Thursday, March 10, 2011

How I wore it: baby's in black and I'm feeling blue

So this morning, when I was about to go to the gym (for the first time in AGES), I found out that I didn't get the teaching job I was hoping for. I'm disappointed, less about the job (in my heart of hearts I'm not sure if I would've been ecstatic working there), but rather about how...scary the future is. No job prospects, my advisor gone AWOL again - I'm not even sure when I'm finishing my Ph.D.; my plan was to finish this summer, but with no word from my advisor, I just don't know. I'm more calm now than I was this morning, simply because my family has been so supportive.

Sigh.

Oh, well. Obviously I substituted "eating tons of deviled ham" for "going to the gym," though.

As little as I wanted to leave my house, though, I needed to go out for tutoring. I was not inspired, to say the least. The weather didn't help:


Just a basic black base, blue boots, and green accessories. My favorite "real" color (apparently people don't always like to be told that grey/black are my favorite colors) used to be green, but I've gone off it the last few years. I like red a lot now. And turquoise, of course. Anyway, yes, though, I still do like green a lot and I decided to be simple with my olive cardigan and matching earrings:


Pretty, no? They were a wedding gift from a family friend/English tutor of my husband's family. I believe she bought them in the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. To my untrained (yet enthusiastic!) eyes, the green stones look like peridots, which happens to be my birthstone and a big favorite. I like that these earrings - for being so small - have a wonderful amount of detail. 

My outing turned out to be good for me, in the end. I realized this morning that all I wanted was to BUY something - apparently I get quite acquisitive when down. I've been scouring Etsy a lot...

I want this:

Aww, nuts! It was sold today.

This comes came from the Olives and Pearls store. 

I also want this:

I love jewelry and I love Arabic script: put the two together and it's a win-win situation!

This comes from the ArtWark store. I just put it in my shopping cart.

But the good news is that I went to my favorite bookstore (where I even asked if they were hiring. No joke.) and - with my parents' money. What? - bought four Sanskrit-based books: one on Paninian grammar; one of Kalidasa's poems; an introduction to Prakrit; and a book on Indo-European languages. Woot! 

[Did I tell y'all that I'm thinking of doing nerdy language-camp in the Netherlands this summer?]

Anyways. I'm feeling better about life, but am still a little downcast. It will pass and I'm sure something better will come out of it. 

Green cardigan: gift from mother via Lord and Taylor (NYC), remixed
Black tunic: American Apparel, remixed
Black leggings: HUE, by way of Lord and Taylor (Boston), remixed
Blue boots: Paige Veronica Slouches, by way of endless.com, remixed
Earrings: gift from a family friend



7 comments:

  1. I, too, just got turned down for a job. Let's commiserate and eat ham together. But now there's this other job, so I'll see...

    Those earrings are beautiful, and now I wish I had pears in the house.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a bummer about the job. I also tend to go for retail therapy when I'm feel down. The Etsy finds are awesome. Nerdy language camp? Sounds fun!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Aww, Katie. I'll do some baking and we'll have REAL commiserating. Good luck with other prospects. I have other baby prospects - at least three other schools have my CV and file - but they haven't contacted me yet, so I'm not so hopeful. Oh, well.

    Allison, it was so funny, though! I've been so good about not spending money (especially with few job prospects now!), but I just couldn't resist last night and went for the pear-shaped golden "Bismillah" necklace. But I do think nerdy language camp will be just the thing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. i know it's cold comfort but you are not alone. I landed an on campus interview for a dream position last month, but got rejected (first by an impersonal post on an academic job wiki and then later by email) last week. I moped for days. Many of us have uncertainty in our futures.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Awww, thanks, Ray. I'm sorry to hear about your experience, too. It's going to be tough going for a lot of people. I'm at least grateful that my family has been so supportive (and will continue to be so if need be), both emotionally and financially... So that I can buy Islamic jewelry and Sanskrit books!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Is it possible to contact the grad school office to get the advisor off his/her butt?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Terri, I wish. It doesn't seem to help because my advisor has been on sabbatical and abroad, so NO ONE can really get in touch with him. I thought he was supposed to come back to Europe this week, but who knows. Also, since I'm just an ABD Ph.D. student in the very old-fashioned German university system, I don't think anyone...cares if I take a long time to finish, as opposed to how my former American university felt about such things.

    ReplyDelete