The last few weeks have been a whirlwind during which I slept between 4-6 hours a night (no exaggeration) and somehow did not need to mainline coffee. I blame adrenaline. Last week felt like five straight days of goodbyes, see you laters, and last times. It was both easier and harder than I imagined it would be.
On Saturday morning, I had a lovely, quiet breakfast with the family that has hosted me so generously for the last six months and then loaded up my car and was on my way. My mom was nice enough to sign up for a two day road trip to keep me company. :-) Our drive took us out of TX and through LA, MS, and part of AL on 10E. We stayed overnight in Mobile, AL and then headed north to Atlanta on 65 and 85. It was surprisingly leisurely, which had been my goal in planning it out, and we were blessed with roughly zero traffic and decent weather.
It was important to me that I drive out of TX (a first for my car, which has, shockingly, never left the state before!). That first leg of the trip was sad and exciting in equal parts. Bittersweet. I was leaving home and going home. Mostly though, I spent it thinking about how deeply grateful I am to all the amazing people in my life. I often feel like I have a lot of homes in a lot of places and none of that would be possible without all the people who make those places home. I am especially thankful for the people who have given me family by inviting me into theirs. I doubt that there is any greater gift.
Serious stuff aside though, leaving Texas was a big deal and I needed to make sure I was well prepared. Because, I can't believe I'm saying this, some things might actually be better in Texas. Not all things (looking at you husband), but some things. So I moved to Georgia well stocked up on Whataburger spicy ketchup, HEB tortillas, and Platinum yeast (that last one isn't a TX thing but I haven't yet figured out where it is sold in GA). I planned a Whataburger stop in Louisiana and gleefully introduced my mom to the chain. I also brought a growler of BJ's root beer with me (again, not strictly TX but not in GA either). Husband hoped I would bring some wood for smoking, especially mesquite, but I ran out of room in the car. We'll just have to plan another road trip for that. I once brought my Publix brand staples up to Michigan and now I'm bringing my HEB staples to Georgia. At least I'll be set for a while as I settle in.
And that, somewhat anticlimactically, concludes my final post for Fifteen Hundred Miles South. It's hard to believe that I spent as much time "leaving" Texas, 18 months counted from when we first knew we would be moving, as I did "living" in Texas, counted from when I arrived to when we knew we were leaving.
I started my original blog, Eleven Hundred Miles North, when I moved away from Georgia. Now that I've moved back, I am debating whether or not to continue. I'm leaning toward starting a new blog and keeping it going but I'll spend some time thinking about it (and about whether I'll have enough to write about). I don't quite want to open it up to a vote but if you feel strongly one way or another, feel free to let me know. For now, thanks for reading!
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Final Countdown
I'm sitting in Hartsfield-Jackson again. I'm juggling my own proposals for funding and my student's papers, abstracts, and theses. (My own papers are somehow very secondary right now.) There's an older couple sitting across from me sharing a newspaper. The entire idea of having the time to read a newspaper (at all, let alone in a leisurely, chatty fashion with my spouse) is beyond me. I can't imagine what it feels like to not have ten different things to do right now and another fifty or so to do as soon as possible. My husband assures me that people who don't work for universities or research centers have some concept of leaving work (and not taking it with them). I don't know what that must feel like either. We're going on "vacation" this week and I have a minimum of two to four hours of work planned for every single day of it. I guess I could work the whole time but that would sort of defeat the point of taking time off wouldn't it?
The pace of work I am currently juggling is a bit frantic even for me. I usually at least try to not let work take over my life. Right at this moment though, it's not optional. In a little under two weeks, I will work my last day at the University of Houston, pack up what's left of my stuff, and drive to Georgia. There are things that absolutely have to be done before then but it's official- I'm moving.
The next reasonable question that anyone who knows me asks is "oh that's great! where did you finally find a job?" I didn't. After 18 long months of holding out on moving in order to find a job, I'm moving without one. The alternate title for this blog post was "Right isn't Easy" and that's an important part of what is going on with me right now.
I made the decision to move job-less a few months ago and it's been an emotional roller coaster every day since then. I've been haltingly asked so many times "you don't seem very happy with this decision?" There's no easy answer. Some days I can't wait to move. Other days I am absolutely crushed to be leaving a job that I genuinely love, where I work with people that I am happy to work with. It's a little like eating vegetables though- they don't always make you happy but they're definitely better for you. I didn't make this choice to make myself happy (or my husband happy for that matter), I made it for my own mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Unfortunately, the right thing is often really hard.
For someone who always has a plan for everything, not knowing what will come next is an incredible challenge. I'll probably look back someday in the future and think "oh, that was the plan all along, whether I knew it or not." In the meantime though, there's a lot of semi-aimless wandering happening and I'm ready to be done with it.
The pace of work I am currently juggling is a bit frantic even for me. I usually at least try to not let work take over my life. Right at this moment though, it's not optional. In a little under two weeks, I will work my last day at the University of Houston, pack up what's left of my stuff, and drive to Georgia. There are things that absolutely have to be done before then but it's official- I'm moving.
The next reasonable question that anyone who knows me asks is "oh that's great! where did you finally find a job?" I didn't. After 18 long months of holding out on moving in order to find a job, I'm moving without one. The alternate title for this blog post was "Right isn't Easy" and that's an important part of what is going on with me right now.
I made the decision to move job-less a few months ago and it's been an emotional roller coaster every day since then. I've been haltingly asked so many times "you don't seem very happy with this decision?" There's no easy answer. Some days I can't wait to move. Other days I am absolutely crushed to be leaving a job that I genuinely love, where I work with people that I am happy to work with. It's a little like eating vegetables though- they don't always make you happy but they're definitely better for you. I didn't make this choice to make myself happy (or my husband happy for that matter), I made it for my own mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Unfortunately, the right thing is often really hard.
For someone who always has a plan for everything, not knowing what will come next is an incredible challenge. I'll probably look back someday in the future and think "oh, that was the plan all along, whether I knew it or not." In the meantime though, there's a lot of semi-aimless wandering happening and I'm ready to be done with it.
Friday, July 6, 2018
The Reunion Blog
I still cringe a little to say it but this year marked my tenth anniversary of graduating from Colgate University. It feels like I blinked and ten years somehow passed in the space of that moment. As my husband and I flew into Syracuse, NY, I thought back to my last flight into SYR in the spring of 2008 after visiting Georgia Tech for the first time. Ten years later, I could still easily recall the palpable relief of almost being home at Colgate again. In fact, I would have happily stayed put in Hamilton, NY indefinitely because I couldn't imagine anywhere else in the world feeling as much like home as that small town did.
Ten years has changed a lot in that regard. Colgate still felt astonishingly familiar though (despite my indignation at some of the changes on campus). The only thing that felt out of place walking around campus with friends was that none of us were carrying backpacks or worrying about exams or assignments. I thought I would have more feelings returning to campus after so long but, instead, everything felt normal and great. In large part, I think that is due to the fact that I am still close to everyone that I was close to as I graduated. I talk to most of these friends frequently and catch up meaningfully with the friends that I cannot talk to as often. So much has changed in ten years but so much has also remained the same and that is an incredible gift.
Ten years has changed a lot in that regard. Colgate still felt astonishingly familiar though (despite my indignation at some of the changes on campus). The only thing that felt out of place walking around campus with friends was that none of us were carrying backpacks or worrying about exams or assignments. I thought I would have more feelings returning to campus after so long but, instead, everything felt normal and great. In large part, I think that is due to the fact that I am still close to everyone that I was close to as I graduated. I talk to most of these friends frequently and catch up meaningfully with the friends that I cannot talk to as often. So much has changed in ten years but so much has also remained the same and that is an incredible gift.
Sunday, June 17, 2018
Full Circle
This year marks ten years since I graduated from Colgate University with my Bachelor’s degree. Being a reunion year, I have thought more than usual about the decisions that led me from who and where I was then to who and where I am now. Chief among those decisions is my choice to go to Georgia Tech for graduate school rather than one of the other programs that offered me a place. It was a hard choice and I was deeply skeptical of moving to Atlanta. Another offer, from Boston University, was incredibly tempting. It would have kept me in the Northeast, where I was comfortable and things were familiar. I got along famously with the professor at BU who I would be working with and with some of the other faculty members. So how did I end up at Georgia Tech instead?
Most graduate schools invite accepted Master’s and Doctoral students to visit, meet with faculty and students, and get an in-person feel for the graduate program. It’s an important thing to do; the graduate program you are in will shape the next few years of your life (and possibly much more than that) and will have a supersized effect on your happiness and well-being. My visit to Boston University went really well all except for the moment when an older professor mentioned that female students didn’t have a place in graduate school. I don’t remember his name or even his exact words a decade later but I remember wondering if I could ever put myself through years in a program where I would undoubtedly have to take classes from someone who believed I shouldn’t be there not because I was personally unqualified but because of my gender.
I never had the heart to tell the young, female professor I would have been researching with why I really turned the program down.
While a graduate student at Georgia Tech, I spent many of my semesters as a Teaching Assistant (TA) for undergraduate lab classes. This entailed attending lectures, holding office hours, teaching lab sections, and grading papers. As a first year TA, I remember looking up to the older TA’s who had so much more experience and were so much less stressed about it than I was. Then, a few years later - though it felt quite sudden, I was the older TA. In the middle of a lecture on nuclear decay, the professor made a joke that I had been hearing since my first year.
”Do you know what degree girl’s go to college to get?”
”Mrs!”
Don’t ask me how he wrapped that up into the lecture material. He managed to include that little gem about twice a semester though. It wasn’t the only such comment he made either. Everyone taking his classes knew that he thought relatively little of women in college. I rolled my eyes and went back to watching the lecture. I had so neatly written off the comment that I had heard so many times before at that point that I was confused when one of the first year TA’s came up to me after class to ask how I could stand ”it.”
“Haven’t you been TA-ing for him for years?” she asked me. “How can you stand him being so disrespectful?” The real answer was “Yes but I like getting paid and just want to graduate already.” I’m sure I said something else in reality though. The new TA asked to be switched to another class and was accommodated. I simultaneously admired her and thought it was a bit of a futile move – she was just replaced with a different female TA. The next time the professor made a sexist comment, something super witty about women belonging in the kitchen, it was harder to shake off. What I had previously accepted as normal started to feel embarrassing.
I had bigger fish to fry though. I was a fifth year and months away from graduating. I continued my teaching job. I graduated. I only occasionally thought back on the professor and his commentary on women.
Very recently, I was on a conference call with a group of researchers. Someone’s name was mentioned that I did not recognize and I did some searching to find out who they were and what they were working on. Alongside professional search results was an article in Science that mentioned the researcher. Naturally curious, I opened it and was pretty shocked to find myself reading about a professor at Boston University that was brought up on sexual harassment charges years after the fact because graduate students had been unwilling to jeopardize their careers. I’ve included a link to the article at the bottom of this post though I will warn that I found it to be pretty upsetting.
I can’t know now whether the professor in the article is the same one who once made a comment to me that heavily influenced my choice of where to go to graduate school. There is a good chance that it is though. I can’t help but think that I dodged a bullet. I've struggled with how to conclude this post. Should things like this happen? No. Will they continue to happen? Probably yes. Do I feel like I am better at handling criticism and inappropriate comments following my time in graduate school? Yes. Will everyone else feel the same? Nope.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/disturbing-allegations-sexual-harassment-antarctica-leveled-noted-scientist
Most graduate schools invite accepted Master’s and Doctoral students to visit, meet with faculty and students, and get an in-person feel for the graduate program. It’s an important thing to do; the graduate program you are in will shape the next few years of your life (and possibly much more than that) and will have a supersized effect on your happiness and well-being. My visit to Boston University went really well all except for the moment when an older professor mentioned that female students didn’t have a place in graduate school. I don’t remember his name or even his exact words a decade later but I remember wondering if I could ever put myself through years in a program where I would undoubtedly have to take classes from someone who believed I shouldn’t be there not because I was personally unqualified but because of my gender.
I never had the heart to tell the young, female professor I would have been researching with why I really turned the program down.
While a graduate student at Georgia Tech, I spent many of my semesters as a Teaching Assistant (TA) for undergraduate lab classes. This entailed attending lectures, holding office hours, teaching lab sections, and grading papers. As a first year TA, I remember looking up to the older TA’s who had so much more experience and were so much less stressed about it than I was. Then, a few years later - though it felt quite sudden, I was the older TA. In the middle of a lecture on nuclear decay, the professor made a joke that I had been hearing since my first year.
”Do you know what degree girl’s go to college to get?”
”Mrs!”
Don’t ask me how he wrapped that up into the lecture material. He managed to include that little gem about twice a semester though. It wasn’t the only such comment he made either. Everyone taking his classes knew that he thought relatively little of women in college. I rolled my eyes and went back to watching the lecture. I had so neatly written off the comment that I had heard so many times before at that point that I was confused when one of the first year TA’s came up to me after class to ask how I could stand ”it.”
“Haven’t you been TA-ing for him for years?” she asked me. “How can you stand him being so disrespectful?” The real answer was “Yes but I like getting paid and just want to graduate already.” I’m sure I said something else in reality though. The new TA asked to be switched to another class and was accommodated. I simultaneously admired her and thought it was a bit of a futile move – she was just replaced with a different female TA. The next time the professor made a sexist comment, something super witty about women belonging in the kitchen, it was harder to shake off. What I had previously accepted as normal started to feel embarrassing.
I had bigger fish to fry though. I was a fifth year and months away from graduating. I continued my teaching job. I graduated. I only occasionally thought back on the professor and his commentary on women.
Very recently, I was on a conference call with a group of researchers. Someone’s name was mentioned that I did not recognize and I did some searching to find out who they were and what they were working on. Alongside professional search results was an article in Science that mentioned the researcher. Naturally curious, I opened it and was pretty shocked to find myself reading about a professor at Boston University that was brought up on sexual harassment charges years after the fact because graduate students had been unwilling to jeopardize their careers. I’ve included a link to the article at the bottom of this post though I will warn that I found it to be pretty upsetting.
I can’t know now whether the professor in the article is the same one who once made a comment to me that heavily influenced my choice of where to go to graduate school. There is a good chance that it is though. I can’t help but think that I dodged a bullet. I've struggled with how to conclude this post. Should things like this happen? No. Will they continue to happen? Probably yes. Do I feel like I am better at handling criticism and inappropriate comments following my time in graduate school? Yes. Will everyone else feel the same? Nope.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/disturbing-allegations-sexual-harassment-antarctica-leveled-noted-scientist
Sunday, June 3, 2018
Doing Things by Halves
Here's a very quick post (only one week late) while I work on some longer posts...
Last Monday, Memorial Day, my husband and I celebrated our eighth anniversary of being us. On Memorial Day 2010, we had our first date - a flight around Atlanta and dinner. We've been both flying and eating out together ever since then. This year also marked a milestone that we won't ever hit again - we've been married for half of our relationship. After I mentioned that, my husband quipped "And we've lived together for half our marriage!"
All of this makes me wonder where we'll be in another eight years. If I've learned anything though, it's safe to say that we probably won't be anywhere or doing anything that I'd expect.
Last Monday, Memorial Day, my husband and I celebrated our eighth anniversary of being us. On Memorial Day 2010, we had our first date - a flight around Atlanta and dinner. We've been both flying and eating out together ever since then. This year also marked a milestone that we won't ever hit again - we've been married for half of our relationship. After I mentioned that, my husband quipped "And we've lived together for half our marriage!"
All of this makes me wonder where we'll be in another eight years. If I've learned anything though, it's safe to say that we probably won't be anywhere or doing anything that I'd expect.
Thursday, May 10, 2018
My Least Favorite Weekend
My current work arrangement has me working two weeks of each month from Atlanta and two weeks of each month from Houston. Despite seemingly splitting each month in half, I effectively spend one weekend a month in Houston and three in Atlanta, not counting traveling in and out. The first weekend in Atlanta (somehow this is "weekend 1" in my mind) is my favorite. We often don't schedule much because we don't quite know when I'll be arriving. Weekend 1 is relaxing and I have two whole weeks of being home to look forward to. Weekend 2 is my second weekend in Atlanta and it's almost always packed with seeing all the friends we want to see and doing all the things we want to do. There's nothing relaxing about it but it's great none-the-less.
This weekend is weekend 3. Regardless of what we have going on (and this weekend's plans are pretty great), it's my least favorite weekend. In my mind, it's not weekend 3, it's leaving weekend. By Friday, I'm looking at what I'll need to pack up, even though it's very minimal. By Saturday, I'm asking myself why I keep dragging myself back and forth between Houston and Atlanta. I know that I'll be bribing myself to get moving on Monday morning (at 5am) with a treat on the way to work.
It's alright though because the next weekend is weekend 4. Weekend 4 is pretty great. I get to catch up with friends in Houston that I feel like I haven't seen in way too long. I sleep in. And, best of all, it's only five days until I get to go home again.
This weekend is weekend 3. Regardless of what we have going on (and this weekend's plans are pretty great), it's my least favorite weekend. In my mind, it's not weekend 3, it's leaving weekend. By Friday, I'm looking at what I'll need to pack up, even though it's very minimal. By Saturday, I'm asking myself why I keep dragging myself back and forth between Houston and Atlanta. I know that I'll be bribing myself to get moving on Monday morning (at 5am) with a treat on the way to work.
It's alright though because the next weekend is weekend 4. Weekend 4 is pretty great. I get to catch up with friends in Houston that I feel like I haven't seen in way too long. I sleep in. And, best of all, it's only five days until I get to go home again.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Lent and Loss
Two days before Lent began this year, we lost our precious cat MT to complications from heart disease. He was six years old and we didn't even know he was sick. Instead of giving up soda or going to daily Mass, my Lent became wholly focused on mourning. It was seasonally appropriate and I had no energy for anything else anyway. I thought the whole process would feel productive come Easter- that there would be some peace to be found on Easter morning. I rarely use the word "optimistic" to characterize myself but my hopes for Lent and for Easter were definitely optimistic.
So let's back up two months. I had flown home to Atlanta for the weekend on a whim to attend a friend's birthday party as a surprise. Everything at home was just fine- including our cats MT and Kaylee. I caught an early Sunday morning flight back to Houston for another week of work. Just hours later, my husband was calling to say that MT had collapsed, that he couldn't move his back legs, that they were going to the emergency vet. Hundreds of miles away, I did the only things I could think of- I prayed and I Googled. I was in the middle of Mass, where I had made a special exception from my normal routine and brought my phone in just in case there was news, when I next heard anything. We hadn't known MT had a heart condition, he hadn't shown any signs, but it was pretty advanced. A blood clot was obstructing the arteries to his legs (a saddle thrombus) and he was in congestive heart failure. The vet suggested that I fly back as soon as possible.
As soon as Mass finished, the couple I am currently staying with packed me a dinner and drove me to the airport. All I can say is that caring for people is always among the most meaningful things a person can do but that caring for someone in a bad situation takes on special significance and meaning. I won't drag readers through what the next excruciating hours were like for us. I do owe thanks to a handful of friends who were on hand to offer emergency advice and input, even if it meant getting dragged out of bed to do it. We kept our baby boy as comfortable as possible while trying any avenue open to us and to him. Aside from giving us some small peace of mind that we had tried everything we could, that we had gotten second and third opinions, it was all for naught.
I'd like to say that there was some silver lining in the whole thing. That at least my husband and I were together. That at least our baby boy was not alone. That at least there were not months of suffering. Absolutely none of it makes me feel any better though. Not everyone feels so strongly about their pets but, to us, MT was a child, our child. Not a day goes by that I do not feel like I am walking around missing something essential, like there is a hole in me.
I don't share all of this for extra sympathy and indeed that whole conversation makes me a little uncomfortable. I share it because it is a thing that happened and I'd rather write about it here than talk about it. I also share this because we cannot know what the people we encounter are dealing with at any given point in time. These last two months have been a powerful reminder of that. And yet, without knowing the backstory, we still have to interact with people all day, every day. At a time when I struggle to have patience, to be kind, to not be angry, I also remember why these things are so incredibly important.
Like all loss, time will ameliorate this one but it hasn't happened yet.
So let's back up two months. I had flown home to Atlanta for the weekend on a whim to attend a friend's birthday party as a surprise. Everything at home was just fine- including our cats MT and Kaylee. I caught an early Sunday morning flight back to Houston for another week of work. Just hours later, my husband was calling to say that MT had collapsed, that he couldn't move his back legs, that they were going to the emergency vet. Hundreds of miles away, I did the only things I could think of- I prayed and I Googled. I was in the middle of Mass, where I had made a special exception from my normal routine and brought my phone in just in case there was news, when I next heard anything. We hadn't known MT had a heart condition, he hadn't shown any signs, but it was pretty advanced. A blood clot was obstructing the arteries to his legs (a saddle thrombus) and he was in congestive heart failure. The vet suggested that I fly back as soon as possible.
As soon as Mass finished, the couple I am currently staying with packed me a dinner and drove me to the airport. All I can say is that caring for people is always among the most meaningful things a person can do but that caring for someone in a bad situation takes on special significance and meaning. I won't drag readers through what the next excruciating hours were like for us. I do owe thanks to a handful of friends who were on hand to offer emergency advice and input, even if it meant getting dragged out of bed to do it. We kept our baby boy as comfortable as possible while trying any avenue open to us and to him. Aside from giving us some small peace of mind that we had tried everything we could, that we had gotten second and third opinions, it was all for naught.
I'd like to say that there was some silver lining in the whole thing. That at least my husband and I were together. That at least our baby boy was not alone. That at least there were not months of suffering. Absolutely none of it makes me feel any better though. Not everyone feels so strongly about their pets but, to us, MT was a child, our child. Not a day goes by that I do not feel like I am walking around missing something essential, like there is a hole in me.
I don't share all of this for extra sympathy and indeed that whole conversation makes me a little uncomfortable. I share it because it is a thing that happened and I'd rather write about it here than talk about it. I also share this because we cannot know what the people we encounter are dealing with at any given point in time. These last two months have been a powerful reminder of that. And yet, without knowing the backstory, we still have to interact with people all day, every day. At a time when I struggle to have patience, to be kind, to not be angry, I also remember why these things are so incredibly important.
Like all loss, time will ameliorate this one but it hasn't happened yet.
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