Balancing Act

As mentioned previously, I'm somewhat terrified of the somewhat uncertain career future Zach and I face. I want to handle things with grace, but handling them means coming up with an actual plan.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to plan when you have not one, but two careers in their delicate, fragile infancy? 

When we were first dating and newly married, after frolicking with unicorns in a rainbow meadow, we would gaze deep into each others eyes and dream about our beautiful, utopian future of perfect equality and bliss. He would be a University professor at a lovely liberal arts school in Portland, I would have a Family law practice of my very own. We would each arrange our schedules so that one of us could always be at our lovingly restored 1920's home, babies playing with developmentally appropriate, organic wood toys or practicing the cello at our feet. Neither of us would be overly stressed by the demands of home or work, both of us would get to share in the joys of both equally. We would be perfect partners, total equals, supporting the hopes and dreams of each of us equally.

I still get a little starry eyed thinking about it.

The real world isn't nearly as simple as our naivety and romance induced hallucinations. At this point I'm not even talking about all the impossibilities of both of us finding wonderful part-time or otherwise flexible employment. For now, I'm just flumoxed as to how we can both even begin to pursue careers simulataneously.

So far things have been fairly simple. We both only applied to school in the DC area, solely on the basis that we couldn't think of another area that had so many schools that had programs we were interested in and had a shot at. Sure, neither of us went to what would have been our first choice if we were single, but all in all we were happy. It was a nice, teeny-tiny compromise. And probably the only and last easy compromise we'll face. 

Next year, I graduate, and need to take the bar somewhere and get a job in that same place, preferably a job with good future opportunities. At that exact same time, Zach will be sending out a second wave of PhD applications throughout the country, and if he has his way, preferably in foreign countries and hopefully accepting one of the many offers sent his way. Somehow we both need to make big commitments and end up in the same place, at the same time. Which is more than a little difficult.

We not only want to be in the same place, both of us pursuing our careers, but we also want to make choices that are good for other aspects of our future. It would be wonderful to start making little people at some point. Which of course would require us having a plan for how we would care for them. We should also start making money eventually, maybe even buy a house. It's amazing how quickly one decision can snowball until its not just choosing a job or a PhD program, but choosing every aspect of our future, recognizing that every option destroys certain future opportunities and creates others that are beyond our powers of imagination.

It would be so much simpler if one of us was the designated primary career person. Even if we wanted to, I'm not sure how we could choose. From a financial perspective, I not only have a higher earning potential than Zach, but I also have a scarily high amount of student loans, so me working to pay them off is somewhat essential. However, I also have the baby making and baby feeding parts, which makes me more likely to take the career backseat at some point, and more important for us to make choices now that will advance Zach's career. But neither of us want to tell the other person that their aspirations are second place in this marriage. That's just not how we roll. And in the end, we still really like our pie in the sky uber-equity dream. Of course, I also like the idea of a solid health care plan, but that doesn't make it a reality.

Fortunately, we have a little while to figure things out, and there are no rules in life against abruptly changing course. I may desperately want to have our future perfectly laid out for us, but that's not how life goes, and if I'm honest with myself, that's not how I would want it. Choosing amidst uncertainty may be one of the most terrifying parts of life, but its also what makes it really living.

Do any of you deal with the problems of balancing the careers of two people? How do you do it?

Being like Clinton

Every time I see a photo of Secretary Clinton lately, I am struck by how beautifully happy she seems. I almost never see her without her face beaming in pure joy.

By many respects, she has no reason to be so happy. This woman was driven by a goal for years, working like crazy, pushing, striving, giving everything she had just to watch it slip away in the eleventh hour. Who would have blamed her for doing the bare minimum of campaigning afterwards and then fading away comfortably?

And yet, there she is, smiling away, arguably doing the best work of her life. She seems freer somehow, its almost like when she had to let go of what had been driving her for so long and accept the disappointment she was finally able to just do and be, free from all that pressure and perfection. I'm sure being President would have been wonderful for her, but so is what she's doing now.

Things have been a little discouraging at home lately. Zach just got his final letter from the PhD programs he applied for, his last in a string of rejections. This after working like crazy for the past two years on his often miserable masters and fixing his future on entering the academic world.

I still have a year before I have to face the world, and have been lucky enough to get some good news tossed my way. Still, almost every day now I check my e-mail to find another response from a Summer job, all of them polite, but none of them positive.

It's been hard for us (understandably, mostly for him). We both work and work hard (we procrastinate and laze about too, but in between that? Work.) We both have strong, beautiful dreams that we are essentially betting everything on right now. It's terrifying to see little hints that this gamble could not pay off, that everything could be for naught.

I want us to be like Secretary Clinton. To have the drive to go for something with all we have, and the grace to find joy in something else when things don't work out. I want us to be able to keep working towards our original goals just as strongly and passionately as Clinton worked towards hers. We don't want to let the fear of failure stop us, because we know that whatever happens, together, we'll find something wonderful about it.

Today's Lessons

What I learned today:

• Going to the office hours offered by professors is an excellent idea. They actually do want to talk with you and can be amazingly helpful with school, work and life in general
• Respected authority figures saying nice things about me makes me blush in the best way
• Grades aren't everything.
• Skirts are wonderfully comfortable on a hot day
• Re-discovering that your favorite summer skirt has pockets is even better
• Together raspberry gelato and lemon gelato taste like summer
• I actually know what I'm talking about when I sit down and make myself write a paper. It's almost like I'm learning things here.
• Impromptu dancing with my husband to a fun song is quite fun
• We can't dance
• We don't really care

Shining through

Things have been a bit overcast on the home front lately. The skies have been dominated by the bleak grey that just coats everything in its heavy fog. School and life have been surrounding us, trapping us in brick by brick.

Suddenly taking three classes that require substantive papers instead of finals seems like a stupid choice. Sure, if you spread the research and writing throughout the semester, things can be less crunched towards the end . Otherwise you're faced not with cramming and regurgitating knowledge during a 4 hour test, but endless sleepless nights of research and trying to pull words out of your brain onto the page. I'm not even going to touch on the joys of the continuous job hunt and the status of applications to other programs. I don't have the strength to go there.

Usually when one of us is busy, the other one can step up, take over and keep things running. However, when both of us are straining to get by, the system comes to a screeching halt. As busy as I am, I'm glad I'm not Zach right now. He has his Comp exams for his masters on Friday, and has been burning through 3-4 tomes a day trying to prepare. Oh, plus his big, final research paper. We can't pick up the slack for the other person, when we don't have any ourselves.

It's probably for the best that our power was out for part of the weekend, as the shoebox has definitely seen better days. Even tip toeing over the worst parts isn't sufficient to ignore the crumbs on the carpet. We've become adept at kitchen sink jenga - pulling out the dishes we need to clean and trying to stack the dirty ones onto the mountain without toppling everything. I can kind of pretend that the bathroom is clean, so long as I ignore the white spots peaking through the grime. Any hope of a healthy, home cooked meal has fallen by the wayside. Last night we mustered up the willpower to microwave instant oatmeal. I can't remember the last green thing I ate, other than a very unfortunate and quickly expelled piece of bread.

But, today I woke up to sunny blue, the pink of the blooming cherry blossoms kissing the sky, and things just felt pretty damn good. I sent of an application for a job that looks amazing, I made steps towards applying for a women in politics program that looks great. Things in one of my papers started to look a little clearer. Nothing major, but one step closer to the light of freedom.

I came home with a bit of a twinkle in my eye, a silly spring in my step as I walked in the door and pulled Zach up to dance around to "I am the walrus". We laughed at the state of our fridge, ordered some pizza to sustain us for the next few days, curled up with some cheesy tv. Finally breathing and smiling.

Nothing substantive has really changed. We're still stressed, still busy, still living in a bio-hazard. But I can see the sun, and for the moment that's all that matters.

Stalled in a start-up life

One of my favorite things about being a newlywed was how new and bright and shiny everything was. A year and a half latter, eh, not so much. We've broken a few plates, and chipped many of the remaining ones. A spatula snapped in half yesterday. Our Ikea dresser drawers are now held together with duct tape. Our pots and pans have the finish scrapping off, and our attempts to reattach the handle on our frying pan haven't been very successful.

Don't get me wrong, we have all we really need, probably more than. Frying pans don't really need working handles per se, they just making little things like moving it less hazardous. I know how lucky we are, how grateful I am to those who have helped us get to where we are. But I still want more.

I never used to feel this way. For most of undergrad I was fairly thrifty, especially in the housewares division. One of the nice things about sharing a run-down apartment with 5 other girls is that there isn't any pressure to build up and nice home-goods, everyone just sort of contributed what we had to the kitchen and we made it work. No one had particularly nice things (largely because with 6 girls using them, they didn't stay nice for very long). Besides, they wouldn't have matched the patchy linoleum and pealing painted cinder blocks.

That first shopping trip to create the apartment was exhilarating. We had boxes of gifts stacked up at home, and a solid handful of Bed, Bath and Beyond giftcards to begin, we came back with a loaded car and a receipt as long as my arm. Sure, it was a price-conscientious version of going to town; bargain waffle irons and economical dinnerware isn't the most exciting spree. But it was the first part of us putting our little starter home together. The shiny new beginning was intoxicating.

The thrill of a starter home is mostly gone now. I find myself clicking through the lives of people with coordinated furniture and solid cookware - a real, established home, a grown-up life. Alas, the life of full time students surviving on student loans and the kindness of family is still very much a starter life.

I know that the internet is the worst kind of perfection. It's like continually going over to your perfect friends even more perfect house, only she can blindfold you until you're at the best parts, and edit out any unpleasantness. But, even if what I want is really an illusion, I still ache for when (if?) that time in our lives is ever going to show up.

However, I'm no economist, but I do like the concept of trade-offs. We could both be working full time at halfway decent entry level jobs right now. We would probably live somewhere nicer and use those fancy paychecks for all sorts of shiny things.  But what we wouldn't be doing is this. Much as we complain, we both want to be in school. We love enveloping ourselves in new ideas, making that the focus of our lives for a few years. We want the freedom to take our educations and use them to pursue jobs that inspire our passions, not just put bread on the table. That is the life we really want, and that life just so happens to come with a period of broken frying pans and making do. I hope I can remember that the next time I break a dish or swear at the stupid frying pan for the umpteenth time.

Spring Break: the prequel

Spring break is next week. Not that I'm going anywhere fun or doing anything exciting. So far our big plans include maybe going to the National Zoo and me trying to get Zach to go to the paint your own pottery place that I've been suggesting for about a year. I don't care if it is a cliche date, I want to make something pretty and play with paint. Really, if we spend Spring Break doing more than sleeping in and moping around the shoebox, I'll be fairly ecstatic.

Despite the less than exciting but predictable reality of break, what makes it truly exciting is what it represents -  one whole week of utterly free time. I could send out hundreds of resumes, deep clean the apartment, get started on all my upcoming papers, have wild and crazy adventures and still have plenty of time to laze about. Theoretically. Like how theoretically the Earth's core is inhabited by malevolent mole people, waiting for the right time to take their place as overseers of the top world. It's true, I swear! Theoretically, anyways. 

So, with all that coming up, why should I do anything this week? I have plenty of time to do the big things latter. Guess how much I'm getting accomplished this week? Somewhere in the neighborhood of zip, nada, zilch. Readings are being skimmed, papers and projects are getting tossed to the wayside. And it's only Tuesday.

This week is sort of Spring Break: the prequel. It isn't nearly as exciting as the main event, not much happens and it's kind of pointless. But boy-howdy, is it a great time suck. 

Financial Facts

Fact 1: Using Mint.com can greatly aid one in creating a budget, tracking spending and otherwise taking steps towards fiscal responsibility and adulthood.

Fact 2: Changing the budget settings every time you go over budget - supposedly because the old budgeted amount "wasn't realistic, but really because the big red numbers make me feel bad - defeats most of the benefits of having a budget to begin with.

(I wish I was one of those bloggers who can be wonderfuly real, even when its a little less than pretty, but I can't quite shake free the urge to paint a perfect picture of my life. So I'm compromising in parentheses. In reality we're fairly frugal - we live off of about $22,000 a year + the little we have in savings ((granted that 20gs is all student loan money, so I'm not sure how fiscally wonderful that figure is)) - which given that rent on the shoebox is about $14,000 a year and DC is an expensive city is reasonably impressive. Using Mint has been a nice way to get a better handle on what we spend on what and try to reduce our student debt load, but given how low our non-rent budget is, there is only so much to do. I'm trying to be better, I really am. But I like clothes, going out occasionally, decorating the shoebox so its less shoeboxy and what not. I don't want to be in hideous debt forever, and I'm really grateful that its all debt from student loans, not credit cards, but its so hard to remember the future in the now. And I'm not above tweaking the numbers when its unavoidable so I can feel a little better about it all. It's cheating, but some days metaphorically sticking my fingers in my ears and going "lalalala" is oh so necessary)

You don't need designer cookware for oatmeal

I spent a good portion of yesterday over at Williams and Sonoma's website looking at all the really beautiful and really expensive cookware. In my head, someday in the somewhat far off future I would put together a perfect kitchen (white cabinets, dark hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, and fresh kelly green accents) where I would magically cook beautiful, gourmet delights. I had grand dreams of gleaming stainless steel All-clad pots and pans, bright and colorful Le Crueset dutch ovens,and a host of other goodies.

Then dinnertime hit and Zach and I looked at each other, looked at our disaster zone of a kitchen and could not come up with the will power required to do so much as boil water for pasta. We had oatmeal. Not just oatmeal, microwavable, instant oatmeal. Things aren't looking up today. We really should be eating dinner now, or at least cooking it, or at the absolute rock bottom have some idea what to make. I wonder if Zach would go for oatmeal again.

Clearly we are the type of people for whom a $200 pan would be a sound investment, sure to take our gourmet stylings to a whole new level.

The Art of Smart Cooking

Tonight Zach and I stretched out in front of my laptop and enjoyed Julie/Julia while feasting on a roast rosemary lemon chicken, warm pugliese bread and a lovely tossed salad. It was a wonderful meal, a wonderful movie and wonderful night of enjoying each other. I felt wonderfully cozy, french and Juliaesque.


Granted, the chicken came from a whole foods rotisserie, the bread came from my freezer and originally from Costco. Even the salad came from a bag. It's like my father always taught me - why work hard when you can work smart? I think he meant that in a slightly more responsible way, the type of thing where you clean a little bit everyday and never have to deal with a big, hard mess. However, he never specified, so I'm comfortable taking it as an endorsement of yummy, utterly easy food. I'm sure the Julie/a would be horribly ashamed of me. Oh well.

New Semester Glow

Ahem. Not to brag*, but at this moment our apartment  has: clean floors, all the dishes are clean and in the cupboards - which means our sink is empty and shiny, the bathroom (even the floor!) is clean - complete with organized shelves, the bed is actually made, the laundry is clean, dried, and has managed to make its way off of the drying rack and into the closet, the fridge and cupboard are fully stocked, and there is even a minimal amount of clutter. There are even little flowers in a vase being all centerpiecey and good smelling. It's like Martha Stewart did a show on poor college students with minimal style living in an overpriced studio in here. It's all kinds of awesome.

I'd like to say that this is just because we are such dedicated, hard working people, but I know its just a touch of new semester magic. It's a wonderful time when in a fit of blind optimism and drive we just naturally start doing things. I just sort of spontaneosuly cleaned the bathroom today. No 30 minute pep talk required to get off of the couch and be usefull, no procrastination, it just sort of happened. I may have even hummed a jaunty tune while doing it. People, I was even wearing pearl earrings. It was sort of wierd.

New semester magic means having just enough inertia that productivity just sort of flows out our fingertips. Its amazing how hard it is to do something when there is nothing you have to do. We were home all last week. We did nothing. We barely even put forth the effort necessary to eat, let alone clean. A shiny new semester not only gives us a reason to get out of bed and a nice little push into activity, but it also gives us the time to do it. I can see the inevitable stress that will come from mountains of readings, reaserch and job hunting on the horizon - but for now everything is calm and sunny.

I know its all going to go to hell in 1-3 weeks, but I'm going to focus on the now, ok? Good.


*Because heaven knows that blogs should never ever be used for bragging, navel-gazing or self-promotion of any kind