Well, today was my second day as a full-time receptionist (my Temp Job this week). It's been interesting. I like interacting with people--my favorite jobs are always the ones that involve lots of socializing--and it's amazingly different not to be stressed by my job, or to have work to take home. Hmm.

That being said, I'm also using some of the down time to surf the web for academic job postings.

We had a wonderful weekend away, down in Essex in a beautiful old fishing village. The bed & breakfast was cozy, we took gorgeous walks, and...well, really I'm just repeating Patrick's entry. But it was absolutely wonderful, and I'd really needed it. I hadn't even realized how much stress I was carrying around (even physically, in terms of knotted muscles) until it all melted away. Sadly, some of it did come back on the ride home...but (as Patrick wrote about in his journal), we came up with serious five-year plans (and smaller increments), and those helped a lot. I feel a lot more focused, and a lot happier about doing what I need to do (including job applications, thesis- and article-writing, etcetera) to get where I want to go. It's always interesting to sit down and work through what's really most important to me--especially as it's often not reflected in my habits. Interesting and--I hope--really useful. We'll see.

Tonight we're off to see Iain Banks read from his new SF novel, The Algebraist, at the local Waterstones. Woohoo! I've been psyched about this reading for weeks. Can't wait!