Blogcoven

It’s getting darker earlier — not ridiculously early, just not ridiculously late anymore. I’ve been on one sort-of job interview with a recruiter for a job that would have been nearly perfect, except that the company when faced with a stack of CVs decided that people with experience would be desirable. (Which itself is interesting, since the job was advertised as an entry-level position.) As many of you might have heard, it’s not a good time to be job hunting.

Grad students, especially the younger ones, talk a lot. I remember the first time I heard the “Plan B” discussion (no, this is not a blog entry about contraception, please take your reappropriated slang term somewhere else). One student in the year ahead of me was talking about how much she liked cooking and that if chemistry didn’t work out she’d go to culinary school. My Plan B, when the conversation came around to me, was usually bartending. It’s like chemistry, with fewer and tastier ingredients. It is probably just as likely to kill you. After I picked up knitting, I got lots and lots of comments about how I could be knitting for a living instead of doing science. I tried not to take this as a hint about my chemistry ability, especially when it came from co-workers…

I used to think that if I won the lottery — a small jackpot, enough to live on but not necessarily the “buy a house on every habitable continent” win, I’d take a lot of time off and teach knitting. I have not won the lottery, but I have fallen ass-backwards into a small-time teaching gig. It’s funny how these things work.

I say small-time because I don’t teach enough to pay the bills. It is just enough, however, to fund my knitting habit until we *can* pay the bills with real income. It’s incredibly satisfying. I love talking to knitters, and I love helping people with their craft. I didn’t expect to be implementing Plan B quite like this, but I can’t say I’m unhappy about the way it’s working out.