Uncle Ez,
Are there any programs on campus that would cater to single parents (mothers)?  That would possibly provide housing, employment and education.  

Thanks
searching for answers

Dear Uncle,
I have come upon a very frustrating situation professionally and I don't know who else to talk to.  I interviewed for a job that I really wanted in February and received an offer (which I accepted) in April.  This is a city government job, and I had to accept the offer "pending budget approval."  Since that time, I have not heard from them, and am growing continually more anxious as I fear this job is appearing less secure by the day.

To make matters worse, I reviewed the city's Executive Budget for the 2005 Fiscal Year, and was shocked to find that the agency I interviewed for is facing a signifcant cut in budget appropriations and the number of full-time positions they can hold.  My position is entry-level, and would surely be among the first to be cut.  This budget was issued before I was offered the job.

Would they submit an offer to me that has a real chance of not meeting budget approval?  Why would they make me an offer so early and string me along for so long?  Is this typical of government jobs or am I justified in thinking they have been rather unprofessional?    

I have not worked since graduation (2003) and one reason its been so long is that I really want this job, so I haven't applied to others since I accepted the offer.  I hoped that by being patient I would get my first choice. Now, I am scared that the worst-case scenario will actually occur, that I will never find a job I desire like this again, and I will forever be behind the brilliant Cornellians of my graduating class and this past year will be a permanent blotch on my record. I feel like such a failed Cornellian!  Please help.

In Limbo

Dear In Limbo,

It is difficult to be waiting for something you really want, and to be so unsure of it becoming reality.  You can't let yourself totally celebrate until you enter the door for your first day of work, or until you receive your first paycheck, or your first review, or, in government, become permanent.  The truth is, there is always one more hurdle.  You can always keep your options open in case what you have doesn't work out.  

One way to keep your options open is to continuously improve your skills so that you will have something to sell - you - in whatever market you need to peddle your wares. It is not about keeping up with the other brilliant Cornellians, per se, but about how you make best use of your own potential and abilities.

Don't focus on negative thoughts like never finding a job like this, and other red-flag words I see like scared, worst, behind, blotch and failed.  These flags tell me that you need a booster shot of positive thinking.  Look at the glass half-full rather than half-empty, and look for the open doors rather than imagining the future slamming its possibilities closed to you.  Look for some books on Rational-Emotive Therapy or cognitive therapy to get more help in changing your thoughts to change your mood.

I wish you the best in your career path.

Uncle Ezra,
I went to the Sun's new website today, and I noticed there was a recurring ad on each page for a real estate agency in a city near where I live.  Since I don't live anywhere near Ithaca I assume they have some way of determining where I do live.  Without getting too technical, how much information can and do websites typically obtain about their viewers?  Thank you.

I'm a female grad student.  Have had a rough first year.  The short (ha) version is this.  I was emotionally,
physically, and sexually abused (covertly) by my mom throughout my childhood.  I coped with it by cutting myself off from the rest of the planet emotionally (only superficial relations) and by being an academic overachiever.  It was bizarre and I didn't feel like anyone would believe me because my family seemed great to others.  I still get comments once in a while from others about how great my parents are.  I want to tell people to not make such assumptions about how one relates to one's parents- geez!  Anyway, I didn't get help until I was a freshman at a small college and started to talk to my freshman advisor... during my freshman year I'd feel physically ill after visits home, lots of confusion about what had happened, problems with dissociation, etc.  I loved my undergrad- it was so safe, caring, loving.  And there were people, like my advisor, who I trusted for the first time with all of me.  I was put on medication for severe depression and still use it.  It took a while, but I also found a great therapist who gave me reduced rates so I could afford the help I really needed.  (My dad is in major denial and told me I needed to buy my mom a mothers' day present to make her feel better after I once tried to tell him what was going on and he shared the email with my mom.)  I really had a hard time with my relationship with academic work... I found myself often wanting to blow it off, not being as interested in it as I was when growing up, not having motivation, etc.  While some of it was probably depression, I was able to figure out with the therapist that a lot of it was that I no longer needed it to survive emotionally.  She told me I'd find the interest coming back as I found a better balance for my life.  Somehow I managed to hang in and do stuff in spite of myself and rouse what latent academic interest I could and graduated with honors from a pretty tough place.  It was frustrating to mysteriously lose my drive for the life of the mind that I had before college but I tried to understand that it was part of the recovery process.  I started out college thinking I'd be in physics or computer science and wound up in humanities because it was way more fun than programming business applications.  I thought I'd enjoy research and the like and that grad school might be a good option... but I really wanted to take a year off first because I've been through a lot of growth and change in four years and still am figuring out what I most want to do... but I was really overwhelmed during my senior year of college with problems like the fact I felt like I was about to be torn from the only family/home I've known.  Deadlines were deadlines... so I applied to some grad schools.  My advisors didn't really understand what I was trying to tell them about my doubts and gut feeling I needed to take a year off and told me that they saw all this potential and blah blah blah.  Although my therapist understood how much the struggle had taken out of me and how much I needed a break.  I didn't have the sense to follow my gut feeling, and had no real better idea of what to do (other than a vague sense that americorps might be nice) so I went to grad school.  I found it so hard leaving my undergrad, and with the "homesickness" for it, decided when I got here that I wouldn't get close to anyone, so it'd hurt less to leave this place.  I've struggled with constant feelings that I don't want to be here... and pretty much stay away from campus when I don't absolutely have to be here for a class or something.  I've felt like a fake, like I somehow lied to my grad advisor, the admissions committee, etc., about the fact I'm a "committed grad student" who wants to do this.  Also when I first got here I had a flashback around my advisor and became really afraid of him as if he's going to emotionally treat me like my mom.  I tried to deal with it on my own because I knew it wasn't the reality and tried to take small risks in working with my advisor, like asking him questions about classes or whatever... but it wasn't working.  So I went to CAPS, but didn't connect well with the first person I got.  Things got to the point that I just had to connect to someone fast, so I got an online therapist- I can often reveal deep stuff faster in writing than I can face-to-face.  Some stuff related to the sexual abuse that I hadn't fully dealt with aas an undergrad was blowing up in my face.  The online therapy actually worked really well.  But it couldnt help a lot with the problems I was having adjusting to grad school.  I knew from my experience as an undergrad in therapy that a large part of what worked for me then was having the face-to-face relationship of trust and hence being able to trust the rest of the world better.  So the online therapist and I agreed I needed to go back to CAPS.  I have just been back there once and I feel better with this new person.  I really was getting worried because I was further isolating myself from people, a sign I'm going downhill.  I also have felt increasingly unsafe here.  I started to think that maybe I needed to think about a leave of absence or leaving altogether and give myself a chance to be more certain about grad school and all.  So I wrote a short letter to my grad advisor a few weeks ago explaining the above in very broad outlines, asking him to help me sort out the options.  We decided that I'd stay here for my master's, because with only a year's worth of work, I won't have much to show for it now and there aren't that many job options out there.  Also I'd lose my parents' health insurance immediately and I rely on it pretty heavily.  I felt somewhat relieved after talking to my grad advisor, because it then felt like I'd made a real choice about being here instead of just winding up here.  Then I just felt really awful- doubting that my grad advisor's care is genuine, feeling like I'd in a sense lied to him and everyone else about my desire to be here previously, feeling like I'd just cut myself open and raw to him and anyone else that might want to hurt me, etc. etc.  Then I wound up with an anxiety attack.  Nothing new there, I just floated through it and waited for it to pass, but did get some medication from the health center that helped it calm down faster.  So I have one incomplete to finish.  I was thinking I could finish it with the newfound hope I was feeling, but then got pretty depressed.  As I felt more and more like I'd just like to cease existing, if it wouldn't hurt a person that I happen to care about, I realized I had to do something fast... so left and went on a short trip to my undergrad to visit my old freshman advisor and some others, which helped a lot.  I just wanted to be in a place again where I felt totally safe, surrounded by love.  And since have been to CAPS to start there again.  But I just don't feel any desire to do this paper.  I've come to resent the agreement with my advisor that I'd stay here and complete my master's and then at that point re-evalutate things to see if I should stay here, take a year off, quit for a while, or transfer elsewhere.  The CAPS therapist told me to stay strong and try to get things done this week.  I could do it, if I sat down to it, but just feel like blowing it and everything else off.  Yet I need to do it so I can start on my master's thesis project.  I know all the tricks about breaking things down into smaller pieces from when I was an undergrad and fought through stuff all the time.  The difference is that right now, I don't feel any reason to even try, to even start fighting again.  I otherwise don't feel all that depressed right now- actually pretty happy.  Just feel a lot more like going to a beach.  I know that I do have a genuine interest in cognitive psych but think I need to talk to someone about vocations- if this path fits in with my values and life goals- who won't ridicule me or impose on me their own agendas.  Some people have suggested I'd make a good minister and religion/philosophy was one of those subjects I studied a lot of as an undergrad in addition to cognitive psych.  But right now I need more than anything a reason to finish writing this paper- any reason.  I can't come up with many on my own, other than relief and cheering from a few, like my former freshman advisor, who are on the sidelines right now trying to cheer me on.  Hopefully CAPS will work in the long run but it takes time- I can't tell a therapist my entire life story in one or even two sessions, and I need a way to break out of the impasse and write this paper.  I haven't told my former freshman advisor the story of how I'm doing right now because there wasn't enough time to talk to him other than the trivialities of life and I don't have the energy to write him long emails... am thinking of going back as soon as I can when his schedule allows for a longer talk.  Otherwise he'd probably be able to help.    

Dear Uncle Ezra,

Can an American own property in Europe or any other country outside the United States without having to be wed to a citizen of that country?

Dear Uncle Ezra,
WHAT HAPPENED ON APRIL 30,
1988

Dear Uncle Ezra,
Is there a way for me to recycle old CD cases?  Can I just dump them in with the plastic bottles,
or are those a different kind of plastic?  

Thanks!

Dear Uncle Ezra,
I AM INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT EQUINE EMBRYO TRANSPLANT. IS ANYONE AT CORNELL INVOLVED WITH THIS? MICHELLE MERCIER

Uncle Ezra,
When will the Fall '04 course roster include room assignments?

Dear Uncle Ezra,
Is it true that your more likely to get divorced after cohabitaing with a partner as opposed getting married without cohabitating?

Dear Curious,

I have heard that statistic also, the theory being that those who marry are more likely to be commitment-friendly, and those who are unsure may continue to be reluctant to stick with it "...through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, etc."  The theory that cohabitating would help people weed out impossibilities doesn't take into account that we all have our human idiosyncrasies and marriage isn't a business arrangement.  It's a human bond.