change my name?

Today’s post deals with an academic issue, not necessarily an ADD one.

Over the last couple weeks, we’ve received several checks written to “Mr. and Mrs. [Hubby's Surname].” I find this annoying because it could be tricky to deposit these checks into our savings account. First, I’m actually “Doctor.” What’s more is that I haven’t changed my surname to Hubby’s surname.

I had just planned to keep my own name, but now I’m strangely feeling tempted to change it somehow (impulsively, perhaps?). I’m not sure where this desire is coming from.

On one hand, it’s appealing to keep my current name:

1. I’m 30 and am used to being “Ms. Addled” or “Dr. Addled.”
2. I’ve published under the name “Dr. Addled” a few times. My professional colleagues who have changed have said it’s annoying to have to deal with the change professionally on top of privately.
3. Hubby’s surname includes a uniquely Scandinavian letter (ø; pronounced like the “u” in “uh”). The consequence of this is that there are two spellings, one for the US and one for home. All of Hubby’s Scandinavian legal documents, records, etc., have his name spelled with the “ø,” and all his US records have his name spelled with an “oe,” which is the standard English equivalent of the “ø.”
4. Although journals seem to have caught up with the times and could logistically include the “ø” when I publish, I don’t know if I can handle two spellings of my surname.

On the other hand, it’s also appealing to change it to his.

1. My existing surname is 8 letters long and is Finnish. The Finnish language is so entirely different from English that my surname is routinely mispronounced and misspelled in the US (but is no problem in Scandinavia, despite the fact that Finland is a Nordic country and not a Scandinavian one) . I always have to spell it, and Hubby says I have a little sing-song way of doing it. It was for this reason alone that he decided not to hyphenate his name with mine. It would be nice to have a surname that is a bare 5-6 letters!
2. If I keep both or hyphenated, my surname would then be 14-16 letters long. People behind me in check-out lines at shops would hate me because it will take forever for me to sign my name, even if just use my initials and hyphenated surname (16-18 letters for intials & 2 surnames; 26-28 for full name).
3. Changing my name to “Addled  [Hubby's surname]” or “Addled Academic-Hubbysurname” wouldn’t hamper my career too much at this point because I only have a few publications. Easy enough to explain on a c.v.

Hubby has no preference regarding my last name, and trusts me to make the right decision for myself. Unfortunately, this decision-making process has slowed to a standstill, and I only have a few more months left to change my passport without paying an extra fee.

Thoughts, anyone?

timing the transition to parenthood

ubby and I made a second attempt to get to the store to buy milk and cat food last night. We succeeded, much to the cats’ delight. Once again we did not buy a new tv, much to Hubby’s chagrin!

During the drive, hubby mentioned that he’d heard some interesting news through the work grapevine. In the near future, consultants receiving the specialized training he’d just finished were going to be required to sign contracts agreeing to not leave the company for three years post-training. Hubby was in the first batch of consultants to receive this training, and doesn’t yet know whether he will be asked to sign a similar contract.

This is naturally cause for concern for me because we’d previously decided that we’d put off having a family until he left his consulting position, presumably some time in the spring of 2009. Neither of us wants to start a family while he’s still traveling. It’s not fair to me, as the parent who would be trying to work full time while taking care of a new baby by myself most of the week. It’s also not fair to Hubby, and it’s particularly sad to think about him missing all that time with his child. He’s clearly his niece and nephew’s favorite uncle (the “fun” uncle), and it’s inconceivable that he’ll enjoy spending time with his own children less than the time he spends with them. I’m just worried about how we’ll make this work.

From my perspective as a non-tenured academic who wants to have a family, it’s already pushing it to wait until I’m 32. I’m already struggling with waiting, and I don’t know if I could wait until I’m 33. It just seems risky, particularly since I have a handful of friends who have waited until that age and then were unable or experienced great difficulty getting pregnant. I already have Factor V Leiden working against me, after all. My midwife told me not to worry at my last checkup a year ago… but that was before my friends disclosed their fertility-related problems.

So the big question is… what’s the solution? Quitting jobs is not an option. Neither is my being pregnant while I interview later this autumn and winter, as it can complicate matters substantially. Do we try to start a family on our old schedule, regardless of Hubby’s contract issues? Keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best 3 years from now? Both go to my annual midwife appointment and try to figure out what will work best considering my health & our careers?

…and now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

At some previous point, I stated that the intent of this blog was to chronicle my experiences as an academic with ADD. For some reason, it seems that everything I’ve written recently has been about our wedding, not academic life!

From one perspective, academia is a life-encompassing choice. When I decided to embrace the identity of academic, I knew I wasn’t just choosing a career. Deciding to become an academic also means that one’s career is inevitably connected to one’s life and vice versa. As a developmental scientist, I view marriage as just one of those life transitions that inevitably impacts the rest of life. Getting & being married definitely impacts my work & my identity as an academic as a whole. I don’t necessarily see a clear division between my work and this aspect of my life. Naturally, it could just be my tangential ADD-type thinking that has led me to this conclusion.

From another perspective, me writing about our wedding is just fluff, and nobody really cares anyway. Get to the good stuff, Addled!

Regardless of your perspective, please let me state for the record… the wedding stuff is almost entirely over. Aside from stating now that our professional pictures have been formatted on DVD, which Hubby’s mom will send to us via snailmail tomorrow. Beyond posting a link to these pictures, I anticipate just one more entry reflecting on the whole experience following our stateside reception, which will occur in two weeks. That’s it!

Without further ado, here is the planned entry about academic life & ADD.

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an announcement requesting diaries from this year’s batch of academic job seekers. I hyperfocused for a few enjoyable hours while preparing my submission. Naturally it’s about my looming job search, starting with my experiences the last time I was on the market (pre-diagnosis), continuing on to my anticipated assets & constraints this time around. As this is clearly relevant to my blog, I’d post it here now, except that could lead to plagiarism concerns. I will link to this submission if they choose to publish it (under a pseudonym, of course), or will post it here myself if rejected.

In other news, the job market madness has now started in earnest. There are now officially 18 jobs for which I will apply between now and December 1. I expect that number to climb substantially during the next two months. The jobs are primarily in psychology departments, at universities and colleges of varying sizes, and are located from coast to coast. There’s a good mix, and hubby and I are pretty excited about some of them. But please let me reiterate yet again… to have so many ads posted so early is quite unusual. Usually the postings don’t begin to pop up like weeds until after Labor Day (maybe this is another effect of global warming?). I’m not complaining about the early start, because later postings make it harder on applicants to get their full packets to the search committees on time. It’s always better to be early than to be late… and as I know I have to worry about at least one letter writer being late with her materials, I’d better get my apps in as early as I can.

True to form, I’d intended to start revising my materials directly after returning home from the wedding. This hasn’t happened yet. I have revised outlines on my hard drive at work, deadlines set with colleagues who are also working on their materials, but am still procrastinating. Why can’t I hyperfocus on this important task instead of on cheap J. Crew dresses on eBay?

Last but not least, I’ve already restricted my profiles on sites like Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook to friends only. Just as a reminder, my blog will become much more anonymous the night before I mail that first job application in approximately another month. All personal pictures & the remaining identifying details will be removed. Although I don’t list my blog on my vita, I don’t want to run the risk that somebody on a search committee will find it accidentally or on purpose. I can’t anticipate how search committee members might react to learning that I’ve struggled with depression & am being actively treated for ADD. I can’t think that it would help my prospects. It’s always just better to be proactive and cautious.