Hours Dollars

I suppose that I should have posted this before now but, as of yesterday, I started a new job at Willamette University. I’m back with WITS (Willamette’s IT dept), and I’ll be working with the Administrative Computing Department: A little scary, but this means that I’ll be supporting the mission critical databases and business functions of the University. It’ll be nice to have a steady source of income again, and the more that I work with Databases the more I realize that being a DBA is a lot more fun than it sounds.

To be honest, however, I think some part of me was hoping that I wouldn’t be able to find a decent, paying job. I’ll just need to ensure that I find a way to make time for my art and don’t get too comfortable.

Earlier this summer, after some strong encouragement from a former faculty member, I attempted to get a teaching job at Willamette. I was just trying to talk them into letting me teach one figure drawing class. The Dean said there was money available for another class if I could convince the Art Deptartment. The chair of the Art Department (an Art Historian) said that the studio was free for an additional class if the Studio Arts faculty thought I would be a good fit. All of the Studio Art classes are currently overbooked, so I figured with money, space and demand, I had a good shot. However, as it turns out, the Studio Art Faculty at Willamette are “suspicious of my ‘conservative’ training and unsure if I would be willing or able to teach a variety of drawing techniques.” So close… but still not over the bar.

In other news: Julie and I just signed up for Dish Network and now have joined the world of time-shifting (a.k.a. DVR or Tivo—though Tivo is actually a brand name, like Kleenex). Having the ability to pause live television and (simply) to schedule the recording of programs that are on in the middle of the work day is amazing. We been using it for less than a week, but I’m already so spoiled that I can’t imagine going back to the way things were.

– Jeremy