Strategy

Packing up for Baton Rouge again. The commute with half a week in BR and half a week two hours away one direction or another is getting tedious. And now that the air is out, I have to keep the windows down which means for two hours I get hair whipping in my eyes.  One more half semester before I get a break.

Cannot WAIT.

This morning I am preoccupied with logistics. I want to square things away. Right now I am scheduled to TA for a large Intro class next semester and am having my HM duties clustered at the end of the semester so that I can have a few months off with my newborn. It will not be possible to pay rent for an apartment I am not going to be in for a few months, so I am going to need to rent a room and plan to commute. I don’t know how that will work with a baby. Luckily I am married to a man who is eager to pack the kid with him all the time. While most women I know have a difficult time getting their partner to take a reasonable amount of the load with baby-rearing, mine has confessed that he’s already imagined the arguments we will get into because he will constantly want to cart the baby around himself. For all the things that are up in the air, nebulous and worrisome, one thing I am thrilled to NOT be worrying about is how that man is going to be as a father.  I can say without an ounce of hesitation that there is NOBODY I would rather do this with than my husband.

But as for logistics, mightn’t it be easier to gracefully decline my assistantship as a colleague of mine recently did? I asked him how everything equaled out financially and he said he figured it would cost him $1,000 per semester. I don’t see how that could be correct but if it was, the math would be easy. It would cost over six times that much to maintain a second household for that duration. And besides, I have lost my chance to direct or perform at LSU as I'd hoped to do. If I stayed on, I'd only be staying for the drudgery work. I need to figure out what I am doing as soon as I am able so that the department can prepare as well. It makes me happy to think that if I declined, another individual may be able to realize the dream of pursuing a PhD.

My to-do list is getting hairy and monstrous.

Speaking of, I was just informed that a storm is coming which means I need to beat the weather to Baton Rouge or I will be condemned to a 2 hour drive with no air circulation and my windshield wipers aren’t stellar and my windows aren’t very clean so I best be off.

Until  tomorrow…