Yesterday’s conference was interesting. I had actually done quite a thorough post about it, but it disappeared into the ether, even though I had saved it, and I don’t have time to do it again, so you will just have to do without all 5 that useful information on hymnology.

There was cake.

There were also people there from one of the places where I’ve applied for a job, and I hope they will, when they see my application, think to themselves, “That name seems familiar… ah, yes, that’s the woman who was so witty and informative on the subject of Victorian missionary hymns. She’d make a great Adult Education Director! Let’s hire her immediately.”

When I whine about the possibility of having to go back into the classroom, it is not the actual teaching that I dread. I like the varieties of teaching that I’ve been doing all these years since I left the classroom — either going in and doing an exciting presentation and then leaving, which is like a performance, or working one on one with people to help them understand and act on things, which is like a relationship. I enjoy both of those. I just don’t want the staff meetings and grades and departmental politics and stuff that go with full-time teaching.

So yesterday after the conference, I was doing some Deep Thinking about my job situation while weeding, scrubbing, doing laundry, and knitting.

Basically, I want to be able to continue to do the research, writing, instructional design, and training work which I have been doing. I’d like to continue with SEO and SEM, but they are largely just examples of the kind of work you can do with the skills I like to use — research, writing, problem solving, stuff like that. In order to be able to 5do this, I either must find a job which will allow me to continue using those skills, or collect enough contract work to make ends meet. I’ve been applying for jobs that seem to be the right kind of thing for me. I should perhaps also use those research and problem-solving skills to identify more people who might need my services, and approach them with my resume in hand. Well, of course I should do that, since it is a normal part of a job hunt, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet, what will all the work I’ve been doing.

 Erin’s sleeves are finished. I am not sure that they really go with the body of Erin. I still have the back of the sweater from the armscye up, and I have decided, on a mad whim, to use a chart from Poetry in Stitches to finish it, on the grounds that a) I am tired of the pattern bands that actually belong on Erin and b) I have already trifled with the pattern so much that it won’t matter.

In fact, the whole sad story of Erin…

Well, I don’t actually have time to tell it right now, as I have to go sing in the early service. but I may come back to it. If it seems to you that I would be making a terrible mistake by using a Poetry in Stitches flower rather than the Erin Celtic beasts, though, please say so. It may be foolish, after putting in all that time on this cardigan, to be whimsical at the last pattern band and risk spoiling the while thing.