I'm Movin' Out

I just finished meeting with my dissertation committee (they are the 6 men whose signatures mean I can graduate). Now I can now officially post the news: I am moving to Albany, NY. At least for spring semester.

Several of you already know this, but I've been waiting to post it on the internet until I told my committee. I wanted them to hear it from me first. Not that any of them are on Facebook or read my blog (I don't think so, anyway) but I didn't want random rumors floating around the department. What's the big deal with the move? you ask. Well, I presented my committee with my plan for the spring semester. It is lofty. VERY lofty. And I knew there would be some concerns with the loftiness of the plan. Upon seeing my plan, one of my committee members asked me: "So when do you plan to eat?" (Sleeping was probably the better question.) I knew (and was right) that they would have two big concerns with my plan:

1. I want to be finished by May 2009.
2. I am going to teach a class next semester.

Are their concerns valid? Absolutely. I don't really know how I'm going to do it either. Finishing data reductions and analysis for a dissertation is no small task. Writing a dissertation is no small task. Teaching a class for the first time is no small task. Moving across the country is no small task. My co-adviser told me he didn't think he could do it, nor did he think most of his students (past or present) could do it. But he told me he believes that because of my temperament and multi-tasking abilities, I can do it.

I'm reminded of the summer between graduating from BYU and moving to Texas: I wanted to do a senior thesis research project, and I did. I kept a ridiculous schedule, that at times amounted to very little sleep, but I actually pulled it off (much to everyone's amazement). (And did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself.) It caused my then-roommate Angela to tell me she believed that I thrived best under that kind of pressure. Well, we'll see if that's still true, six years later.

Moving to Albany in the middle of January is potentially the worst idea I've ever had. Does anyone know how COLD it is there? And how horrible the weather is? Ice storms, blizzards, being under a constant cloud bank, temperatures that never get above freezing, and a spring thaw that doesn't start until May....

Last week there was a big ice storm in Albany. For several days, 1.5 million people were without power, including the dorms at Siena College. My adviser told me that as a result, they sent the students home early, even though finals were only a third of the way through. To compensate, the college has scheduled a couple of days for finals before the start of next semester, so all the students will have to come back early from their holidays to finish finals. As a result, the spring semester is starting one day later.

My co-adviser went to graduate school in Rochester, NY and is well acquainted with the weather patterns of upstate New York. When I mentioned that Siena's "spring" break was actually "winter" break, and came at the end of February, he assured me that was because by that point the weather makes you start to feel suicidal.

So...why do I want to move there?

Simply put, I want to be near my adviser to get his help and advice on my data reductions, analysis, and the writing. I've been without my adviser for 2 1/2 years, and I want some in-person help. The college is also giving me the chance to teach a class, and I am seizing the opportunity.

Plan A continues that after the semester in Albany, I will graduate in May and get a job (somewhere...I don't know where yet, I'm currently applying) that will start in the fall. I don't really know what I'll do all summer. (That is, I don't know if I'll come back to Austin or stay in Albany. Depends on a few factors that are likely out of my control.)

At my committee meeting, they asked me about plans B and C. We devised those as follows:

Plan B: Don't graduate in May. Graduate in August. Start said job in the fall.

Plan C: Graduate in May or August. If I don't get a job that starts in the fall, continue working for my adviser as a post doc, being paid by his current and pending grants. This likely means another semester in Albany. (This plan is sketchy...details will be fleshed out should it turn out to actually have to be the plan.)

In Albany I will be living with two girls I met in the YSA group at church. I don't have a bed yet, but I will. (I have secured an air mattress in the meantime.) I plan to put most of my stuff into storage in Austin and only bring what I can fit into my car. At the end of my Albany time, I will return to Austin, get my stuff, and go wherever destiny calls me to next.

I'm driving to Albany. Driving to Albany in the middle of January is potentially the second worst idea I've ever had. My sister Julia is flying to Austin and driving it with me, then will fly out of Albany. I've been considering two routes. First:

The main motivation of this route is to go through Indiana, where I have some friends I'd like to visit. However, I then realized I'll at least see Kevin the week before at the AAS in Long Beach. (Sorry, Kevin!) Potential bad weather on the drive has me concerned, so I'm considering a second route:

This would keep me more south for awhile, avoiding bad weather as best I can, then heading up the coast, which may be more temperate than further inland.

Any way you slice it, the trip will be just shy of 2000 miles. Google says it'll take at least 30 hours. Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous, but hey, I might as well start this adventure off with an adventure of equal porportion.

I have moments when I'm excited about Albany. Sometimes I imagine it being like my own made-for-TV movie, or at least like a cheesey TV series on the WB: girl leaves great life and friends in Texas to move somewhere that is cold and snowy and emerges a doctor of philosophy. At times she's cold, miserable, and lonely, but accomplishes amazing things and has many adventures in the meantime. And it will include many scenes of me looking pensively upon different landscapes: the Austin skyline disappearing in my rearview mirror, my stuffed car in the parking lot of a Motel 6 in the middle of Tennessee, the Siena campus with drifts of snow 15 feet high. There's something romantic about packing up your car and driving halfway across the country in the ice and snow to start a new life. To have the opportunity to more or less start over, to refocus on your goals. I sometimes envision myself being snowed in for days at a time, wrapped up in blankets, drinking hot chocolate, and busily writing my dissertation on my laptop. So I don't really know what my life in Albany will be like. But I suspect I'll be cold and wet a lot of the time. Maybe I will write a novel about it.

My estimated day of departure is January 12, though I may push it back to January 13. If you are in Austin, know that we're going to have some kind of goodbye celebration prior to this so you can all come and see me off. I want everyone to come, so watch for an invite. In the meantime, I'll be in town until then, except for when I'm out of town. (Which is actually like half of the time between now and then.) Check the side of my blog if there are any questions as to what those dates are.