It's been nearly six months now since I held a job I did more than one day a week. It's been a year and a half since I worked acting close to full time, and even that was an internship. On a certain level, it feels like a cop out to call a matters position in physics my first full-time job since graduating, bit it's the closest I've got, and I'm getting very excited for it, so it will have to do.

While I'm excited about the future and the work I'll get to do, I'm now faces with for months until I go, and what to do in that time. Certainly don't of it is to breathe a sigh of relief that I have a job waiting for me, but after that congress the doubt and uncertainty.

Having not worked for a while, I feel anchors about going back to a work environment, even one as open as academic research can be. When you've been unemployed a while, you go out less, because you can't afford to eat out, or go out for drinks, and so you see less of other people as a result.

Can I still deal with criticism? How long will it take to get used to working with other people again? I know these problems will sort themselves out, but there's still doubt and fear even now as I'm happy to have a chance to do science again, something I thought was slipping away from me.

Fear and doubting aside, realizing how much socializing can cost was disappointing, as was realizing how few ways I knew to do it. Lately, I've been spending more time trying to think of good ways of guttering people together with less of a buying things aspect, and I'm hoping to have more game and movie nights, as well as language practice nights in the near future.