the job front

It's a good-news-bad-news kind of post, so let's get the bad news out of the way first. There's a resounding silence on the job front. No weekend spots at all.

However... it's looking like this is leading me to make another change in how I earn my living. I'm excited about the potential, but I'm concerned about our income during the transition.

I've discovered that colleges and universities hire people to take notes for hearing-impaired students. The notetakers attend classes with the students, take notes on a laptop, then email the file to the student. This sounds like a great fit for me in many ways: I'm a great notetaker, a fast typist, and I like the idea of attending different classes at area colleges. The work is flexible and cyclical, following the school term, and I like that, too. The pay is not fantastic, but it's all right, and it has the potential to increase greatly with experience.

I heard about this work shortly after we moved to Canada, through someone who might even be reading this post, the wonderful "V". We were working with V so she could take care of Buster while we went to New Jersey for US Thanksgiving in 2005. (Alas, that was not to be, as by the time the holiday came, we had lost him.)

At that time, I was very intrigued with the notetaking idea, but I quickly found a good law-firm job, and that was that. But now that I'm unemployed, I've had time to investigate it more thoroughly. I've discovered three different agencies that hire "computerized notetakers", as they're called, and I'm preparing my applications with all of them.

Of course there's a catch. Work wouldn't start until September, and I've already been unemployed a month. I have some income from writing and editing work, but it's not adequate.

There is some legal word-pro work I can get, with a schedule I really don't want. But for various reasons, it's not really feasible to do that temporarily while I keep an eye on the notetaking route. One precludes the other.

I'm seeing an avenue through which to transform this job loss into an opportunity for change, and I want to take it. But I have to figure out the finances to make it work.

May I add this is the stupidest time in the world to be throwing a party? No, I'm not cancelling. And no, I'm not making it pot-luck. Just come and enjoy.