A fairly dramatic family post (cw: estranged family)

My sister just got married.  We really like her husband!

But that meant I had to see my parents.  I don’t talk about it much– I think maybe there’s just one post?  But I am estranged from my parents.  It basically started with me trying to set one small boundary:  My father being able to visit without having a toddler-level temper tantrum. And ended with both my parents blowing past boundary after boundary after boundary.  The final straw was my mother writing to my mother-in-law to ask her if I abused my kids.  (I do not and my kids are flourishing.)

The months and weeks before the wedding I just couldn’t think about it.  Usually whenever something is going to happen, I spend a lot of time pre-thinking, running through every possible scenario and figuring out my potential reactions and what I want my end-goal to be (if I don’t, I usually screw up because I am NOT very good under pressure).  But with this I just couldn’t.  I would just go numb and my brain would switch to some other topic.

I knew though that something was wrong because the week before the wedding my bottom lip was covered with cold-sores, which is what happens when I get anxious.  So I knew the kind of numb feeling wasn’t actually a real calm.  We opted out of the reception dinner the night before (we weren’t in the wedding party) and the brunch the next day.  But we figured if I wanted to spend more time with my mom we could always change our minds and book a hotel.  Though again, my subconscious must have been saying no because we were a half hour out from our house on the day of the wedding when we realized we hadn’t packed any spare clothes or anything to sleep in.

My mom showed up and I felt emotion– I felt hurt and anger.  I am apparently still really really angry about her writing to my MIL.  She said she hadn’t seen us in a while and we’d become middle-aged and gotten a lot of grey hair.  I told her my my sister was upstairs in another room.  She left and I needed to process.  I think I still need to process.

I’d thought it was just my mother coming because the last thing my sister said, my father had decided not to come because he whatever.  But of course they always change their minds at the last minute and he probably wanted to be cajoled.  I don’t know.  I didn’t talk to my sister about it.  Anyhow, he showed up and interrupted a pleasant talk we had been having with an aunt and uncle of the groom about their recent trip to Italy.  It took a LOT of both DH and me saying that we did not want to talk with him and him saying things like, “I thought you would have mellowed by now” and appealing to DH (they always appeal to DH as if I’m being unreasonable) in front of a lot of people before he left us alone.  It was complete silence after that until we were thankfully sent on another errand (getting toilet paper for the port-a-potties).  My father kept creepily coming by and staring at us from around corners.  We ignored him.

After the wedding one of my aunts talked to me about “but faaaaamily” and how I needed to forgive and how their hearts were broken and there are two sides to every story.  And she understands I’m hurt but she had a heart attack and realized etc. etc. etc.  I told her that if I feel differently after I have a heart attack, I will make decisions at that time.  She “ended” by saying she’s not going to lecture me, but I said it was too late for that (ended in scare quotes because she actually went on a little bit after saying she was going to end).  I don’t think I have been that rude to anybody in decades, but also I think if I had to go back I would be even ruder and start off by saying it’s none of her business, in the off chance that would have cut her lecture short.  Or maybe I would have told her she’s an enabler, and my mom is abused, and if she actually wants to help, she should put her focus on there instead of on coddling and enabling my father’s poor behavior.  But I didn’t think of that at the time.  I just reacted and tried to shut down.

Then my father and that aunt tried to give us a shirt from my father that I had said I didn’t want like 7 years ago but my mother had said she wanted to work out in the midwestern winters.  Basically my father gets free t-shirts from a mutual fund and I was ok with taking them when they were short sleeve (they’re ok for sleeping or working out), but I don’t need any long sleeve shirts because I live in the South.  (And I didn’t actually *want* them to begin with and I don’t want anything from him now.)  DH says this really encapsulates my father– he tries to give things to create an obligation or for control and it’s junk you don’t want and he won’t take no for an answer and these women enable him.  They tell *me* to take it and burn it, but they don’t tell him no.  As if dealing with him is my problem, which it isn’t.  After I wouldn’t take it, they tried giving it to DC2 (DC1 couldn’t be there because of school).  Fortunately DC2 followed our lead and ignored them after the first attempt.

My mother looks more worn-down.  My father looks hale and hearty, despite being 8 years older.  Any attempts to justify his actions or to prey on my sympathy because of problems with his health have been greatly exaggerated.  He’s crazy, but no crazier than he has been most of my life.  I don’t think it is age-related dementia after all.  He just is this awful and has always been this awful.

My other aunt, the one who married a good normal man, didn’t bring anything up and when my sister mentioned to her the situation between my parents and me at dinner to explain the seating arrangements, she said this wasn’t the first time she’d been used as a buffer at a family event and was happy to do so and then dropped the topic and didn’t bring it up again.  On our way home, I remembered how so much of my life goals were based on when we would visit them at Christmas– I wanted an upper-middle-class lifestyle in a good school district in a place that had fun ethnic food (one year they got some kind of Mediterranean flatbread from a local place that blew me away) and there was no yelling or picking at people.  It was the one thing that made me think that healthy family dynamics were real and not just something made up for sitcoms.  Anyhow, she was delightful even if my other aunt was not.

And I think I have reached those goals– our house is peaceful.  DH and I love each other and support each other.  We provide a calm supportive environment for our kids as best we can.

For any of you who are in a situation where you’ve tried to set boundaries and those boundaries have been completely ignored.  Who have had well-meaning enablers try to work on you instead of the person who actually has the problem.  It is SO MUCH BETTER when you don’t have to tiptoe.  When you don’t have to have your plans continually upset.  When you don’t have to deal with someone who has no business controlling you trying to control you.  When you don’t have to deal with inevitable tantrums.  When nobody is picking at your driving ability or calling you names or asking if you’re an idiot.  And so on…

Now we look forward to holidays like Christmas, spending them with DH’s family without tiptoeing or frustration or fear.

Yes, I am upset about and worried about my mother.  But also I have accepted that I cannot control her actions.  She has chosen to enable her abusive husband over having any relationship with me– he will not allow her to have any relationship with me unless he is equally included.  The last straw was her writing to my MIL, though there were many straws before that.  She is an adult, and I cannot break the abusive situation that she has been in for five decades and it’s not my job to do so.  Knowing that is freeing.

All I can do is control my own actions and protect my own small family.  I can support my sister who still interacts with them and gave up on “but family-ing” me several years ago (about the time her new husband met them).  When you’re in this kind of situation it is hard to get out.  When you’ve never been in this kind of situation, it seems crazy from the outside.  When you’ve had some distance, you can realize how crazy it all is.  And how it’s not your fault.

What are we getting people this year?

People in DH’s family seem to be using the amazon wish list less than they used to.  This makes shopping harder than it used to be!

We’re currently in the situation where officially we only get gifts for children in DH’s extended family.  EXCEPT…  DH’s parents get everyone (including adults) stuff and we get them stuff.  DH gets something for his brother, usually something he wants his brother to have rather than something his brother has specifically requested, or if it is something he’s requested it’s like a game that they play together.  DH also often gets something for his favorite relative (the one with all the kids, though they’re grown now)– a check if they’re having money difficulties, but if not, then the same thing that he gets his brother.   This year I also breached the rules because SIL is a teacher and when I was looking at her kids’ amazon wishlists, I noticed she had a specific wishlist for her school, so I got her a giant box of pencils (I mean, I just got some for DC2’s teacher) and a surge protector off that list– both were on special Black Friday deals, so were like 50% off.  I hope she doesn’t get annoyed or feel like she has to get me anything.  She probably thinks I’m crazy because in the gift note I was like, this isn’t a Christmas present!  I’m just a sucker for teacher wishlists and donors choose and stuff like that.  I mean, she likely already thinks I’m crazy so that’s probably not adding any new information.

Update:  SIL has requested no gifts for her kids this year, so now it’s just kid gift exchange with BIL’s kids and whatever adults we feel like.  So basically, BIL’s wife and I don’t exchange gifts across immediate families but everyone else does.  Which is kind of a shame because BIL’s wife and I have the most similar tastes and it was always fun shopping for her.  I still go through her wishlist for ideas for me.  But I guess we can buy our own stuff.

My sister asked for things that people didn’t get her off her wedding registry, so we got her (them! — her husband too!) an over-the-sink colander and some wine glasses from crate and barrel.

DH hasn’t decided what to get his brother yet, but it will probably be a game that they can play together.  It sounds like the other relative isn’t having money difficulties this year, so probably the same thing.

We told DC1 to buy a bike at college.  Not a very exciting present, but it seems silly to ship something especially since that means it will have to be put together on the other end.  There’s also smaller stationery supplies from jetpens, including things to practice Japanese calligraphy.  And the cute protective phone case that we got hir a few years ago is kind of falling apart and not longer protective, so zie picked out a new one of those.  There are some other things zie wants (warm hats, one of those bottles that keeps warm drinks hot etc.), but I’m waiting to see what people buy off the wishlist because just finding things to put on the wishlist is a challenge.  (And then my sister refuses to use the wishlist because once you put something on there it isn’t fun anymore.)

DC2 is getting a bunch of books and also stationery/art supplies.

Nephew 1 (14) doesn’t want anything, so he’s getting cash.  That seemed to work out last year.

Niece 1 (12) is getting stuff off her wishlist– a book on drawing chibi characters and a Fruits Basket t-shirt.  I’m not sure how to feel about this generation being into Fruits Basket– does it make me feel old or young?  I guess they remade it in 2019 so neither?

Niblings 3-6 we aren’t getting anything because SIL doesn’t want to exchange gifts even with the kids this year.  I was a little concerned we’d done something wrong, but then BIL said she’d said the same thing to them.  With her permission, we are giving some hand-me-down books that DC2 has outgrown, though not very many because we didn’t have that many left that specifically cater to their current interests.  (Sadly the youngest two aren’t into dinosaurs– we really need to take that shelf of books to the library so some kids can get use out of them.)  So I guess Nibling #3 isn’t getting anything (same age as DC2) but Niblings 4-6 are getting used books.

MIL requested a couple of specific things for her Christmas village, so we’re getting those.  Amazon doesn’t carry them, but Kohl’s does.

FIL gets a gift card to Cabella’s as per usual.

This is probably the least interesting gifts list yet!  I guess as everyone gets older they want less stuff and gift-giving kind of falls off by mutual consent.

Are you getting anything interesting for folks?  Are you finding less gift exchanging as you age?  If so, how do you feel about that?  Do you wish there were more gifting or less?

Link Love

http://something-remarkable.blogspot.com/2023/11/update-because-apparently-i-havent.html

Ask the grumpies: Early retirement and cognition/lifespan

First Gen American:

Does early retirement help or hurt cognitive decline and lifespan?

And the answer is (drumroll):  We don’t know.  We literally do not know.  We have studies that use the SAME DATASET that come to wildly different conclusions.  We don’t know about heterogeneity, but also we don’t even know about population averages.

Theories:

Retirement should help:   After retirement, there’s less stress.  People can focus on eating healthier food and have time to cook for themselves.  They also have time to exercise and just to practice mindfulness more generally.

Retirement should hurt:  There’s less activity– you don’t necessarily have a reason to get out of bed five days a week.  You’re not walking up stairs to get to your office etc. Potentially more importantly, people can have smaller networks once they leave the office– particularly for men and particularly for widowers, since it’s generally the wife who does all of the emotional labor cultivating friendships outside of work.

So why don’t we know?

Problems:

It is unethical to experiment.  You can’t just force some people to retire or not retire randomly.

We can’t just use observational studies because they are biased.  People select into retirement… and some who retire early then die soon after, but that’s probably because health concerns made them retire, not because retirement is immediately bad for people.  People who stay working tend to be healthier because people who aren’t healthy can’t work.

To really study it, you would need some kind of exogenous variation that causes some people on the margin to early retire, or causes some groups to early retire and not others.  But natural experiments where some external factor encourages people to retire tend to also include something that could directly affect health.  Like– people retire when they get access to health insurance, but you can’t use that as an instrument because health insurance could theoretically help cognition and lifespan directly, not just through retirement.  Unexpected layoffs or changes in pensions could have the opposite impact.

So… the answer is, we don’t know, and we’re probably not going to know for a long time.

 

RBOC

• So many kids have been sick this November that we got emails saying the curriculum has been delayed a week so kids can make things up.
• We’ve also gotten a lot of emails begging for extra kleenex boxes and hand sanitizer.  Since I overbuy hand sanitizer it’s nice to be able to get rid of the stuff that’s not quite expired yet or whose scent I didn’t like.  I also send kleenex because it is important to have on hand!
• And one asking for pencils.  I sent a box of 150 directly from Amazon.  Last year I sent boxes of blue and red pens from Amazon to one of DC1’s teachers who was complaining that kids weren’t bringing theirs in and she was out of extras.  One nice thing about the school in Paradise that DC1 went to when I was on leave way back when was that parents donated money (suggested donation at the time:  $500/kid!) but the school provided 100% of the school supplies.  I don’t know if kids don’t have their writing implements because they’re scattered or because they can’t afford them or don’t want to ask their parents for more.  But everyone should have the tools they need to be able to write and learn.
• I send nice Kleenex (or Puffs, depending on what we have on hand).  Partly this is because I’m too lazy to order any specially and just send what we have in the closet.  Mainly though, I remember having a raw red nose in elementary school and how nice it was to not have to deal with that.  I feel a little bit of guilt because the cheaper stuff is better for the environment, same as with toilet paper (at least among the kinds that our grocery store carries– it’s possible there’s nice bamboo kleenex like there is with TP).
• My students have also been getting sick in large numbers, and for up to two weeks at a time.  I am worried about the final exam.
• There is no one “right” way to parent.  There are lots of right ways to parent, and whatever the “experts” say is the right way now is going to be something different in 5 years– at least that’s what happened between my kids.  There are big general things that are always true– love your kids, don’t beat them, feed them, give them freedom within boundaries etc. etc. etc.  But if you’re not a narcissist and you’re not one of those crazy fundamentalists who believes children are chattel and they don’t treat their chattel very well… you’re probably doing just fine.  Whether you’re a helicopter parent or a proponent of benign neglect– or, like most of us, somewhere in between.  It’s all ok.

RBOCareer?

• UPDATE:  All the previous bullets were written before I was told “no”.  This is the second time I’ve been flown out for something that could have been a dream job and then been told “no” and given a reason, that, if true, would have meant they shouldn’t have flown me out in the first place.  I screwed up, and I don’t now how.  So far I have only ever been offered a job one place, and that place I was too sick from food poisoning to have one-on-one interviews.  I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.  How do I look good on paper and then just screw up so entirely when I get to in-person?  I don’t lick my fingers anymore (that was something I did on my first job market flyouts)!  This one hurts especially because at breakfast, the search head told me that they would be requesting me to upper admin no matter how well I performed during the day, but a few days later they told me they weren’t going to request me to upper admin because they were concerned it would hamper their ability to hire a macroeconomist in the future, which is something they didn’t need to fly me out to know.  (I am not a macroeconomist, everyone is hiring macroeconomists this year except this school plans to hire one in the future, not this year.)  I am feeling really really down on myself.  And worried about DC2.
• I’m currently at an R1 in the South and somewhat miserable.  There’s a lot of benefits to being in an R1– amazing libraries, mostly decent students, administrative staff, etc.  I’m highly valued by my colleagues, though not compensated for that value.
• Being in the South is killing me.
• It didn’t used to be this bad, but it has gotten rapidly worse.
• Also having a department head who is pushing me further and further into a “mommy” teaching and service role while she devotes resources to another (also female– it’s not sexist) colleague so her only responsibilities are research is a constant thought.  The most recent thing (the first thing was awarding her two chairs and putting her forward for another internal grant) is that this woman is being allowed to substitute online courses for in-person courses of the core classes that we teach.  But the online courses are canned– there’s no lecturing.  It’s just responding to comments on the website and holding office hours, which I do for the in-person classes as well.  The department head’s reasoning?  I’m a better teacher.  She’s been getting complaints from in-person students about this other prof who cancels class regularly and doesn’t get through the required material, so she needs to be rewarded for it with less onerous teaching.  In the past 3 years her research has taken off and mine has stagnated (not died, just not taken off).  Resentment about this makes me someone I don’t like anymore.  But not thinking about it is like not thinking about a purple elephant.
• I cannot handle being the only source of support for so many marginalized people.  I know I have a larger impact on folks here than I would in a normal place and they deserve so much more… but I just do not have the emotional bandwidth.  Seeing people as people should be the bare minimum and my doing that should not have an effect because that should be their day to day.  But also hearing people’s stories and knowing that one of my colleagues is an active TERF and many others are upset that we ever had DEI efforts to begin with…  and having to constantly shut down racist and sexist comments in class.  It’s really really tiring.  I wouldn’t mind over-correction in the other direction.
• And I’m worried about DC2’s high school experience.  They’re great at STEM but actively terrible at humanities.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be someplace where they’re allowed to read books together as a class, and those books have female and minority protagonists?
• But I am worried about leaving the marginalized students.
• I’m worried about leaving my 6 PhD students [update: possibly soon to be 7 since another one of the above bullet woman’s students wants to switch to me], many of whom have already lost their main advisor during their time as grad students.
• Oddly, I’m not worried about leaving the department in the lurch.  If they really valued my service, I would have been compensated for it.  My predecessors were compensated for their service and still have those chairs and permanent lower teaching loads despite not being very research active and cutting back on service.  The people after me are only compensated for research.
• If we move, it will be harder for DC2 to become national merit.  It will have impacts on which and whether or not DC2 can get into the school of her choice, particularly state schools.  Right now zie wants to be an economist but is also obsessed with all things science.  Zie wants to go to MIT for undergrad.
• All of this is to say.  I don’t know what is going to happen, but a well-endowed SLAC in a blue state (but isn’t Williams or Wellesley which are econ powerhouses) has requested permission from upper administration to hire me to run and build a program [Update: this turns out not to have been true, despite what I was told would happen].  I don’t know if they will get that permission, but if they do, I told them I would take it.
• My teaching load will be a little higher but only because I currently (as of this year) have a one-course reduction after I complained about being the head of so many important committees.  (The older full professors all came in with a lower teaching load standard.)  There are no course reductions for service, even being department head, at this SLAC.  My salary, thanks to me still not getting the equity bump that I was promised 3 years ago, would not drop– it would be the same or even increase a little.  (Though cost of living is higher.)  After a year, I would qualify for something like 30K/year in direct tuition payments for DC1’s last two years and DC2’s entire college (currently I would get 1K/year if DC2 attended my R1).  I would teach more preps (currently I usually have 2 preps because nobody wants to teach my required core courses– the new place already has people teaching them).  The students would be different– no business school means more “econ-bros.”
• When I visited, they complained about their administration becoming corporate.  I complained about my administration willfully fighting DEI and how the regents want to destroy liberal influences.
• When I write everything out, it seems like if I get a choice, the choice is obvious.
• But I worry that I am losing prestige.  That I won’t be able to write big papers anymore. But I’m already not doing that.  So why not be shunted into the “mommy” track somewhere I’m happier about it.
• I do have some (standard and) non-standard things I will want to negotiate at least for my first year or two as I’m getting my bearings.  I will have to think about them harder. [Update:  I guess not].
• I have applied to bunch of other places, but I’m not holding my breath given my not-so-stellar track record the past few years I’ve been applying. [Update:  Applying to more…]

Link Love

Where we are with Social Security right now and some potential paths forward.

Ask the grumpies: Article on geographic mobility for TT academics

Leah says:

I think it would be interesting for a Friday conversation post about moves and finding/forming community.  Here’s an article on Slate about academic moves and finding community.

Hm… I dunno.  I wish there had been more statistics.  My guess is that more than 50% of people stay at least another 10 years on the job after getting tenure, but that’s just speculation.

It is true that there’s a lot of movement of the high flyers in economics.  That’s part of why they make so very much money.

In terms of finding community.  When we first moved here, we had one.  But they were mostly graduate students and assistant professors, and with the exception of people in my own department or a couple of related departments (who are also economists), they have all left.  So I stayed and they moved on to non-academic jobs or better academic jobs.  It has been difficult to find new community because you never know when someone is going to be crazy politically or religiously or they’re going to give your contact information to their dad in order to try to sell you insurance.  No thank you.  We’ve found better communities much faster when on leave in a blue state.  It’s just safer to talk to people.

Now, I do still have the greater applied microeconomics community.  I see friends regularly at conferences, generally 1-3x/year depending on the person and our research overlaps.  And that is very nice.  And there are online communities and texting communities and so on.

Grumpy Nation, what do you think about the article that Leah linked to?  What are your experiences with moving post-college and finding community?

Children’s books that are even better as adults

This is a draft from 2013!  Back when we were reading children’s classics to DC1, I think.

Lots of books that you read as a child have suffered from a visit by the suck fairy.  Either they really were aimed for little kids only, or they had awful bigoted parts that either went over your head or your parents omitted when reading to you.

But that’s not true for all children’s books.

Some children’s books are even better than you remember.  Some books have hilarious jokes in them that go straight over kids’ heads because they’re aimed at the adults reading the book.  And when you’re the adult reading the book they add an extra layer on top of the nostalgia.

Here’s three sets of books to try rereading as a grown-up (amazon links are affiliate, though they don’t pay very well, so we’d prefer you just use your favorite bookstore):

Anne of Green Gables

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler (though this also comes with a dose of parental terror if you have children– those poor worried parents!)

Anything by Edward Eager (these are fun and very funny magic books– start with Seven Day Magic or Half Magic– at the time of this writing there’s a $1.99 kindle sale, though I don’t know if it is still going on when this posts.)

What children’s books do you find have gotten better as an adult?

RBOC

• DC2 is taking advantage of DC1 being at college and us having more time by increasing extra-curricular activities.
• One of these new activities is ice skating lessons.  DH has decided to do adult lessons at the same time because why not.  What’s funny is that DC1’s class is going way faster than the adult class.
• One of my co-PI is also taking ice skating lessons and was very briefly in DH’s class until she was deemed too advanced and got moved up.
• DC1 is horrified by the “Asian” food at the dining hall.  They made bibimbap with *quinoa* (horrors!) and “deconstructed sushi” with basmati rice (tofu only– no raw fish).   I think the faux bibimbap would have been less horrifying if they’d called it a Harvest Bowl, because that’s what it sounded like it actually was.
• What’s also weird is that even though the midwest is generally pretty good at Mexican (unlike, say, the East Coast), and Mexican food is cheap, they don’t have much of it in the dining halls.  Addendum:  DC1 says when there is a taco bar, the line is really long.  Also they put gummy worms on a pizza with chorizo.
• Zie sat on hir bottle of gochujang and is now out (also had to wash hir sheets).  But it’s super expensive to ship and zie will be home soon.  I offered to send hot ones hot sauce, but after some discussion we decided that would be a good post-Christmas care package instead.  Zie plans to bring extra gochujang after the break.
• Mostly I’ve just settled into nuts.com care packages once a month.  (So:  3 care packages for first quarter.)  I don’t know if this will keep up throughout the next four years, but it seems to be appreciated?  Especially after I told DC1 zie needed to start sharing.  (Not sponsored.)
• DC1 had a group project and ended up doing all the work for it in linear algebra because hir partner didn’t respond until 7pm the night before it was due.  It’s weird to me that DC1 didn’t have this experience in high school and is learning it at college.  I guess hir group always finished group projects in class rather than out of it.  Also it’s weird that a kid like that is taking linear algebra!  Though I guess it’s possible they’re in a major that requires it (like CS), but usually that’s screened out.
• Property tax is over $8K this year.
• DH is adjusting to having being a boss be part of his job.  I think he’s doing a really good job, but some parts are really hard.  Like dealing with someone who is under-performing, or mediating between two coworkers that have very different visions and don’t attribute the best motives to each other.  He was fully miserable during the week of performance evaluations but then perked up after they were done and hadn’t gone badly.  I wonder if stuff like that gets easier the more you do it.
• My department head came in to tell me I’d made the obstructionist administrator break down in tears after she left our faculty meeting.  The administrator then told the dean (this guy) and he went to talk to my next door neighbor to find out what I’d really done to make her cry.  Apparently my interrupting her to tell her nobody had any idea what she was talking about and telling her that she should not be reprimanding people for not following a policy they had never been told about was enough.  Because, yeah, it doesn’t feel good to be reprimanded.  Funny how that works.  Anyhow, I felt a tiny bit guilty about this until the student who wanted to do another Allies training before a specific deadline (after which they might not be allowed at all anymore) told me that they emailed her multiple times starting three weeks ago to start this mysterious procedure and still haven’t gotten a response.  We also still haven’t gotten any information on this procedure that was put in place in September without our knowledge that we get rebuked for not following.
• The really weird thing is in this SAME one-on-one MEETING, my department head suggested that I consider being department head.  Like… I make administrators cry and the dean refuses to talk with me face-to-face, so I should interact with them more?  I don’t think so!  I would consider being department head someplace new, but preferably somewhere with a three year rotating chair where everyone takes a turn.  Or someplace where I know nobody and can start with a fresh slate, but that’s unlikely if I have no previous experience.
• (This is actually the second time in my almost 2 decades here that I’ve made an administrator cry.  The first time was when I informed someone she had done something illegal which resulted in us having to admit all of the students who applied that year to keep us from violating the law.  She also screamed at me in between crying.  Thankfully she is no longer working here.)