Settling In

I expected Bonaventure to have some adjustment problems as we started our new lives here in Idyll. And he did, a little--especially when I started spending whole days in the office, back in early September, he would be alternately surly and needy with me in the evenings. And he woke up a little more at night for a while, too; he's still not a champion all-night sleeper (and in fact he now comes up to our bed at around 4 or 5 am--please don't judge; sometimes I let him stay), but he's more or less back to normal.

What I didn't expect, for some reason, was that I would have adjustment issues, too.

At this point--a little over a month into the semester (and somehow already having midterms?!)--I'm feeling like myself again. But things were strange for a little while. Of course, while change can be exciting, changing everything at once is a little bit much.

And the change has been pretty dramatic. We're 1200 miles from our old house; we're closer to family; I'm in a job in the same field but with very different expectations; TM is in a whole new field; Bonaventure is in all-day nursery school for the first time (4 days a week); and we have to drive everywhere, when we used to walk. Even the landscape is different:

Fig. 1: down the street from my first apartment (and last house, actually; they were half a block apart) in Field Town

Fig. 2: the view from my bedroom window in Idyll

Anyway, by now I'm feeling acclimated, more or less. Overwhelmed with work, as always, but it's interesting work, at least for now. I'm on two dissertation committees and a master's exam committee, for students who are doing neat things and from whom I'll learn something. I'm involved in a seminar series that will kick my ass. I'm preparing my first graduate seminar. It's cool. And every day I feel a little less like I'm frankly out of my league, and a little more like this is my new, good life.

Oh, and we DID close on our house--in time to move in the weekend before classes started. Had I not mentioned that?

The downside to working in the office all day, every day is that packing lunch is a macabre affair

Today's noontime menu:

-banana (1)
-carrot (1)
-crackers
-cheddar cheese (5 slices)
-cottage cheese
-hardboiled egg (1)

I also have a bag of rice cakes in my desk drawer.

I am a good eater. I like to eat. I do not "diet."

This lunch, which I patched together at the last minute out of what was to hand in the kitchen, depresses me.

I am now teaching at an institution with one of the highest rated food services in the country. It's outstanding. But I will not allow myself to drop $8-$10 a day on lunch, especially not at what happens to be a lean financial time for my family.

So...what on earth do people take for lunch? I used to do this regularly, like back when I was 23 and had a miserable office job--although I do remember an exhausting number of cheese sandwiches being consumed in that period.

Leftovers, when we have easily transportable leftovers, are an obvious solution, but otherwise...? I need to get better at this.

A Bewilderment of Resources

(Another distraction from the housing situation. Re. which: so far, so good. We've had our final walk-through [although the seller hadn't actually moved out; she is, at least, fully packed]. Closing is scheduled for 10 am tomorrow. We know how big the big pile of money has to be. Luck luck luck luck luck....)

Today I had my day-long new faculty orientation at New State U. By the way, I've decided to call New School "Idyllic State," and the surrounding area will collectively be known as "Idyll." I'll write more about why later.

Anyway, a few observations:

First, I was struck by how many of the upper administrators who spoke to us were women, including many women of color, and several women who referred to having young children. While this doesn't necessarily translate into optimal support for mid-career women with children, or women of color, or women, or anyone else for that matter, it is at least...interesting. May or may not mean a thing. But my first impression of Field was of a bunch of men introducing the women who worked for them (that changed a lot in my eight years there, actually), so this was at least interesting in a potentially positive way.

Second, the theme of the orientation seemed to be this: There are SO MANY RESOURCES available for you! In every possible way! For every possible thing! So much money for you to apply to get! So many people eager to help you do any damn thing you want!

This was a) refreshing, and b) completely overwhelming. I now have so many pages of notes (and so many handouts) that I haven't a clue where to go, or to whom to go, for what, or what I can even ask for. Which is pretty much where I was yesterday.

Clearly, I'm having a bit of culture shock adjusting to a Huge Research University after being at a Teeny College (where people are friendly and will go to extraordinary measures to help you and you basically talk to the same three people for anything you want done, but you also have to do an awful lot yourself and there is no money). I'm wildly impressed with the resources that are available to me, and feel special in a way that I didn't at Field. I feel like a total rube, in a way, completely wide-eyed and grateful for everything that comes my way.

For example: I asked the IT guy if I could get a 13" MacBook Pro with Retina screen and maximum memory capacity for my free computer, and he wrote back to say that he'd ordered me one. Um! A used desktop--which was, I'll note, perfectly adequate--came with my office at Field, but this is quite a different order of service. I actually feel kind of guilty for asking for this much--like they're just taking it on faith that I actually need a fancy computer when I'm just a lowly Humanities prof who can noodle around on an outdated version of Word.

If if if

IF the seller of the house that we by all rights should have been inhabiting for two weeks now is NOT in the psychiatric ward of the hospital on Wednesday, we will have a place to live.

I am out of hoping energy.

Opening Activities at a 4/4 SLAC and at a 2/2 R1: The First in a Series

At Kalamazoo this year, Notorious Ph.D. asked me if I would blog about the transition from a tiny, cash-strapped, midwestern SLAC with a 4/4 load to a big East Coast R1 with a 2/2. I suspect that there will be a lot to say, so, to distract myself from the ever-changing, endlessly bizarre situation that is the Mihi Family Housing Crisis, I will write about one of them.

Difference No. 1: Gearing up for the new year.

At Field College, this is what happens in the week leading up to a new Fall semester:

• Wednesday before classes start: mandatory day-long faculty retreat.
• Thursday: half-day faculty retreat/faculty meeting (which is attended by all full-time faculty).
• Friday: all-campus (faculty and staff) meeting, at which everyone is introduced to everyone else. This is entirely useless, because either you pretty much know who everyone is, or you don't know anyone, suffer from total information overload, and don't remember a thing. After the meeting is the (equally pointless, in my view) Benefits Fair, at which you collect free toothbrushes and whatnot.
• Saturday: students move in; we're invited to help them. I have only known one professor who has ever done so. Because: syllabi.
• Sunday: if you're lucky enough to be teaching a First-Year Seminar, you have your first class meeting this afternoon.
• Monday: if you advise a student organization, you have a mandatory ice cream social to attend. If you teach First-Year Seminar, you have a two-hour community service project to complete, followed by a picnic. You may also have your second class meeting this afternoon (this has fluctuated in recent years).
• Tuesday: mandatory (and usually rather nice) opening convocation. Big picnic lunch with all the new students. Advising meetings all afternoon.
• Wednesday: classes start.

At New U:

• ...
• ...
• ...
• Classes start! After labor day!

As a new faculty member, I have things to do--orientations and whatnot, which I'm eager to attend (I need information!). Perhaps more senior folk have meetings, but if they do, I haven't heard about them.

There are a lot of factors at work in this distinction. Little colleges like Field need heavy faculty governance and involvement; faculty do all of the advising and need to be apprised of changes in marketing strategies, athletic recruitment, accreditation visits, new requirements for Education majors, and all kinds of things that you wouldn't think that you'd need to know about. They're also expected to be very involved with individual students; the personal connection is, after all, what Field (and a lot of schools like it) sell, and what makes them different from the local State U's. That involvement, incidentally, is what I enjoyed the most at Field, and I hope that I can cultivate some of it at New U (admittedly in a different register).

But now, my primary directive is research. And good lord, I need to get settled in a house and in my office so that I can do some.

Things Aren't Looking Up

But at least we're in New State.

In a hotel.

With two cats and a three-year-old.



Sigh.

Holding Pattern

That's the nice way to put it.

Other ways of expressing our current state would be limbo, suspense, empty void of unknowing, and purgatory.

We're at my mother's house--still. The plan was to leave Field State on the 28th, after closing (check!), go to visit friends in Northern City for 2 days (done!), take a two-day visit to Northern Beach (yep!), then drive out to Mom's for about 3 weeks, with a break in the middle to go to New State and then to In-Laws' to pick up the cats. (New State--visited! Benefits package received! Cats--collected!) And then, we were to close on our new house on the 18th and move in and be sort of mostly unpacked by now.

Well! That didn't happen. Maybe it'll happen on Monday. Maybe it won't. WHO KNOWS????

Here's what happened:

We got a call on the morning of Monday, the 17th--right about the time that I was thinking, Hooray! We move tomorrow! No more living out of a suitcase! Etc.!

It was our realtor.

The seller hadn't opened the doors for the moving company that morning. Eventually, the police were called. It turned out that she had attempted suicide and was in the hospital.

That's one for the books, eh?


 

Anyway, she has physically recovered and was discharged on Thursday, with plans to move out on Saturday so that we can move in on Monday, even though we might not be able to close until Tuesday (apparently there's a legal way for that to work out). However, she wasn't returning her lawyer's calls yesterday, so who knows whether she'll authorize the movers to come in today?

I am expending all of my hopeful, anxious thinking today wishing her well, hoping that she is safe and able to move forward--and out. And also thinking, Oh my God I have classes to prep! Books to locate and unpack! Meetings next week! And Bonaventure's school is about to start! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DOOOOO?????

Foo. Fleeing the state was all too easy, wasn't it.