I've got a little list

Jennifer I suppose I will tell the whole story later, but for now, let's stick with the short version, which is this: due in equal parts to a series of miscommunications and the slowness of the bureaucracy, I find myself temporarily unemployed. It's not ideal, of course, but I have been offered at least temporary employment (as soon as legally possible) to try to finish up one of the projects, so the situation is a little less stressful than it could be.



I knew back in January that I would be unemployed in February, and I thought it would be best if I could treat it as a month-long vacation. Nevertheless, I have been making Plans. Here was my list as of the end of January:

1. Write a post for the blog every day.
2. Finish the review paper I am working on with colleagues from UM.
3. Learn Swedish.
4. Watch TV, especially the Winter Olympics.
5. Become reacquainted with my long-dormant domestic skills: have dinner hot and on the table every night, etc.
6. Do a little here and there on the lake projects (i.e., the things I was hired here to do, in other words, WORK).
7. Relax.


#1? Let's just hustle past that one for now. Because I have been working rather a lot on #2, which as far as I know is now back on schedule and coming along. #3 is a work in progress; I have attended Swedish lunch a couple times (more on that later) and I am duly signed up for the free evening courses with svenska för invandrare, starting next week. More on #4 later. #5? Ah, well, so far, umm, no, not so much.

#6? I have really come to like my project, and for the first week of the month, I kept going on it, more or less as if nothing had changed, out of sheer inertia. I did come to my senses, though, when it became clear that my boss was perfectly willing to let me continue to work 10 hours a day, for no pay, if I so chose. She meant it in a kindly way, I think; she herself lives to work... well, anyway, it was an eye-opener. Hello, my name is Jennifer, and I am a workaholic. Time to start working a little harder on #7... err, you know what I mean.


Hours-later edit: I forgot two other things that I was going to do: write and essay to finish that Linnaeus course that I started last term, and finally read "The Silmarillion." The book was recalled by the library before I could even start it; as far as the course goes, hey, I've got all term to do it, right? (Can you guess why I didn't manage to finish it the first time?)