gainful employment

Have you, dear reader, grown weary of dropping in here only to be faced with yet another angst-ridden post chronicling my struggle with graduate school and my search for alternative and more fulfilling career paths? Well, rest assured, I have grown weary of writing them. And for every post that appears here, there are pages upon pages of journal entries and hours upon hours of mental wrangling with these subjects that you, mercifully, are not exposed to.

If you are indeed tired of such struggles, I have good news: last Thursday, I was offered (and I accepted!) a position with a community and economic development agency in Raleigh.

"The Agency" is a non-profit working to develop, promote, and implement sound economic strategies to improve the quality of life of rural North Carolinians, with a special focus on individuals with low to moderate incomes and communities with limited resources.

I don't know exactly what I'll be doing there as of yet. I do know that I'll be working in the areas of community and workforce development, grants administration, and policy prescriptions and analysis. It is essentially my dream job at the moment, albeit one for which I don't feel entirely qualified. The Agency's work is at the intersection of government, private, and non-profit economic development initiatives, meaning that I'll have an opportunity to be involved in negotiating the interests of all three sectors while working to make tangible improvements to economically stressed or depressed communities. I am extremely interested in the issues that The Agency addresses and in the type of work involved, and the overall mission comports well with my political and social philosophy. I don't think I could have found a better position or a more attractive place to work, and I definitely couldn't be more excited about getting started. It feels unspeakably good to have a resolution to the last three years of turmoil and uncertainty, and to have those years justified at the same time.

What it all means for this blog is uncertain. Certainly my posting has been less than prolific of late, so it would be difficult for my posts to decline in quantity. I will no doubt have less time to devote to blogging. There will be a steep learning curve for me at The Agency, as I do not have the background in public administration that it would be helpful to have for such a position. I'll have to pick up quite a bit rather quickly, which means much of my time will be devoted to learning as much as possible as quickly as possible about a wide range of issues. And I'll also be continuing to work at the book review through the end of the month in the evenings and on weekends, so free time will be difficult to come by for a while. Given all that, I expect the blogging will slow considerably for the next couple of months. At the same time, however, I will have more mental and emotional resources to give to writing than I have had since starting this blog, given that those capacities will no longer be consumed in struggling with existential quandaries. And I may want to write about some of the issues that I'll be now working with on a daily basis. So it is conceivable that my blogging will actually pick up a bit; it's really too soon to tell on that front.

Never fear, however. I will keep up the writing, and I don't think for a moment that this development will mean that angst and existential crises will be entirely banished from my life. There will still be plenty of grist for the mill, and I hope to begin writing and thinking again with renewed vigor and purpose. So continue to drop in, and thanks for walking with me through the past few difficult months. You have been greatly appreciated.