Well my friends, it's been a crazy ride these few months – finishing my courses, writing papers like a madman, and trying to get things organized for whatever's happening next. Here's a relatively quick update on what's going on at the Conley crib.
First, Larissa has been dealing with some wacky anxiety-related stuff for the past few months, and lately we've had a hard time getting a handle on it. It started back in January when she would suddenly feel weak and nauseous right before going to work or before particularly stressful events or appointments. After taking some time off, she went back to work with a reduced schedule, but was still experiencing anxiety issues, mainly in the form of stomach problems, random fear or nervousness, or extreme fatigue.
About a week ago, on the advice of our doctor, Larissa tried some medication, which really threw a monkey wrench into the mix. She would experience random uncontrolled shaking and her stomach problems got worse, along with loss of appetite and problems sleeping through the night. We've now reduced the dosage of the medication, but the doctor wants to keep with it for at least a month, just to make sure it is or isn't working. Because of this, Larissa is again taking a reduced workload, and we're not entirely sure how our finances are going to hold up.
On the plus side, I finished all my term papers and courses, and now have only my major essay to write over the next four months. I'm hoping to base it on research I did for a previous paper, but I still have to work out all of the details of the ME within the next week, so that I can submit an outline to my supervisor. I'm planning on about a month of reading and a couple months of writing.
On top of that, I just got hired to teach ESL at Brock University over the summer: Two courses altogether. I'm not sure about all of the details yet (i.e. which courses I'm teaching, what the pay is, what my weekly schedule will be, etc.) but I find out this coming Monday, and start teaching the week after. It's exciting because they hired me without any formal ESL teaching experience, but also scary, because I have no formal ESL teaching experience.
On top of all this, we're also checking into the possibility of moving to a new apartment. The place we're at now is great, but the rent is $825 per month, and we'd like to find something a little less expensive, especially with Larissa's work situation right now. Not to mention that I don't actually have a job for September (although there's a good chance that I could stay on at Brock, if I do a good job over the summer). We looked at a two-bedroom basement apartment today which was good for price ($675 all-inclusive), but bad for not actually having any living space. It was also a little too blue for my taste.
So those are the major happenings right now. From one point of view life is great, and from another point of view, it's freakin' scary. The only thing it isn't is boring, which is probably why there's not much blogging going on these days.
