Today’s work at the Forum marked the last of what has now been my fifth job with that organization. Not one of them was permanent. I am led to despondence at the prospect of being without employment again, and frustrated with the tedium of living at home. I wish something would come up to solve all these annoyances. I have sent inquiries to Amity International and other organizations offering language study opportunities in France, hoping I could find something I could afford. I have as well even written to the Coventry Evening Telegraph about their program of allowing American journalists to work there a year.
It is unfortunate that these months are not shaping up as I had hoped while in England, but one cannot always count on the best of luck, and I’ve had more than my share of luck in the past.
I sometimes believe I should move right back to begin work on my doctorate, but I am dissuaded by two things: where will the money come from? Will a doctorate-degree holder without experience in a liberal arts field by hurt or helped by his advanced degree? Will he be “over-educated” to find employment, considering that already only 1 of 6 history PhDs have employment in that field?
I am meanwhile growing increasingly uneasy about my reticence to return to the writing and researching I had planned to pursue. One does not get things published on daydreams—or long observations in one’s journal. I must break myself into a routine which takes the necessity of this writing into consideration soon.
—February 19, 1981, Moorhead
OtD 