Total economic meltdown

So what is a samba gypsy to do when her nation undergoes a complete economic collapse? It used to be that I could flit overseas fairly easily and be sure I could get a job when I came back. These days, I don't know! I already know I'm unlikely to be able to buy a house in the US like I'd hoped. I was hoping to save this year for a house, buy one next year, then rent it out whenever I went travelling... But since the Wall Street crisis, the credit markets are in a total freeze here in Oregon. No mortgages available to anyone, even someone with a perfect credit score and a hefty down payment. They shut down last week. Sure, it'll loosen up eventually, but interest rates will be brutal and I'd need a whopping down payment and proof of a secure job. The prices of gas and food have DOUBLED from a couple years ago, and have completely eliminated my ability to save for my next Brazil trip. And the dollar is worth HALF what it was in Brazil just five years ago. And the plane fares to Brazil are THREE TIMES as expensive. (TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS from Oregon, HOLY S***) I still am breaking even, but only breaking even, nothing more... and I had to make the sad decision to not go to Brazil this season. Skipping Carnaval for the first time in years.

Of course, as Pauline wisely reminded me: You don't have to go EVERY year. It will still be there next year. And I have the great pleasure of spending time with family instead. (In the Florida Keys, yet! woo-hoo! was that a brilliant idea or what!)

But it does make me worry about my long-range plans. The University of Portland has offered me a third year of teaching. Take it... or don't? I had originally planned to head back to Brazil that year. (Next year. The 2009-2010 academic year.) But things are iffy enough now, economically, that I truly wonder what would happen to me if I couldn't get work when I get back. Say I got sick...

The samba gypsy life is really the only life i want to lead, but of course it just doesn't pay the bills. I'm not without other resources, of course. I am very good at my job (biology professor, university level), it's a job that's in reasonable demand and is as recession-proof a job as you can get; I'm bright and highly educated; I have a good professional network to draw on; I'm pretty frugal in how I live. But however you cut it, university professors don't make much. Especially ones who keep avoiding tenure-track jobs because they want to keep traveling to Brazil every other year! In my cohort of grad school PhD buddies, I'm the ONLY one without a tenured job at a major university. It's by choice - I never applied to those jobs because I just didn't want to get trapped. (OK, and because I absolutely hate writing grants...) I was top of my field; but I left it and flitted away to go drum. It was a ridiculous gamble

I chose this path, and I'm eternally happy I did. But what is the best path now?

Nothing against Oregon. One of the beautiful places in the continent... I love my job, love my students, and I've got fantastic musicians here to play with and learn from. But..... There's no Carnaval. I miss the sun. I miss my friends.

I just miss it.

It is clearly time for me to do some serious research into the universities in Rio, Salvador, Sao Paulo and Curitiba, and REALLY pursue the sea turtle and tamarin research. (which would require writing grants, dammit...) Quit talking about it and do it. And time for me to learn how to teach biology in Portuguese.