We just moved the last of Skatje’s stuff out of our house and into her dorm room. No more kids at home! We’ve come full circle now to 1983, back when we were a couple living in a studio apartment, living on Mac&Cheez and free government cheese food, scraping by on minimal grad student stipends. Now we’re in a big old empty house that we got because it was a perfect family home, but otherwise, we’re still getting by on the cheap, since we still have two kids off at college.

Oh, and we’re also left holding the bag on two cats.

I’m still yucky icky sick and oozing slime and fluids like a mollusc, but I did go see the doctor, and she assured me that my death was not imminent but probably at some distant time years hence. I interpret that to mean that my agony will be long and interminably enduring.

We also scheduled a colonoscopy. This is probably not a good day to annoy me.

Somebody shoot me. Yesterday was a full 24 hours of travel with nothing but intermittent naps, and of course I wake up this morning at my usual time of 6am after only 3 hours of sleep. And I seem to have acquired a chest cold. Or pneumonia. Or Ecuadorian Lung Rot, or something. I’m hoping that at some imminent time point, after I’ve taken care of a few chores, my physiology will allow me to get some sleep.

Until then, let’s look back in time, to a morning a whole week ago, when I would regularly awaken to a whole grand morning feast of exotic tropical fruits, and I’d feel like eating them all. This is my taste test of a granadillo, a weird fruit with a horrible color (gray) and an unappetizing texture (watery mucus) and a fine sweet flavor.

O PZ of times past, who could awaken in fine fettle and a zest for adventure, please reincarnate in this body soon.

We have had a fabulous week in the Galápagos, and are slowly working our way back — we’re in Quito tonight, getting up for a 4am shuttle to the airport tomorrow morning, with an 8 hour layover in Miami which means we won’t get home to Morris until after midnight. We’re ready to fall over, but look — we’re happy!

The guestbloggers will have to hold down the fort for at least another day, but I’ll be back in action soon with a lot of stuff to report. Patience!

By the way, can any of you name the two famous islands behind us in this picture?

Hiya gang, have you missed me? I’ve only got a moment before I have to go chase down flightless cormorants, so I thought I’d just pop in and tell you all I wish you were here, it’s a fabulous place, and I’ll have more to say when I get back after this weekend.

Until then, the guest bloggers are doing a marvelous job and have my full support!

I’m a little brain-dead this morning, but at least I’m remembering to note that it’s MAJeff writing this. I’ll be better once I have my coffee, I hope.

I spent all day yesterday immersed in job hunting materials. Prepping files for submission, organizing application materials, creating individual files on disk and hard copy for every school. You know, that nasty ol’ administrative side of job hunting, the kind of work you just have to grind through all at once, rather than waiting, but that has to get done in order to avoid complete chaos.

This weekend a friend was over for my dinner. I was actually lamenting that I had not yet, in several years of teaching, had the opportunity to teach Introductory Sociology. (It’s not just because schools want someone who can teach it, but I think it would be a fun class.) He was looking at my vitae and saying I hadn’t yet taught any general ed classes. I listed off several, and got to “Social Problems.”

“That’s not on here,” he said.

“I’ve taught it at two schools. Oh crap, what else did I screw up?!”

Thankfully, that’s the only class I omitted. I think I caught all the typos, and I haven’t omitted any schools. I did have to remind myself of a few of the “professional service” activities I’d done so I could include those when I was editing it last month.

Omitting a class or two on the list of courses I’ve taught is actually pretty minor, especially with the list of classes already on my vitae.

At the ASA conference last weekend, a friend was was telling me about her job. She does a lot of the administrative side of things, including hiring, at a community college. Her favorite letter was one declaring how excited the applicant was to have the opportunity to work with graduate students at the college. At the community college without graduate programs. That’s pretty much a circular file application, I would guess. Others told stories of applicants sending cover letters to a completely different school than the one they were applying for.

Let’s hear your job-hunting horror stories. I don’t have any big one’s yet. (I can’t think of any from previous job hunting experiences, but I’m sure I screwed something up.)

They say misery loves company. What stupid things have y’all done or seen that just made you laugh?

And now, I’m back to job hunting (and dissertating).

Someone asked if I went to church yesterday. Yes. This one:

I was only there for the gargoyles, which are all of Ecuadorian wildlife.

(Now I have to go catch a plane to the islands…)

Quito is not a shiny city. It’s a bit shabby, with peeling paint, narrow twisty streets, buses belching fumes, and cheap gray tenements erupting all over the hillsides, and it is also far too churchy for my tastes. But man, it has character. It’s a wonderfully lively place, and what it lacks in chrome it replaces with color and quirkiness and charm. We had a good time today touring the Old City.

I was charmed by this little restaurant with guinea pigs turning on a spit. We didn’t have a chance to stop and sample them, though, since we had to scurry up the road to visit the equator.

There’s the famous Trophy Wife, straddling two whole hemispheres at once.

Tomorrow, we have to rise up early for our flight to the Galapagos — communication may get even more limited for a while. Trust me, though, we’ll be having fun.