Take Your Mark

I just confirmed my move date with the movers and car transport people. June 25, 2008 is my last full day as a Californian. That makes me a 10-year veteran of the state almost to the week. In the middle of June 1998, my family moved from Chicago. I remember the anticipation of a brand-new life, new school for my senior year , new swim team, new friends.

The transition wasn’t easy either. I saw my mom cry for almost the first time. The airport personnel took our dog, Page, away in a kennel and she was barking away. As the barks started to fade, Mom started to cry. She sounded like she was laughing at first, but her body told a different story, tears down her face, slumped shoulders, folded arms.  Dad put his arm around her shoulder for a tender hug, kissed her on the back of her head, and whispered a few words of encouragement and understanding.

Later, she explained that the move was the biggest in her life. Sure, she’d moved before, but nothing to this scale. She lived in Riverside, IL, for most of her life. When she and dad got married, they lived in her childhood home with Grandpa until they moved to Bolingbrook. They’d been moved 3-4 times in the city. Nothing had prepared her for this. This move marked the end of life as she knew it. Her close and supportive friends were gone. The comfort with the area was gone. Really, her whole life as she knew it was gone. Dad had already done this when he moved from Minnesota to marry her, so it wasn’t as deeply significant for him.

I’m now faced with this transition again, but this time without any support moving along with me. I’m really looking forward to all the “news” that await me in DC. I’m also afraid of the “what-ifs” and the “how tos”.  I mean with all the cosmic forces that have coalesced to bring me to this job have definitely done this for a reason, and I’m sure that the transition will be quick and solid.

Most people receive the news of my new job with excitement for the opportunity but sadness at the loss of a friendship. One of those conversations had a distinctly different flavor. When Chris found out, the look on his face was as if a boxer had given him an unsuspecting upper cut to the jaw. It really hit me hard too. We have been classmates, worked on the same research projects, and some of the movers and shakers of the department. We’d traveled to awful places like Detroit and places like Boston the few days before finals to present research. We’d suffered lots of the same departmental shenanigans. We have also had lots of fun. We TA’d together and amassed countless stories of our undergrads… sweet, sad, funny, mind-bottling. Planning departmental parties for Christmas (Winter), Chinese New Year, etc. 

We have a lot of history together. And it seems that this news was just another one of those punches-in-the-face moments that we’d become used to in grad school. Maybe it knocked a little more air out to hear that a close colleague is dropping out (or moving on to better things) while Chris was still there, chugging along, with a little less support.

I was offered a teaching associate (as in instructor of record) position last week for 2 undergraduate chemical engineering classes. I’d have loved to teach them, especially with all my advanced pedagogical training. It’s too bad this offer didn’t come for Spring Quarter, which would have paid my $3,571.50 tuition. I had to let my status as a grad student lapse because I didn’t have the money. I’ll be in DC and unavailable to teach those classes. Wish I could have.

I’ll be moving to DC at the end of June (around the 25th) to work at BAE Systems in Northern Virginia (NOVA) as a project engineer. I’m so excited! So freaking excited!