrolled to graduate. No exceptions. Thus, $3,000 to "enroll" for a semester (no coursetaking privileges) so I can get a lousy piece of paper they owed me two years ago. I am so going to relish responding to them the first time I receive an alumni fundraising letter. My vitriol will be exquisite, people.