the last 10 days & the next 3 weeks

I have applied for around two hundred billion jobs in the last ten days

and

I am trying not to be fatalistic about the whole horrific process of job searching, sending my history deep into the dark black hole of cyberspace, like shutting your eyes and holding your breath and throwing a coin over your left shoulder into a wishing well – that is actually a bottomless pit that sucks in light –

while

at the same time I am attempting to actually do my full-time unpaid job

which

(frankly) I love

(First there is a terrifyingly blank Word document on my computer – blank, blank, blank – and then there is a concept note – and then there is – somehow! – a 50-page proposal – which is then approved and put into PDF – and becomes a signed contract – which then – alchemy! – is suddenly, before you know it, new colleagues and projects and program activities, success stories and schools and psychosocial care and health centers – all from that damn blank Word document. It’s a bit magical.)

but

I only have three more weeks at to finish up the unfinished and to tie up the untied

and

(to be honest) I want to stay.

BUT.