It was a wild ride but I finally landed a job with the EU: a six-month contract gig in the field of human rights. Alicia and I will be moving temporarily to Paris during the contract term, which begins November 15.
Things looked pretty bleak for a while. The EU had pushed back the start dates on two of the jobs I’d interviewed for to March 2025. The two UN positions I applied for were reduced to two-month gigs with no guarantee of funding after December 31. The UN had already slashed its budget before I applied but it seems that the top brass are worried about an even bigger hit if Trump and the GOP win the election (which looks increasingly likely, for fuck’s sake).
Worried that the only remaining EU job on my list would get the ax, I contacted the woman who encouraged me to apply and politely asked her what the fuck was going on. She told me that the recent parliamentary elections had spooked some of the higher-ups but she had no reason to believe that the job I wanted was in jeopardy and promised to look into the holdup. I received a call a couple of days later to set up the final interview and the offer arrived this past Friday. When I circled back to my contact to thank her, she told me that the hiring team especially liked my volunteer work in domestic violence shelters, my experience running a business in the EU and my American birthplace. I found the latter rather puzzling, but she explained that whatever the outcome of the election, what happens in America will impact the EU and they hope I can provide insight regarding American actions and motivations.
I told her, “Eh bien, c’est facile. Si c’est Trump, nous sommes tous foutus.” (That’s easy. If it’s Trump, we’re all fucked.)
I wasn’t particularly keen about moving to Paris given the political climate in France but the work is very interesting and I know the city well, having managed a satellite office there for two years. A new job in a new field in a new city would have been too much, so living in Paris allows me to focus on the job and confirm whether or not international relations is the place for me.
This means that it’s time to bid a fond but permanent farewell to the altrockchick. My WordPress subscription ends on April 2, 2025, at which time I will delete the website. In the interim, the home page will automatically refresh once a week. I will eventually get around to closing the Comments feature beginning with the oldest reviews first. I’ve already removed all my photos (except for the teeny-tiny pics in the header) as I don’t want my employer to find out they’ve hired a pervert (though I suspect that half the hiring team falls into that category).
This departure feels different because I don’t have a long list of albums I’m dying to review. The only piece of music I regret not covering is Schubert’s Great C Major Symphony but I had to admit that the desire was self-indulgent and unlikely to draw much interest from my audience. I think I’m pretty much spent, and rather than slipping into mediocrity, it’s best that I move on.
Some of you may remember that back in 2016 I launched a collaboration with an editor in the hope of publishing my reviews in book form. That bubble burst when my editor calculated that the total word count had reached over one million. “It would be longer than War and Peace,” he told me. I’ve probably added another few million to that total, so a book is out of the question. I do want to preserve my work to have something to reflect on when I’m an old lady in a rocking chair, so in my spare time (assuming I have any) I hope to create EPub or PDF versions of my reviews (organized by the buttons on the menu bar) and allow visitors to download their favorite reviews before I sail off into the sunset. I would also like to rewrite some of my early contemporary reviews that deserve the full altrockchick treatment rather than the “keep it short and sweet” approach I used back then because it was recommended by “experts” in the blogosphere. Because WordPress will probably recognize them as new reviews, subscribers may receive emails from time to time. Feel free to ignore them if you’re not interested.
My final contribution to the music scene will appear next Sunday. See you then!