Rowing on the brain

The trouble with getting up early and erging in the morning is the energy crash that happens an hour after the conclusion of erging. It's bad enough this morning that I postponed the bike ride in to work until lunchtime.

But at least I got the day's meters done.

Last night's dream was rowing-themed: it involved sitting in bow seat, holding a wooden oar handle, and feeling exceptionally weak and as if I'd forgotten everything I knew about rowing. Then, for some reason, the coach decided to pull all of the other rowers out of the boat (they'd all been selected to race in an upcoming regatta for which I wasn't eligible), so I had to row the boat back to the dock by myself. Magically, it worked, despite the fact that I was sweep rowing with only one oar (port).

The other day, a friend pointed out this system for converting a stand-up paddleboard to a single rower. I imagine it would feel like rowing an ocean wherry - more pleasant than an erg, to be sure, but not quite the same as skimming along in a narrow, sleek racing shell. But I also imagine it would be more durable and easier to store and transport for those of us who are itinerant.

Status

Current status: In Texas, applying for jobs and writing manuscripts. Departure date looks to be pushed back to the end of January. Subsequent destination: Lincoln, Nebraska, for 6 months, for more manuscript-writing and an experiment. Destination after that, unknown. I was involved in an NSF proposal which might have extended my time in Lincoln, but learned today that it did not get funded (PHOOEY). So, that's that.

Several postdoc positions have popped up this year that have sounded quite enticing, but timing's tricky and I can't seem to get useful feedback from some key players on whether I should apply for them or not. Part of the question is, can I stand to spend another __ years living somewhere on a temporary basis? Can I stand to keep gutting it out in a tight academic job market? An extremely helpful phone conversation with my brother indicated to me that I'm still on the young end of the spectrum in terms of applying for faculty positions within my subdiscipline, but the ratio of my "years since PhD" to number of publications is at least within a reasonable range for my field, and I know my publications are of good quality.

The lead time involved in applying for faculty jobs might astound non-academics - the timeframe is around a full year between applying and starting a job. In the meantime, I find it a bit hard to wrap my head around the short turnaround time for non-academic jobs.

One of the difficult aspects of this stage of things is that there are many people in my life who would like to be reassured that, on some level or another, things will be all right. Figuring out how to respond to that is, in itself, emotionally draining.