[Prudence]

1) I am the primary "bread-winner" in my family. With that position comes responsibility that I take seriously. My employment actions have impact beyond my own individual life.

2) My fertility (assuming I have any) is not indefinite. Financial choices I make now affect whether or not I, primary bread-winner, can support a family. Dreams may still be there when I'm done spawning, but the reverse is not necessarily true. Not having to start my legal career now means that I need not worry about waiting a few more years before attempting to foist off-spring upon an unsuspecting world. (Although now that I've mentioned it, the world is officially on notice.)

3) I have a spouse who is entitled to a say in my future plans. While he supports my decision, whatever it is, he also has waited patiently while I finished two graduate degrees, and is eager to start on his own education. I could not enjoy a dream seized at someone else's expense.

4) Name-calling and insults are not helpful. They are not "tough love". Cruelty is cruelty, no matter what justification one might assign. I am aware that I do not have the same level of coping skills that other people have. Sometimes "quitting" is what is required for me to continue to wake up in the morning and carry on the Activities of Daily Living that are normally expected of an adult. If my immediate choices are quitting a job search or quitting life, I'm strong enough to chose the former. Perhaps some day I will be stronger. I am not able to predict the future.

5) I've re-written my cover letter and am submitting another application just as a special favor for all of you. No, that's not true. Yes, I've re-written it, but only because I had an "inspiration" of how to tie my MLIS and JD together into a cohesive academic pathway. I'm submitting it for a position I have less than no chance of getting, but I'm submitting it any way so that I have a deadline to get the revised cover letter completed.

6) I still have an application pending with the Presidential Management Fellows program. The program is not law-specific, so perhaps the decision makers will be less concerned with which law school I attended. (It's for any graduate degree, and my MLIS is from the 4th ranked school, so if ranking of degree-granting school is important, perhaps my MLIS will serve that purpose.) According to my conversation with John McKay (yes, that John McKay. I move in such lofty circles.) the PMF folks are "blessed people", so perhaps that will be an avenue to success.

7) This is the last public mention I will make of my future employment plans.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, already in progress: "Vegemite and bacon - peerless pleasure or unholy union".