Update

Well, we all survived the mid-October mess. Except the 19 year old cat. And I have zero interest in revisiting how that all played out. It was not a fun time.

With regard to the Father-in-Law, we had five hours of debate around consent and who could give it (he has two POAs –both in Queensland; one is MIA and the other was in communicado). One nurse helpfully explained to him that they were just trying to protect his best interests. I pointed out that it was in his best interest to have the festering tumour removed from his head. His surgeon agreed with me.

Luckily, the Nursing Unit Manager is someone I’ve known for years, who has a great deal of common sense and knows it would be out of character for me to be somehow trying to leverage personal gain from an octogenarian pensioner with cancer. He put the case to the Director of Medical Services, who also agreed that maybe removing the tumour was the better option than just letting him walk around with it or trying radiotherapy which would knock him around more (and presumably also require some form of consent!).

He’s healing well, and the skin graft has taken beautifully. He has his follow-up next week so we have digits crossed for clear margins.

Work continues to be difficult. I have been marking, on an impossibly tight deadline that kept becoming worse because of systems that didn’t work as promised, and students who were upset about things that had bugger all to do with me (like 73 being less than 75; or that I had marked the assignment that they uploaded, as opposed to the one that they meant to upload but didn’t).

It is equally excruciating to sit in meetings planning for next year, knowing I will not be part of it. I keep reminding myself not to offer opinions since I have no horse in the race.

Meanwhile, well-meaning people both internal and outside the sector offer platitudes: with your skills, you’ll get another job.

Facts not in evidence, Your Honour.

The Higher Education sector is in chaos. There are hiring freezes seemingly everywhere … which seems very mild, when you are securely in employment, but is quite scarily relevant, when you are actively seeking to be hired. Worse, some universities are shedding jobs–regional universities, in particular. 600+ at ANU, 200 at Canberra. Closer to home, more than 300 at UOW (where some former colleagues I rate highly, and indeed whole schools, have been told they’re on the hit list …. but they can still make an argument to be saved. Bring a support person).

I was asked if I was really trying to find a job.

I am not yet 52, and while I was hoping to transition to retirement in the not-too-distant future (my husband is already past retirement age, so we will need to have some adventures together before I hit one of the magical Super or pension ages!), I did not have complete unemployment in my early 50s on my life plan. So of course I am trying to find a job. I am, however, also a realist who is currently processing that I will more than likely never work again in the field of Higher Ed to which I have devoted myself for the past couple of decades.

Nor am I prepared to sell up and move to another city or state after we both worked so hard to set ourselves up for retirement here. Because, yes, we have thought this through; we continue to do so.

I could, for example, go back to school teaching. All I have to do is find all my qualifications, get them certified, pay a fee I don’t owe but was arguing with NESA about plus a new one, and then wait to see if my qualifications are deemed ok. I may also have to prove I’m literate and numerate, I think. I will be considered a provisional graduate, meaning my thirty years of experience will not count, and I will be on a starting salary that is a fraction of what I am on now (although, admittedly much better than the $0 pa I am currently staring down). And if I don’t get enough days to produce enough evidence to jump through the required hoops within two years, my teaching number will be revoked again. (So don’t believe the stories of a “teacher shortage.” There’s a shortage of teachers in schools. There is, however, a surplus out here of teachers who are no longer employed in schools–for more than thirty years, half of all beginning teachers have left in the first five years!–doing Cost Benefit Analyses because the system is screaming at us that what we have to offer is not valued. Like, at all).

I probably will end up doing the necessary admin to get my number back, because as much as casual teaching remains, in my opinion, the worst bits of teaching, I’ve been assured that there might be some Inclusive Ed days, which would bring me more than just a paycheque. And for better or for worse, I am someone who has always needed more than just a paycheque.

And so it is that every Wednesday, we check the school education jobs email. Occasionally, up comes a shorter-term contract in a hard-to-staff school with sign-on bonuses, and potentially jobs for both of us. But when we start to work through the logistics, it just doesn’t seem feasible. What would we do with the house? The cats? The chooks? The Father-in-Law? (“Hard to staff” is code for miles and miles from our current home, lives, and responsibilities). Or does one of us stay here, and we lead a separated life (we tried that once before, and lasted five weeks, if memory serves). In that scenario, the sign-on bonus won’t touch the sides of what it costs to run two households, anyway.

The remainder of the local jobs on offer are things like waitressing and motel cleaning, which I’ve done before. I’m not sure how my now-much-older-body would hold up to doing them again. Nor is my Physio. This week, she asked me why my body is so tight. I told her I think my body has been flooded with cortisol since we came back from America … eighteen months ago. She told me she thought that was probably right.

Today’s flooding cause was, ironically enough, the fish tank.

Now, I love our fish tank. It’s purpose built into my grandparents’ former TV cabinet (the person who made it has since gone out of business. I checked). Today, I discovered that it’s been leaking long enough to damage both said cabinet, and the flooring underneath it.

I am devastated. I have temporarily moved the fish, and now I am trying to figure out how to isolate and fix a leaking fish tank. (I guess the leak is on the side with the water damage?). And when to find the time to do it. And what happens if I don’t quite do it right – having to move the fish a second time would not be great, for anyone. (I’ve listed the repair on AirTasker, but no bites just yet).

And so it goes. If I can fix the tank myself, maybe that can become my new post-Higher Ed career.