End of one semester, beginning of another

I was having a brief conversation with a woman during the coffee hour at church, about where this supposed "break" that we have goes.

I've already been back to work-reading Darren's dissertation, trying to figure out what I'm doing with my database class for my doctoral students, trying to figure out what will happen now that my dean is stepping down. And hoping that next year we get a raise, however small-my health insurance increased by 50%, our heating bill is outrageous, our taxes are going up (again!) and both of us are living on "fixed incomes" which is not how it was supposed to be-I at least was supposed to be getting some kind of raise. Oh well. At least I have a job. But as I'm fond of saying, if I knew that I was going to work this hard for this little money I'd probably have stayed in corporate America. Now it's too late-I'm too old for them to take me back.

I am thinking about what else I can do to supplement my salary-maybe revive my consulting practice, maybe do some corporate training, something so that I don't feel as though I'm falling behind.

It's going to be an interesting year, that's for sure! I wish all of us peace, health and happiness in 2008.