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Both I and this website exist. And after five years of "oh I should post a quick update" I'm actually doing it.
1) Job stuff
I have been working at New Mexico Tech as an adjunct professor for 7 years now. As enrollment has been dropping, my department has been unable to maintain enough courses to give their adjuncts unless a tenured professor gets research funding and needs their classes covered. Being an adjunct is generally shitty, filled with the same roles and responsibilities as a tenure professor but with a strikingly small fraction of the pay, no benefits, very little respect, and less institutional support. So, given the knowledge that I am imminently going to be given zero classes and therefore be paid zero dollars, I started looking for new jobs. I applied to *counts on fingers* nine (9) jobs and got interviews with four (4), which isn't bad. Unfortunately I didn't get any offers from any of them. I got through multiple rounds of interviews for a job with an FFRDC in DC, however. That seemed very promising, so my partner applied for a job in a different division of the same center. In the end, she got an offer while I did not. So at this point we were considering whether she should accept this new position anyway. We started seriously looking for apartments and I started really shooting off applications (five of the nine), but we had to really consider the possibility that I would not have a job with the move, whether we wanted to do that, what it would mean going forward, and what I wanted to do if that was the case.
Then I got a call from a friend. She wanted me to apply for a job as a research staff member for her division at NMT. I was very skeptical. I did not want to work for NMT anymore. They are very poorly run and I had been treated very poorly there. Plus Socorro (where NMT is) is about 1.5 hours away from where I live in ABQ. But I decided to interview, to see what they were about. Eventually I was convinced. I got multiple calls from the senior manager to check in with me and answer questions. I got a tour of the facility and the staff: away from the main campus and with their own staff who actually were good at their jobs. And the work, helping to run an EMS test and research facility, sounded really interesting.
So, long story short, we did not move to DC and I have a new job! Huzzah! The work is interesting, it has a balance of structure and freedom that is very well suited to me personally, I love everyone in my immediate team, and I feel really valued there. It feels kind of weird to be unable to get any jobs on my own merit, only being offered one because I know someone there. But that actually kind of drives home to me that results are *not* based solely off of merit. It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose, so to speak.
2) I was recently diagnosed and prescribed medication for ADHD. It was something I was dealing with for a very long time without really knowing what it was I was dealing with. In New Mexico you can get a specialty for your psychology PhD or MD called a "prescribing psychologist." This indicates additional expertise and training in diagnoses and drug treatment of behavioral and mental health conditions. I went to see such a specialist and it was a really exceptional experience. He conducted four separate tests: a single blind interview (where I did not know I as being tested), a verbal questionnaire, an on site paper questionnaire, and an online questionnaire. Afterwards he evaluated the tests, cross referenced the results for consistency, and gave me my results. Interestingly, there have been a lot of advancements in the study of ADHD since I was younger, and the scientific understanding is much for fine grained.
For one, diagnosis for adults (that is, not just based off of "are you good at school") has become much better. Two, the condition now has multiple types that better reflect how it effects a person's life and which correspond with different effective treatments. The 10k foot explanation is that there are sets of symptoms: impulse control and focus. One or the other can be dominant, or they can be synergistic, and of course with varying levels. I have a focus dominant type, which likely impaired early identification since I don't have impulse control issues giving me the ability to wrestle with my focus issues long enough and frequently enough that I still did well in school. Life, however, less so.
I've been on my prescription now for about 6 months and its been really helpful. I was very wary at first, but my psychologist explained that the primary treatment for my type is just strait up amphetamines (adderall). This is because one aspect of ADHD is a physical difference in the way my body processes and metabolizes amphetamines. I.e. it is literally impossible for me to feel any kind of "high" or other similar effects from it. They also are metabolized and expelled from my system relatively quickly. The effects are immediate, end when the dose wears off, does not build up in my system, and has no long term changes to my brain chemistry. In short, a minor medical miracle (at least for me, for a neurotypical person or even someone with a different behavioral or mental condition, taking what I take every day would actually not be safe or healthy, go figure). Neat! And another huzzah!
3) I've started playing 40k again with my old Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum now I guess) army. I'm not really going to tournaments, or even playing at my LGS. Every couple of weeks I go to a friends house and play some casual games on his table tennis table with cardboard terrain. We proxy a lot of stuff, and get rules wrong *very* regularly, but its so much fun to get back in the game. I've also developed a much greater appreciation for the hobby portion of the game, building and painting my minis, as an older adult. Its also a lot more fun when you've got enough disposable income that you don't have to feel bad about taking up such an expensive hobby. Instead you just feel bad at the gray pile of shame you're accumulated because you can buy stuff faster than you can assemble and paint them with limited free time.
Boy have things changed though! No more blast templates, no more guess range weapons, no more armor values. Command points are new, and so are primary and secondary objectives. Oh, and having detachments and their associated special rules. Its been a lot of learning, even though I'm already familiar with the basic mechanics. I also get really annoyed at GW for how often they update rules and points values. I get that this helps keep the game balanced for competitive players, but I don't have the time or skill for most of these to matter to me. So I get really frustrated when a rule changes after I just learned it and I have to spend a lot of time re-learning it. Or when units get nerfed because competitive players were abusing some combo that I don't have, so now not only do I have to rework my army, but my already very meh army gets worse. I feel like there must be a better way, since I suspect the vast majority of people who spend money on models are not competitive players, but just play with friends or do friendly games at their LGS. Oh well, rant over.
So far the small group of friends that play together play: guard, Tau, Tyranids, Custodes (haven't played with them yet, just done some hobbying sessions), and World Eaters, with one person who bought an Aeldari army but never put them together and never comes out to play. I think he over estimated his free time. This presents a bit of a challenge for me because I have very few tanks. My infantry hordes rely on cover to stay alive, which Tau ignore (marker light), and doesn't count in melee (nids and world eaters). I still manage to keep games close even though I'm nearly tabled by the end of every game because my chaff has objective control for days, so its really hard to score consistent primary objectives against me, and I've got tons of extra guys who do crap damage anyway, so I've got a decent secondary objective game.
Well, that's the big update!
1) Job stuff
I have been working at New Mexico Tech as an adjunct professor for 7 years now. As enrollment has been dropping, my department has been unable to maintain enough courses to give their adjuncts unless a tenured professor gets research funding and needs their classes covered. Being an adjunct is generally shitty, filled with the same roles and responsibilities as a tenure professor but with a strikingly small fraction of the pay, no benefits, very little respect, and less institutional support. So, given the knowledge that I am imminently going to be given zero classes and therefore be paid zero dollars, I started looking for new jobs. I applied to *counts on fingers* nine (9) jobs and got interviews with four (4), which isn't bad. Unfortunately I didn't get any offers from any of them. I got through multiple rounds of interviews for a job with an FFRDC in DC, however. That seemed very promising, so my partner applied for a job in a different division of the same center. In the end, she got an offer while I did not. So at this point we were considering whether she should accept this new position anyway. We started seriously looking for apartments and I started really shooting off applications (five of the nine), but we had to really consider the possibility that I would not have a job with the move, whether we wanted to do that, what it would mean going forward, and what I wanted to do if that was the case.
Then I got a call from a friend. She wanted me to apply for a job as a research staff member for her division at NMT. I was very skeptical. I did not want to work for NMT anymore. They are very poorly run and I had been treated very poorly there. Plus Socorro (where NMT is) is about 1.5 hours away from where I live in ABQ. But I decided to interview, to see what they were about. Eventually I was convinced. I got multiple calls from the senior manager to check in with me and answer questions. I got a tour of the facility and the staff: away from the main campus and with their own staff who actually were good at their jobs. And the work, helping to run an EMS test and research facility, sounded really interesting.
So, long story short, we did not move to DC and I have a new job! Huzzah! The work is interesting, it has a balance of structure and freedom that is very well suited to me personally, I love everyone in my immediate team, and I feel really valued there. It feels kind of weird to be unable to get any jobs on my own merit, only being offered one because I know someone there. But that actually kind of drives home to me that results are *not* based solely off of merit. It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose, so to speak.
2) I was recently diagnosed and prescribed medication for ADHD. It was something I was dealing with for a very long time without really knowing what it was I was dealing with. In New Mexico you can get a specialty for your psychology PhD or MD called a "prescribing psychologist." This indicates additional expertise and training in diagnoses and drug treatment of behavioral and mental health conditions. I went to see such a specialist and it was a really exceptional experience. He conducted four separate tests: a single blind interview (where I did not know I as being tested), a verbal questionnaire, an on site paper questionnaire, and an online questionnaire. Afterwards he evaluated the tests, cross referenced the results for consistency, and gave me my results. Interestingly, there have been a lot of advancements in the study of ADHD since I was younger, and the scientific understanding is much for fine grained.
For one, diagnosis for adults (that is, not just based off of "are you good at school") has become much better. Two, the condition now has multiple types that better reflect how it effects a person's life and which correspond with different effective treatments. The 10k foot explanation is that there are sets of symptoms: impulse control and focus. One or the other can be dominant, or they can be synergistic, and of course with varying levels. I have a focus dominant type, which likely impaired early identification since I don't have impulse control issues giving me the ability to wrestle with my focus issues long enough and frequently enough that I still did well in school. Life, however, less so.
I've been on my prescription now for about 6 months and its been really helpful. I was very wary at first, but my psychologist explained that the primary treatment for my type is just strait up amphetamines (adderall). This is because one aspect of ADHD is a physical difference in the way my body processes and metabolizes amphetamines. I.e. it is literally impossible for me to feel any kind of "high" or other similar effects from it. They also are metabolized and expelled from my system relatively quickly. The effects are immediate, end when the dose wears off, does not build up in my system, and has no long term changes to my brain chemistry. In short, a minor medical miracle (at least for me, for a neurotypical person or even someone with a different behavioral or mental condition, taking what I take every day would actually not be safe or healthy, go figure). Neat! And another huzzah!
3) I've started playing 40k again with my old Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum now I guess) army. I'm not really going to tournaments, or even playing at my LGS. Every couple of weeks I go to a friends house and play some casual games on his table tennis table with cardboard terrain. We proxy a lot of stuff, and get rules wrong *very* regularly, but its so much fun to get back in the game. I've also developed a much greater appreciation for the hobby portion of the game, building and painting my minis, as an older adult. Its also a lot more fun when you've got enough disposable income that you don't have to feel bad about taking up such an expensive hobby. Instead you just feel bad at the gray pile of shame you're accumulated because you can buy stuff faster than you can assemble and paint them with limited free time.
Boy have things changed though! No more blast templates, no more guess range weapons, no more armor values. Command points are new, and so are primary and secondary objectives. Oh, and having detachments and their associated special rules. Its been a lot of learning, even though I'm already familiar with the basic mechanics. I also get really annoyed at GW for how often they update rules and points values. I get that this helps keep the game balanced for competitive players, but I don't have the time or skill for most of these to matter to me. So I get really frustrated when a rule changes after I just learned it and I have to spend a lot of time re-learning it. Or when units get nerfed because competitive players were abusing some combo that I don't have, so now not only do I have to rework my army, but my already very meh army gets worse. I feel like there must be a better way, since I suspect the vast majority of people who spend money on models are not competitive players, but just play with friends or do friendly games at their LGS. Oh well, rant over.
So far the small group of friends that play together play: guard, Tau, Tyranids, Custodes (haven't played with them yet, just done some hobbying sessions), and World Eaters, with one person who bought an Aeldari army but never put them together and never comes out to play. I think he over estimated his free time. This presents a bit of a challenge for me because I have very few tanks. My infantry hordes rely on cover to stay alive, which Tau ignore (marker light), and doesn't count in melee (nids and world eaters). I still manage to keep games close even though I'm nearly tabled by the end of every game because my chaff has objective control for days, so its really hard to score consistent primary objectives against me, and I've got tons of extra guys who do crap damage anyway, so I've got a decent secondary objective game.
Well, that's the big update!
