Museum membership

I guess this is yet another sign that I'm staying in this city. J + I just bought a dual membership to the Carnegie Museums. For $100 we have a year long membership that lets us visit any of the four Carnegie Museums in "Picksburgh" (local dialect) an unlimited amount of time.

We went the Carnegie Museum of Natural History today to celebrate. J came back from Philly yesterday. He led a workshop and it went well. He designed a workshop for graduate students in an industrial design program to help them learn how to use different visualization techniques to brainstorm, sort out or capture ideas, and facilitate conversations.

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History and of Art are located within walking distance of work. I am pretty excited about this. When I lived in the DC area and was working on my dissertation, I would take work to a museum sometimes- the museums were free. It was nice because I could take a break and walk around to look at nice art work or people watch.

I have three more days before I start work. Whoo hoo!!!

The dust has settled.

I moved to Pittsburgh about 13 days ago (9/15). It has been a whirlwind the last two months.

In July I was still slogging away at my dissertation revisions. My advisor had decided my first set of revisions was not enough. After "metaphorically" throwing myself on the floor, pounding my fists into the ground, kicking my heels, and wailing with a full-on tantrum (11 on a scale of 10), I went about tacking my revisions again. I have to admit, this took longer than most tantrums thrown by toddlers. I think it lasted about 2 weeks. I made it through (with the help of a copy editor who saved me many hours of chasing down errant commas, incomplete sentences, and the such). At the end of July, right before a conference, I got the ok from my advisor. The dissertation was officially done (though there was an administrative hiccup that didn't let me submit until a month later).

Now that was done, J and I had time to sort out a few things. We that it was better for us financially to move to NYC. It would be closer to family and give us a bit more of an economic support network. With me working as an instructor and J's business just starting, living where we were living was not tenable. We were slated to move August 15th.

Also, without the stress of the dissertation, I felt like I had renewed confidence. This was great because I was more empowered to tackle job search related activities- e.g., networking at a conference, job applications, gaining more clarity on the kinds of projects I wanted to start or get involved with, and contacting people I might want to collaborate with.

Ok, that is the backdrop for all the craziness that ensued, involves travel to three different states, two job interviews, making a difficult decision between two very good jobs (which involved also talking about how our lives would be impacted), and initially delaying then belaying our move to NYC. For those of you who might now know I took a job in Pittsburgh doing research and curriculum development. My work is to focus on teacher education stuff- thinking about how to help teachers learn how to use the new curriculum we design.

So now I am staying in the house of one of J's cousin's while we wait for our new apartment to be inhabitable and for my new job to start. So now that the craziness has calmed down a bit, I have finally had time to sort through my thinking of this whole thing. Two thoughts have been occupying my mind lately:

1. I am proud of myself for finding this job but I also recognize that there is a whole lotta other things involved here. I worked hard to complete the applications and think that my skills were well suited to the job offers I got. But it wasn't all me. I think that there are other folks who might have comparable skills. I would not have known about them if I didn't have friends who told me about them. In fact, the one I have now is from a friend who is from a different field. I am fairly certain it helps that my professional name is associated with my advisor (and the research group I was a part of)- it at least gets people interested in looking at my application. Then there is also the timing of things. I finished and had renewed confidence just in time to make those applications, networking opportunities at conferences, etc. I am also lucky enough to have friends who are interested in talking with me about how one gets (and keeps) a job that one likes. I really appreciate all the other things and people that were involved- many of those things helped to set the odds in my favor.

2. There is an underlying assumption that academics will move away from family and that there may be a period of moving around. Some welcome this, and some are resigned to it. I am not sure how I feel about that. I am uneasy about the fact that I have dragged J out of NYC to be down in DC with me for two years, then in Philly for two years, and now in Pittsburgh for (possibly) another two years. It takes about two years to really make a community and for him to establish a professional presence (which is needed for someone running his own business). Most of my family (cousins as well as immediate family) are within 4 hours of NYC. So getting back to NYC for major and minor holidays as well as big and small "emergencies" is possible at an almost moment's notice. Being a 2 hour flight or a 6-7 hour drive means I will necessarily be more removed from family activities. If J and I decide to have a kid, this is a concern we have.

I'll talk about my explorations of Pittsburgh in another post, as this one is already getting quite long. Pittsburgh is a neat city- a very interesting mix of lots of different things.