Decisions, decisions

DH and I are now in the final stages of making our decision. Wow, is it ever hard. We think we have it narrowed down to two choices, maybe. We go back and forth depending on what time of day it is.

It is incredibly stressful, and we should be thankful that he has 5 good offers, but instead feel really bratty because our decision is hard, and we're spending a lot of time trying to figure out where to go. Our two main contenders are a department that is top notch and high prestige but in a college town that won't be so great for my career, but has great housing costs. The other department is also very good, but risky (and somewhat lower prestige), is in a big city with lots of options for me, but expensive housing costs (somewhat subsidized by the university). Bad public schools in both places; excellent private schools that aren't so hard to get into in the college town. College town is 1+ hours away from major airports, the closest of which doesn't have a direct flight to my hometown. My sister-in-law lives in the big city, and we have another friend who will be moving there next year as well.

We don't know. We just don't know.

The Final Offer

The final job offer came through this week. This makes five total. So, here's the lowdown:

• 21 first round interviews
• 12 flyouts
• 5 offers

Of the 12 flyouts, he cancelled the final 2, which leaves 10. Of those 10, 1 told him that he was their first choice, but they knew that one of his other offers would win out (no contest), so they made an offer to another candidate. That leaves 9. 2 of those 9 made decided not to make any offers, one because of financial reasons, and one b/c they couldn't reach consensus. That leaves 7. Of those 7, 2 were flat out "no, we gave the offer to someone else who was in a different area."

5 out of 10 is a really great rate. Really, 5 out of 9, excluding the school that got its funding taken away. I don't think anyone else from his university has done as well. The other guy in his department who has four offers doesn't have quite as good of a spread, and he only got offers from places that hadn't seen DH. Anywhere that had to pick between him and DH at the flyout level picked DH. So there.

This 5th offer is from a department at a university that he has already gotten an offer from (another department), so it doesn't add a new geographic possibility. Good thing, too. It is getting too confusing!

Latest job market update

Wow. The job market has gone really well for us. I say "us" because I view my husband's success as my own success. He has four offers, one from a top 5 department, and 3 from well-respected departments in other areas of the universities. We expect another offer from a top 10 department this week.

We will be taking a tour of the top 3 schools and their respective geographic areas, two of which we both are pretty unfamiliar with. There are so many things to think about. Do we go with the swanky, old-money town? Or the ghetto-but-regentrifying town? Or the big city, with tons of people of my ethnicity and career opportunities (both academic and industry) galore? Where can we buy a house? How much house can we afford? What about schools?

In reality, the geographic concerns are relatively unimportant. All of the top 3 are located in places that I think would be acceptable. Now, if we visit a place, and I hate it, that would mean something. But right now, the most important thing is the academic environment that is most conducive to my husband's success. His advisor even took us both out to lunch, ostensibly to "strategize," but in reality, we just ended up talking about my family, his wife and kids, and all his former roommates/grade school friends who are in positions such as Chairman of the Fed, dean of the nation's best law school, top professors in similar fields, etc. He has his own opinion about where my husband would be happiest, and we take this opinion very seriously. I think he and my husband are a lot alike, so his recommendation holds weight with me.

His advisor is now on my good side, after getting off to a rocky start. The first time I met him, he insulted me. It was the summer after our first year, and my husband had rocked his exams. I mean, completely blew everyone away. His exams were at the beginning of the summer, and mine were at the end. He mentioned this to his advisor upon introducing us, and his advisor replied, "Well, there's no way she can do better than you!" He was trying to compliment my husband, but instead, insulted me. He apologized to my husband later that day, but I was the one who was insulted! Wasn't I the one who should have received the apology? Harumph.

He completely redeemed himself this summer, though, after my car broke down 90 miles from home, four days before our anniversary, when driving to my husband's university, where he was (approximately 400 miles away). I couldn't just leave the car (I did rent a car and drive back home), the repair shop had a hard time finding the part (it was a part that was still under warranty and shouldn't have broken). Our second anniversary was just days away, and it wasn't immediately clear that I would be able to make it there. We didn't really have the money for a plane ticket, and we were stressing out that we wouldn't be together on our anniversary. We weren't together on our first anniversary (he had a really important conference, I had my sister's wedding), and we were really angry that we might be apart again!!

My husband happened to have a meeting with his advisor that day, and when his advisor asked "How are you?" my husband launched into the whole story, leaving out the plane ticket money part. His response was, "That is terrible! You definitely need to be together on your anniversary! There is no excuse for that! How much is a plane ticket?" My husband replied $120, and his advisor just pulled out his wallet, and pulled out 6 $20 bills, handed them to my husband, and said, "Happy anniversary!" Since that day, his advisor is now on my good side. He is also really good to my husband, and is a terrific advisor, so that helps him too!

People keep asking me, "Where do YOU want to go?" Truthfully, if I were single, and just looking to move to a new place, I would pick the big city. Obviously. One of the strange things about marriage, though, is that my interests become almost indistinguishable from his interests. Almost. Not entirely, but if he does poorly, I end up suffering as well. We will have to move (rather than deciding to move, and moving to a similar or better university with a pay increase), he will be more unhappy and less pleasant at home, and he will have to work harder to accomplish the same amount. We will ultimately go wherever we think he will be most successful.

In the meantime, we are imagining that things like grocery stores and housing prices matter. Ooh, which place has a Wegman's? Which place has Trader Joe's? What about Whole Foods? Where do we live? How far is the commute? It's fun to pretend that these things will actually impact our decision. In reality, we feel very fortunate that we have any choice at all. It is not the normal outcome.

Job market update

My husband is kicking ass on the job market. It is a huge relief. He has 11 (count 'em! 11!) flyouts, 10 of which are for really good schools. The 11th is also to a good school, but a troubled department within that good school that doesn't seem like it would be the best fit. He wasn't sure whether or not to take it.... even though he has 10 other great flyouts, he didn't feel like he is in the position of turning down flyouts, which I guess means that he would take an offer from them over going into industry, which I had thought wasn't the case.

I went with him to his big conference, to provide moral and practical support while he did 21 interviews in 2.5 days. Wow, did he ever need it.

What we did not expect:

1) He would sweat through his shirts by lunch time. We had planned to have an extra shirt for each day in case he spilled something on himself, but hadn't planned on undershirts. I had to go to Marshalls to buy more. I also had to take shirts to the cleaners, because some of the "extra" shirts weren't that nice.

2) the fashionable but still nice looking blue striped tie was TOO fashionable. Go conservative. One of his interviewers, whom he had interacted with previously, saw him after lunch in the new shirt (white) and different tie (red with traditional looking stripes) and said, "Oh! I'm glad you changed your tie." It didn't really matter that much, but it freaked us out.

3) He would throw up at least one meal a day, out of sheer nervousness. Huge drag and very demoralizing. We should have expected this, and kind of did, but we didn't expect how annoying this really was. Also not great for energy levels. However, apple juice and fruit seemed to be relatively successful when it came to keeping food down and energy up, at least temporarily.

4) How bad we would sleep. Not hugely surprising, but I really thought we'd sleep better than we did.

5) How stressful and exhausting it would be for ME, the spouse. I was doing a lot of running around and errands, etc., plus his performance affects the rest of our lives. Talk about stress for both of us.

6) How fast the flyouts would come. He had 3 by Saturday night, and he hadn't even finished his interviews yet. We were expecting Monday at the earliest.

He is getting them all done by the first week of February. Maybe we will have an offer by Valentine's day!

R&R

My DH got a revise & resubmit from his field's top journal this week. We are VERY excited. This means that he is pretty much set for first-round university interviews. Yay!

Valentine's Day!

So my sweetie DH got me a whole slew of stuff for v-day! I got him a Coldplay CD (X&Y) and a leather valet tray for his pocket contents at the end of the day. Not that exciting,, but I was low on inspiration this year.

He gave me the DVD of Sense and Sensibility, a movie that I LOVE, plus Weekend Knitting (squeee!!), a pound of Mackinac Island fudge (yum yum!), and a bunch of stuff from GapBody. Unfortunately, none of it looked good on me! Let's just say that the "low rise teeny bikinis" are also made for teeny behinds. I'm not a big girl by any stretch of the imagination, but these must be intended for 12 year olds with no hips. So we have to return all of it. He felt bad that his present made me feel fat. I told him that sometimes even if stuff is the right size, that doesn't mean it will look good on me. Alas. I love GapBody, though, so I'm happy to get something else from there, and everything else is terrific.

He's making a big fancy dinner tonight- I gave him an out of the restaurant craziness that happens on Valentine's day. I'm teaching tonight anyway, so I'd be getting home kind of lateish for us to go out.

I promise I will post Knitting Olympic pictures soon. I have done so much tinking on this project (tinking= unknitting, stitch by stitch) it is ridiculous. I keep screwing up. And it's not a hard pattern, either.

Secret Pal!

I got my Knittyboard Secret Pal today! I am really excited- we have a bunch of preferences in common. Our "dream occupations" are remarkably similar, even. I'm going to try hard to spoil her with things that she will like.

DH got home last night. I ended up being pretty excited about it, which was good. I knew I was excited when I found myself making a blackberry crumble, because I knew he would like it. :) It's good to have him home.

Five Days of Solitude

I had the apartment to myself this week. DH went to his university on Sunday, so he could see all the job talks this week, meet with professors, etc. I admit, it's been nice to get a little "alone time" this week. I've always liked having alone time, and it is really hard when DH and I are both working in the same office at home all day, every day. If we're not together, it's because I'm out doing something like teaching class or going to knitting. It's been especially nice to get the break from cooking! He should be coming back today.

So I've tried to do things that are difficult for me to do when he's here, but are fun for me. I went to see Brokeback Mountain (GREAT movie, btw). I didn't cook AT ALL. Didn't worry about tidiness (got to make up for that today, though!).

Greetings, gentle readers!

I apologize for not updating in a while- I've been really busy recently. First, we arrived in our other apartment to find the carpet soaking wet, the result of a plumbing backup next door. Fun! We've spent the last week dealing with this. DH has been a total gem dealing with all the university housing folks, who have been resistant to doing pretty much anything related to fixing the situation. DH had to convince them that yes, they needed to replace the carpet pad that had been soaked with untreated waste water, and yes, they needed to clean the carpets. Our neighbors next door have had it much worse- the particleboard in their cabinets soaked up the waste water, so the stench has lingered in their apartment. The University refuses to replace all the cabinets, and the neighbors, who have two kids under the age of 3, are living in "emergency housing" right now, and trying to get the university to give them another apartment. Our oriental rug got wet too, so we had to send that out for cleaning, and DH also convinced the university to reimburse us for it. You can't use a rug doctor or regular carpet cleaner on an oriental rug; it will ruin it.

Second, I started teaching my class! I think this will be fun for me, although stressful and time-consuming. I think it will force me to be more efficient with my research time too. I FINALLY, finally, finally did the IRB revisions that I've been putting off for WAY too long. They actually sent me an email today saying that they hadn't heard from me, even though I sent my revisions off yesterday. I'll call them on Tuesday to try to clear it up.

I have a lot to learn with teaching, though- I went WAY too fast for my first lecture. WAY too fast. I finished what should have been an hour and a half lecture in one hour. Students came up to me afterwards to ask me to slow down! I am not used to talking slow enough to allow for note-taking, and I didn't have a whiteboard to slow me down (I was using powerpoint slides).

So goals for this weekend: do research work, plus my first lecture for next week. The other professor teaching this class has kindly allowed me to use her slides, so I don't have to develop major content, only filling in the (rather large) cracks.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! We celebrated last night by making roast duck (using the recipe from Barefoot in Paris- Ina Garten, you haven't failed us yet!!) and drinking the delightfully declasse Sofia champagne from the cans. Well, we did pour them into our snooty Vera Wang flutes before drinking, but still. Today, following tradition, I made black eyed pea salsa and will be making greens to go with our pot roast tonight. All in all, 2005 was a pretty good year for us, and we did black eyed peas and greens last year, so who are we to mess with superstition?

DH and I are finally back from our trip back to my hometown for Christmas. The trip went fairly well- no screaming temper tantrums from my mom this year. There were a few major events, though.

First, my parents started demolition on part of their house as Phase I of their big remodeling project. A few years ago, they moved to a nice neighborhood in the city where the houses were old and tiny and the lots were huge (my parents have a 3/4 acre lot!). It's the kind of neighborhood where developers will buy the old, tiny houses, knock them down and put up McMansions.

My mom has always been scared of the stock market, although they do have a little money there, and she has felt most comfortable in real estate. This would explain why my parents have moved seven times in my lifetime! That doesn't even count a few more moves they made in the five years before I was born. Some of these places were temporary, while they were looking for a new place to live (stays might last anywhere from 2 weeks to a year and a half- there have been three places that I would consider temporary). They're not flippers, exactly, but they don't get sentimental about houses. When they think a neighborhood has peaked, they get out before the property values have a chance to deflate. They've done this twice now, successfully. This is really the fourth REAL house that they've had in my lifetime (I'm not counting a house they bought for my sister to live in, which was a HUGE debacle. That's another post for another time, but that is technically a fifth house). Contrast that with DH's parents, who have moved ONCE since they came to the US when he was 6 months old. He thinks the amount of times my parents have moved (twice since we've been together, which has been... 5.5 years!! Wow.) is ridiculous, and thinks that moving once is perfect.

The response in my head is, "Please." My thinking on this is that he will see once we actually start buying property that we will want to move after a few years, just because we'll want to move up. We won't be able to afford what we want right away, so we'll have to build up to it. He will learn this for himself, though, so I see no need to tell him at this point.

Anyway. With all the big house building in my parents' neighborhood, they want to keep up and increase their resale value. These renovations have been in the works since they bought the house 3.5 years ago, but with my wedding and my sister's wedding back-to-back, they've delayed starting construction. Until now. DH was so excited about it- my dad got a dirt guy to come in with his huge, industrial-strength backhoe to knock down the crappy addition the former owners put on the house, tear up the back patio, and grade the back yard. DH took movies with his digital camera. He was so excited. Even my brother-in-law was sad that we didn't call him to tell him to come over.

Second, my dad got a job! This was a huge shocker for all of us. This job just fell into his lap. The wife of a friend of his called my dad to tell him about it. They had closed the position, but couldn't find a qualified candidate (apparently it's hard to find someone who does construction who also has a college degree in engineering), so they opened it back up for my dad to apply. My mom is ecstatic, because it means my dad will have these awesome state benefits (it's a job at the local public university), and she isn't trapped at her job now. Plus, Dad will be bringing in a steady paycheck, which is something that he hasn't done in 25 years (he has been working for himself). Mom is also uber-excited about that. My dad is less excited about the job. He can see the logical reasons why it is good (benefits, retirement account, it's not hard physically like normal construction work, and considering my dad turned 59 last week, these are all big plusses), but he hasn't worked for someone else for 25 years. He likes the autonomy, the setting own hours, working at his own pace, setting his own rules. 2005 was a banner year for my dad professionally- he got his plumber's license (passing the test on the FIRST TRY), and now this new job. Crazy.

Now for the less than good.

My mom's best friend's daughter finally told her that she is a lesbian. This came as a surprise to nobody except her mother. Of course, this isn't bad news, but my mom's best friend is quite conservative, and disapproves of homosexuality. She's taking the news very, very hard. Friend's daughter just left her think-tank job in DC to take an assistant professorship at the local public university so she could be near her mom. They're close. She loves her daughter very much, and she's not going to disown her (thank goodness), so she has a big fat worldview adjustment ahead of her. She also blames herself, because she has made a lot of bad choices in men. She feels that she didn't set a good example for her daughter, and that's why she's a lesbian. Of course, this is totally ridiculous, but at least it means that she's not being as judgmental as she could be (if that makes sense). She'll get over it, but it's going to be tough for a little while. My mom is way more liberal than her friend when it comes to homosexuality, so she's going to be the voice of reason for a little while, as compassionately as she can.

Even worse was my dad's best friend having a stroke. Oy. His girlfriend called up my parents in the middle of the night so my dad could rush over there (the girlfriend lives 45 minutes out in the boonies; my parents live 15 minutes away) and wait for the ambulance... which didn't come! There are some serious city/county issues in my hometown. Lots of bickering. The girlfriend lives in the county, so when she called 911, she got the county dispatcher, who didn't send the ambulance because my dad's best friend lives in the city. Not too long ago, someone who lived on the border DIED because both the city and the county were claiming that his house was in the territory of the other. My dad had to call 911 again when he got to the house. His friend seemed okay then, but seemed to keep having these ministrokes after getting to the hospital. My dad went to see him the next day and said he was much worse. Poor guy. It was kind of nerve-wracking for all of us.

Today, I've been trying to get my teaching all straightened up. I've been trying to get access to do the course website, etc. First productive thing I've done since my symposium got accepted.

I have a few New Year's Resolutions. I am pretty much a "make a change if it needs to be changed, don't worry about the new year" kind of girl, but I think it's nice to have goals. My goals for this year are:

• Get back on track with FlyLady, and really try to do it FOR REAL this time instead of half-a$$ed. I will never be a shined sink/ugly laceup shoes in the house kind of person, but I think her system should be flexible enough to include people like me, who aren't concerned with our dull sink as long as it's empty of dirty dishes and like to wear slippers around the house. I dread getting all those emails, but darn it if I'm not going to sign up for them again.
• Run a 5K race by June. Run the WHOLE THING. All 3.1 miles of it. I've been pretty good about running kind of regularly (at least once a week- we ran three times while we were home, twice in the big park with nice trails and American bison!!), and I've been improving. Next semester, I'll be at my university full time with its nice gym, so I'll probably work out more often. This is usually what happens when I'm down there. In theory, I would like to have more fitness goals (eat less sugar, do more weight training, etc.), but I want to keep it realistic and make one change at a time.
• Get my act together with regards to school. Seriously. I want to make it out in five years. I can still make this happen but I have to work hard, and I have to work fast.
• Finally, I want to spend less money at the grocery store. We spend SO much on food. It's ridiculous. We're two people. I know my DH eats enough for three, but still.

I guess that's about it from the holiday front. I'll write about knitting tomorrow, I promise. Maybe my presents, too.