Quick Catch Up

So we need to play some serious catch up, so this will be short explanations and many pictures! Starting with the most recent and going back.

Here is a video from tonight of Abby lifting weights and showing off her new counting skills. She really can say that she is 2 (although it's not official for 2 weeks!)



We actually had some rain here in Arizona last week and quite the storm last Thursday. We lost power and it reminded Matt that we need to cut down some branches on our tree. Saturday Matt and a friend, Randy Lee borrowed a chain saw and took care of the branches. You can see Matt with the chain saw and the resulting triumph over the tree!

On January 16th and 17th we took a very quick trip to Wyoming to see one of our new nephew's, Dexter (Heather and Brandon's son) to be blessed. We flew into Denver and quickly grabbed food as we were all starving. While Barbara and Roger finished eating Matt and I found a guy doing caricatures and had him do one of Abby. She would not hold still, but he really thought she was cute. We asked for a head shot and he ended up doing her whole body!

Here is a picture of the whole family (Brandon and Heather's) after the blessing and before we flew back to the airport and to home! What a weekend!

Abby sees us sit and type at our computers quite often since we are both trying to finish our massive papers. Apparently she think she needs to do the same!

Abby's birth father's family, the Huff's sent Abby wonderful Christmas presents! She especially loved the tea party set complete with a talking, singing tea pot. Thank you to the Huff's!

Before we went to Wyoming, Abby and I took off to see our other newer nephew, Caleb Shakespeare! We traveled to Washington and spent time with some of Jen's family. We had a great time! Here are Caleb, Abby and Jen on the first day!

Brynley played with Abby so much and is just the best big cousin! We hope she can come out and play with us in Arizona some day!
The Twins, Kylee and Kennedy also played with Abby for hours and hours. We wish they lived closer!

Aunt Tiff gave Abby and Jen new haircuts. You are the best Tiff!

We celebrated Brent's, Jen's and Abby's birthdays which are in January and February complete with homemade chinese food and oreo cookie ice cream dessert! Yum! We also loved seeing Brent and Nicole who have now moved back to Washington.

Abby loves Grandpa Mark as you can see!

Aunt Christie and Uncle Jerry with Abby!

Sisters! Tiff and Jen!

Jobs for Historians

Some of you have heard we may be graduating in May and are looking for work. You may ask, "where will you get a job?" The answer is invariably, "wherever we can."

Some don't quite understand just how bad the market is, even for those with doctorates, so I thought I'd share with you these recent images I pirated off the American Historical Association's recent Perspectives on History publication. In figure 1 you can see that the discrepancy between the number of newly minted PhDs and projected job openings is larger than it has been since Richard Nixon was president. Ouch!

Figure 3 (yes, I know that I skipped a figure, and several others as well) shows that in my field--U.S. history--there are about 90 applicants per position. Sadly, that is good news to me since just last week I received a letter from one school thanking me for my application and noting that there were over 480 other applicants.
So if we go with the expectation that there are an average of 90 applicants per job, and if we know I applied for about a dozen jobs, I have about a 10-15% of getting hired someplace. Yippie!

I know, you are thinking, "but Matt, you went to a good school, right?" Well, I didn't show the chart but another one explains that about a third of the applicants come from the top programs, and ASU is only borderline in that group, so I can figure there are about 30 applicants per job who come from a more prestigious university.

So what does all this mean? Move over old lady--I'm the new greeter at Walmart! In a worst case situation I have some part time work already lined up. I'll keep you informed (please don't post any comments encouraging me--I can't bear to read them).