It's Done

I sold my car Wednesday and took control of a brand new Forester on Thursday. I haven't driven it much - just to Target and REI - but I don't drive much. :) I also don't do well driving around aimlessly. People are surprised I didn't take it out sooner, but I've been feeling icky - headache-y, tired, slightly congested. I should probably close my windows and only breathe filtered air, but I hate running my a/c when I don't have to. I pay extra so that my power comes from green sources, but when it's in the 70s outside, what's the point? I thought about getting a window fan with a pollen filter on it at Target, but I couldn't bring myself to spend the money when summer is close to over for me, and I don't know where I'll end up after next year.

Updates!

1) I posted my car on Craigslist Thursday afternoon. I had 3 emails expressing interest within 8 hours, and got a deposit for the car on Friday. I thought we were asking too much, but we obviously weren't.

The guy would like my car sooner rather than later, so that means I need to get a car soon. I've decided on a Forester. I'm looking forward to having an AWD this winter. And I only drive 3K miles a year, which makes me feel a little better about my carbon footprint. Then I'll be moving, and getting either a house or bigger apartment, so it'll be nice to have a larger vehicle to help me furnish it. My goal is to find a job that I like where I have to drive <= 6K miles a year. We'll see. If I have to drive a lot, I might get a car that gets better mpg.

I'm just glad this process is winding down. It's been making me so stressed out!

2) I emailed the woman who was my second-line manager the summer of my harrassment (has a nice ring to it, doesnt it?) because she is fortuitously the general chair of the conference where I could see my harrasser. I asked her if she could find out if he was registered so that I could prepare myself if necessary. She said she totally understood, and found out from the registration char that he is NOT registered. An author had to be registered by the beginning of the month, so I'm guessing/ hoping his co-author is coming and he will decide not to do a late registration. In the meantime, I went ahead and set up an appointment with a therapist to help me deal with it.

3) In general, I've been pleasantly surprised about how I've been treated during my car shopping process. It might be different if I showed up somewhere with a male, but as a single woman, I don't really feel like I've been talked down to, or swayed toward one car or another. They've had to talk to ME. No one has been pushy or going for the hard sell. Maybe it's because I live in a somewhat progressive town, but I'm not complaining.

Further Paring

So now I'm deciding between the Civic and a Subaru Forester. I like the Forester better than the CR-V. And, financially, I'm not sure the Civic Hybrid is worth it over the normal one for how much I drive. Under normal driving, it would save me 571 gallons after driving 60,000 miles. It'll probably take me 5-10 years to drive that much (I hope), so I'd save 50-100 gallons a year. And I feel like the tide is turning in terms of global warming awareness, gas prices, public transportation, etc, so I think that in 5-10 years there will be many more good high mileage options for cars and/ or enough better public transport that it won't matter as much. Also, it annoys me that the Hybrid trunk is only 10 cu ft, and there's no pass-through, since that's where the batteries are.

The real problem is that I really like the small SUVs. I always have. Some people love sports cars. I like little SUVs - the 2-door Ford Explorer, CR-Vs, newer RAV4s, ... Small but functional. And so cute!

The Forester gets 20/ 26 mpg, so it's not that different from a mid-size sedan, but it gives lots of back seat space, AWD, and a large back area. I've tried hatchbacks, but the side and rear visibility on the Forester are much better, and, well, it's AWD. Why can't somebody besides Ford make a hybrid one of those babies? (I looked at the Ford Escape, but it doesn't do as well on crash tests as the Forester, costs ~$7k more since they're selling for over list, and only has better gas mileage for city driving).

So now I need to do 2nd test drives of both (which might require a trip to a town about 30 mi away since the local Subaru dealer only had the turbo Forester) and decide if I should be practical or not. (In terms of gas, the Civic would save me ~600 gallons over 60k miles).

Sorry for boring y'all with my car decision stuff. I'm doing it partially because it helps me order my thoughts.

What, me, compulsive?*

My car will soon need about $400-$700 to get its rear brakes up to speed. Since I've been planning to get a new one once I graduated for a while, my dad thinks I should go ahead and look for a new car, instead of put in more money to a 12 year old American car. So I've made a list (and checked it twice) of smallish cars and "cute utes" that I might be interested in, and included gas mileage, total cost of ownership, resale value, total length, turning diameter, rear leg room and safety rankings. Some cars, such as VWs, got scratched from the list due to reliablity issues. Others, such as the Mazda3 and Prius have been scratched for safety issues. There are two safety ranking orgs, the NHTSA and the IIHS. The Prius does well on the NHTSA rankings, but gets a marginal on rear crash tests. Thanks to my family's loose joints (many of us are hypermobile, and we suspect a connective-tissue disorder), whiplash can be particularly problematic for us.

Basically, I'm looking at cars that are 180" long or shorter and have a good turning radius. They need to get better gas mileage than my current car (19/26) or provide me with something else - such as AWD and/ or good storage capacity. I've driven Hondas, Mazdas, Saturns and Toyotas. I'm testing Subarus this week and then I think I'll be done with my first pass.

The salesmen think it's pretty crazy that I'm looking at so many cars, and at such a range, but a) I don't know where I'll be in a year and b) I want what I want! The Honda Civic, Civic Hybrid and CR-V are the current front runners. We'll see how the Subarus do. I think the Civic Hybrid is best for the driving I do now: drive 1-2x/ week, mostly in city, never haul stuff. The Civic EX would give me 25% better mpg than I currently get, and vs the hybrid has a lower base price, better 0-60 by 4 s, has 2 more cu ft trunk and has a 60/40 pass through back seat where the hybrid has none. The CR-V sits up higher, and has 5" more back legroom, AWD and more carrying capacity in general. My dad says I'll know what car I want. We'll see.

I just want this over with so I can stop worrying. Once I decide on something, I'm sure I'll have no trouble mentally justifying it to myself in the future. :)

* My advisor accused me of being compulsive. This came up because he saw I got a new lab notebook (which he likes), and I always get gridded ones "because I'm neat and compulsive." I just like order and being methodical, and having nicely spaced vertical lines in addition to horizontal ones helps with that - and helps me make my geometric doodles more precise. :)

Uh-Oh

So I thought I was doing pretty well getting over the trauma that was the sexual harassment from 2 summers ago. Then I looked more closely at this upcoming conference's accepted paper's list, and I saw a quite unwelcome name. My stomach dropped and I felt rather nervous at the thought of maybe seeing him. So I called my health insurance's mental health department and explained the situation. I'll probably only be able to see the person once before I leave, but I hope that'll be enough of a start. And there's a guy from our lab going, so I'll alert him to the situation.