What I Will Be Doing This Fall

In the next few weeks I am going to try and figure out some sort of plan for my future. I have to revise one conference paper for consideration as a chapter in a book in the next two weeks. But other than that I have no looming deadlines. So I have time to devote to this project. I hope to have figured something out before the end of the year. I also hope to finish writing Catherine's Grandchildren: A Short History of the Russian-Germans under Soviet Rule soon. I would also like to find a publisher for my Ph.D. thesis, but that may take a bit longer. Unlike the last two years I will not be wasting a lot of time applying to university positions. I will apply to a few postdoctoral positions, but I have absolutely zero optimism that any of them will even consider me. I should never have listened to the people who urged me to spend another year applying to university posts. All it did was set my life back by another year. The time I wasted filling out those applications would have been far better spent doing just about anything else. Just thinking about the dozens of books I could have read during that time makes me sad.