To Have A Life or Not To Have A Life

Sorry for the mini blogging hiatus; I've been swamped at work last week (Homecoming Week - and here Residence Life has a Homecoming Team...hmmm, yeah, interesting, right?) and then I was away for the weekend.

I went to visit a friend from grad school and it was amazing!!! I got in the car, ready for my 6-hour drive - new roadtrip CDs, snacks and water - and as I merged onto the highway, I felt a rush of gratitude for the opportunity to leave campus and "have a life." I love being on the road; nothing compares to that feeling of freedom and independence that I get when cruising along in my car blasting music and singing along. I love the peacefulness of driving at night, hardly any traffic, just you and the open road. :)

Two days later, I had to turn around and come back and as soon as I got back, I got sucked into the stress and craziness of day-to-day life. It always feels worse when you get back from a mini-vacation. Partially probably because you just had that wonderful free time and independence - you were in a place where no resident can knock on your door late at night and where you can finally separate your personal life from work; partially it's because you were gone for the weekend and didn't do any work at all, so now you're behind and everything that needed to get done has to be completed now. Just checking your e-mail after a long weekend away can crush anyone's spirit.

So what do you do? Do you have a life - realizing that whenever you come back to work, the stress and craziness will be worse than ever? Or do you give up on a life and just work steadily and constantly, avoiding hectic times?

And on another note: I still haven't applied for those jobs. I'm starting to get this panicky feeling in my stomach whenever I think of job searching or hear the word job search or when someone asks me where I'll be next year. It's after 11 pm now (I got back from a meeting, then had to check in with a resident quickly and now I'm finally back in my apartment) but sleep will have to wait until I write at least three cover letters tonight.

Job searching truly is just like another full-time job and right now I really don't have the time for another full-time job. But unless I want to move back to my parents' house in Austria, I need to get on top of this job searching. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!!