It's humid in here.

The gap between posts perfectly sums up my semester. I look up in the afternoon these days and it has suddenly become midnight (not literally). I consider my journaling here and realize that it will have to be a semester end summary instead of a play-by-play--that's okay. I'm told that you are forgiven your first year of the tenure-track. That the gaps in your work (and life....please say and life too) are expected--the subtext reads: as long as they don't continue into your second year.

Now, some summary detail:

I taught a class. A big one. Some people loved it. Some people hated it. That's how it goes with these large lectures. The good news is this: I only teach this one every other year and it's my only large lecture, also, I'm not holding out for universal popularity.

I started my new research. I have some seed funding from my hire negotiations and as a result I was able to hit the ground running with my new project. I am excited about this project for a number of reasons, but non-academically speaking, I am most excited about the part where I'm only gone for 2-3 weeks at a time instead of months. Plus, the food is good.

My first site visit was during the end of September - early October and the highlights were the wine, the cheese, and the pintxos. Oh and the scenery, I suppose. I arrived early to have meetings with my research partners, adjust to jet lag (I really think I am better at this than I am--I must strive to improve--suggestions welcome). These extra couple days also allowed me some tourist time, and I took a long walk through the city which I found to be a beautiful blend of old and new. Museum. Odd sporting event. Graffiti. Food. Wine.

I met some fabulous people and it was hard at times to remember that I was there as a researcher. This is my research on knowledge exchange in the food system and to that end I visited food co-ops, dairies, organic farms, bakeries, cideries, wineries, urban farms, and so on. Some photos here, but there is a link to a full album of shots on the right hand side where I keep such things.

Guggenheim

Nuns watch the cliff diving event

This just seemed odd to me.

"reading" at lunch

 

old facade, "modern" beyond

1930s stone mill

In prep for cheesemaking

My "expiration date" made me a bit nervous because it was my flight date too.

They make this sound easy by saying it's only 240 steps...

2 days old

So I could get back through border security after walking around farms.

These peppers have a special place in my heart--

Grape press

This photo is misleading because it is from the beginning of my fieldwork

This makes up the first episode of what I hope is a much longer term research venture. The next trip is in January and I get to bring a special research assistant with me (read: Joe). The site is especially interesting to me because the major push for normalizing relations, beyond the diaspora is the big ag companies, so multi-year research that starts during this transition phase should be spectacularly insightful....(read: I hope this works).

Oktoberfesting

This upcoming trip is our major travel for the year, but we've done some other regional exploring and had a moment of unexpected travel that brought us home for Thanksgiving.

We have checked out some sights near and far, headed south to see my university peeps from last year in a make-shift Oktoberfest, gone apple picking (50 pounds of apples ended up not being enough, so we went again...), attempted some hikes (we're learning slowly that state parks here are not analogous to what we're used to), saw some old friends, and tried to make the best of a short trip west (where we saw hiking goats!).

Westy from the West

This is December (75 degrees)

This is November (50 degrees)

Seeing our mountains--it was in the 30s in OR

Not mountain goats

Still December....

It has been ridiculously warm here--which I secretly delight in because I'm cold all the time. It's in the 70s today and chance of thunderstorms. It's warmer outside than in our house, but it's also quite humid so we're staying in our artificially temperate world.

I just looked up again and it's dark. The time flies.