Academic life often means following the opportunities, which may or may not match up with where your family has roots (which may or may not be where you want to live too!).
If you’re interested in being close to extended family you can certainly seek out positions that are located in the same area/nearby but it’s not always a guarantee that you’ll find an opening that’s specific to your area of expertise.
Read MoreIn the words of Daniel Tiger… “that was fun but now it’s done.” We had two major endings this week. We ended our two week trip to the east coast and I officially ended my third year on the tenure track (my contract ended last Sunday and grades were due on Tuesday… don’t ask me why they make grades due after our contracts end and after graduation…). With these 2 big events coming to an end, I’ve been thinking a lot about the passage of time. When Ellie was an infant, I sporadically listened to the podcast, The Longest Shortest Time, and I think about the title often because it so accurately describes life with a young kid. In the midst of the year, it felt like time was dragging and that our trip to see family was light years away, and now here I am settling back into daily life and it’s all done.
Read MoreWe are. Still. Traveling. We’re coming up on the two week mark and I think that might be my limit. Or at least my limit of not having a consistent schedule.
Read MoreThis week Mike and I celebrated 8 years of marriage… by flying across the country with a three year old, which is probably the most fun way you could spend an anniversary. It actually wasn’t that bad. Everything went as smoothly as it could go, we didn’t have any major meltdowns, and the airplane snacks/drinks kept Ellie entertained for a really long time.
Read MoreMost weeks I try to reserve weekends and evenings (and holidays… like Monday) for non-work related activities. When the work week includes a holiday and a day long workshop, mixed with meetings and other events, it makes it hard to do much else. This week I had about 12 hours (not even 2 full work days) to get all of my non-meeting work done, which wasn’t enough time… so work crept into personal time.
Read MoreHoly groceries!!! We spent under $600 on groceries this month!!! It does come with a caveat… I was traveling for ~5 days, so there was only 1 adult to feed for 5 days of the month. However, we hosted a few meals at our house, cooked a meal for a friend with a new baby, and re-upped on some freezer meals… so we didn’t skimp on food purchases.
Read MoreThe biggest news of my week is that the results (for lack of a better word) of my third year review came back and were overwhelmingly positive! It feels good to be on the other side of that milestone. Moving forward, I’ll just keep on, keeping on! Despite feeling pretty confident after submitting my materials back in February, I saw the response letter in my inbox this week and my heart started racing. I was sitting on the train on my way to campus, debating on whether or not to read the letter right then and there, or wait until I got to the privacy of my office in case there were any surprises.
Read MoreI have so much respect for people who travel regularly for work. I left for a conference in San Antonio on Tuesday morning and came back on Saturday morning (should have been Friday evening) and I am so exhausted. Prior to the conference I thought… I’ll have all this time to myself to get work done and work on the blog and relax and explore and watch cable TV and read… HA!
Read MoreWe took an impromptu trip to the beach (very unlike me… the impromptu part, not the beach part). I was joking with a friend the other week that I needed a beach trip. While she couldn’t provide me with a trip to the beach, she did offer up a night in her guest room, free of charge. We took her up on the offer and had a family sleepover (last week), which was lots of fun. We tried to have all the kids sleep in one room (two 2 year olds and one 4 year old)… didn’t work so well! Doing a little local getaway made me want to go to the beach even more!
Read MoreThis will be my last post about our recent San Francisco trip/conference, I promise! In general, I’m not a huge fan of large conferences. All of the socializing is exhausting and a lot of the networking that happens feels fake (unless you’re getting connecting through people you already know). I think the most valuable thing I got from this most recent conference was having the chance to catch up with friends and mentors from my grad school days. I hadn’t seen most of these people since I graduated and it felt like one big reunion. It seemed like every corner I turned I saw someone that I hadn’t seen in years. After 2.5 years of living across the country from everyone we know, it was nice to run into so many familiar faces.
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