Well, of course I’m still homeless; I was homeless yesterday and I’m homeless today. I’ve officially been in the shelter for two weeks now, and I am becoming much more comfortable with my situation. Rather, I should say that I no longer feel ashamed or alone since it is clear I am not alone in my predicament. In fact, judging by the experiences of some people I have talked to I am actually doing quite well: I have no substance abuse issues; I’m not fleeing an abusive situation; I’ve not been in prison or jail; I have all my teeth….

That last one was a bit mean, but it is an observation I have made since I’ve been in the shelter - there are a lot of people out there with rotten teeth. Yuck.

Overall though, I’m really struck by how polite and how supportive people are in the shelter. Not that I haven’t witnessed moments of aggression - near fights, name calling, etc. But by and large, people are quite nice to one another. We’re all in the same predicament - we’re all homeless - so why not treat each other with respect. It’s kind of touching, to be honest.

What I really need, though, is a job. Anything will do at this point, though it would be nice to find something that puts my education and skills to good use. I’m sick of being unemployed, and I’m sick of being underemployed when I do have a job. I could really use a nice meaty faculty position that I can sink my teeth into (I know that’s a weird use of metaphor, but it is what cam to mind in the moment). I need to teach. I need to write.

Writing is something I can do no matter whether or not I am teaching, though. I don’t have to have a nice office with all my books around me, I just need to be able to sit down and pump out some words. I did happen to bring my dissertation along with me to the shelter, so at some point I need to dig back into it. Just a few hours a day will really help me get back on track.

I also want to get back to coding. I haven’t done any coding for a while. I want to re-do the assignments for the EdX CS50 course since, really, I cheated on some of the assignments. I need to be able to work those problems out on my own rather than hacking my way through each assignment by copying and tweaking other people’s work. I think, along the way, I really missed something, especially when the course began to use Python. In fact, I think there is a separate CS50 course that works only in Python. I should make sure to check that out.

I’m almost at my 500 word minimum. This sentence should do it. Yup, there I go.