Where things are

I thought I'd take a blog post to kind of give everyone an overview on what I'm doing now and plans for the future, since I'm not sure what everyone does or doesn't know. So if a lot of this is redundant, my apologies. :)

First, I'm in Week 10 now of my pregnancy and my first trimester will be ending around July 30, which is getting really really close now. Craziness!

Second, I'm still working at the Auditor of State's office. My job was extended through the end of this month, with hints that it could go longer. While it isn't exactly what I want to be doing, it's a great environment, good people, and good pay; three things that are very difficult to find these days. In addition to that job, I also got an invitation last week to join the teacher training class for Kaplan. Kaplan's the group that does all those test-prep courses for things like the ACT or SAT. I've gone through two rounds of interviews already, so now I can get paid for doing the training and then (hopefully) start teaching a class. It's a nights/weekend thing, so this would be in addition to my other job. This all feeds into the plan of make money now and save as much as possible so we can get by with me not working for a bit after the baby's born.

The other big thing on the horizon is going back to grad school. My ultimate career goal is to teach history at the college level. However, in history, one needs a PhD in order to teach at a four-year school, so back I must go. I'm currently thinking of applying to five schools: Notre Dame, Southern Illinois, University of Chicago, UW-Madison, and the University of Minnesota. I tried to apply to the U of M last year and was told that my topic did not match the research interests of the faculty, so I didn't formally apply. Likewise, though I had a professor who seemed interested in my work at Madison, I didn't make the cut last year. I'm hopeful that, having some time to reconsider my research interests, I'll have better luck this time around. Madison and the U of M are my top two choices, since I would really love to be closer to the family and friends I've left behind.

In case you're wondering, I have two different research areas I'm considering. The first is an extension of my master's thesis (which was on the partition plan for Palestine in 1948). Basically, I would examine whether the failure of the UN to enforce partition set a precedent for ignoring UN resolutions in future Arab-Israeli conflicts. This is a topic I would present to Notre Dame, SIU, and Madison. For MN and Chicago, I would look at how the experiences of Holocaust survivors influenced the 1948 Arab-Israeli war (or the Israeli War for Independence); specifically, how the Holocaust was viewed in terms of national identity. The topics of national identity, memory, and the like are some of the more "hot topic" issues in history at the moment, something the U of M is particularly interested in. My first passion, U.S. foreign relations, is seen as a bit old school and perhaps passe for some (the U of M, for instance, no longer has a diplomatic historian). So anyway, those are the ideas and I plan to start sending out applications this fall. We should know by February or March if I get in anywhere or not.

So yeah, that's basically where things stand at the moment. Hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all very much.