Relevance

I spent the last three months attempting to find something relevant to discuss here. But to be honest it felt either contrived or whiny. I think I pushed my nose a bit too close to the grindstone in trying to prepare for what felt akin to an
unattainable future. I worried and I wrote and I applied for jobs and I taught and stupidly I fussed over whether my students liked my classes.

I'd love to say that the first semester as professor allowed for the glorious unburdening of my grad school stress and inferiority complex, but it might have actually heightened it as I stretched my fingertips into the unknown.

Here I am in the new year. I've had the opportunity to breathe and relax and just be. Just be at home. Just be out in the snow. Just be on the trail. Just be looking for the bottom of the glass (excellent, beer, wine and whiskey). Just be lost in a book. Just be with Joe. Calm. Refresh. Renewal.

At home on the Metolius

Part of this is due to the fact that I have been snatched up for a tenure-track position at the earliest possible time in the job season--a feat I would never have thought to accomplish. I am thrilled and terrified. Mostly thrilled. And also terrified.

The academic life is one of those places you go that you have great autonomy as compared with other careers--excepting the fact that you are tied to a University. And that the best department for you, the best fit academically may not be in the location best-suited to your soul. I tried to avoid applying for positions anywhere that I thought would feel as though we'd been dragged to the inner-circles of hell. But we are ending up, for the foreseeable future (tenure track!) on the wrong coast.

It will be my fourth cross-country move as an adult, my ninth overall. Each trip offers something different, although this one will include three travel averse kitties, so it'll be more of a race I suppose. We have a lot of decisions to make (terrifying) and I will get to start working on my tenure file in earnest (thrilling).

Otherwise, in the last few months I have tried to not adopt the usual hobbit/hermit/hibernating version of myself.

Visit to the Shenandoah

In Philly

We've taken advantage of the fact that I'm making a proper wage to minimize the distance between us, meeting in Denver at the GABF in October and spending Thanksgiving in Maine. I have also had a couple of visitors which has been great...and this popped up on my route to the metro which also gave me a nice warm fuzzy:

Bringing Oregon to Virginia!

I also tried to remember some of the things I like out of the city in the fall--apple picking, cider, hiking amongst deciduous trees. Although I can't remember ever having a concession stand of this sort at a trail head before...

 

Shenandoah

I head back east this coming weekend for what will be another exciting term. I've planned some rigorous classes, which are sure to make me unpopular with most students ; )