is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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News!

Many of you know this already. But now I can finally reveal what has been kept hush-hush all these months that I�ve been preparing, stressing, working, waiting, waiting, speaking out, preparing, talking, waiting and waiting: I am leaving New York and John Jay and CUNY and moving back to Haverford!

That�s right. I got a job at Haverford College. I�m the director of their new concentration in Peace, Justice and Human Rights. And I�m also an Asst Prof of Philosophy�the best of both worlds. I�m really happy about it.

I�m sad to leave most of my colleagues at John Jay. I�ve had two good years in the CUNY system, and even though I feel like change is really really hard for a huge city-run bureaucracy (oh, the hopeful committee work and the entrenched stubbornness of people) and I got maybe too much of a taste of what it�s like to be a number in a huge institution, I also got lucky with the fellowship I�ve had this year, and all along was surrounded by some truly amazing, smart and fun colleagues, whom I will miss� and hopefully we'll all keep in touch and I'll still see them sometimes.

I�ve told all my New York friends that they�ll probably see me just as often. If anyone knows how easy it is to get back and forth from Philly to New York, it�s me.

But, yes, back to Haverford! Gus and I are even moving back to the Haverford CAMPUS, if you can believe it. It�s a compromise Gus is making for me, so that I can live with the cheap rent for some years and catch up on all the overwhelming debt that has been sinking me the whole time I�ve been living in New York (and, really, the whole time I�ve been an adult trying to get a PhD and then an academic job). So in addition to getting a good job, and getting to live in the same city with my sweetheart, we�re getting a beautiful huge apartment in an old house in Haverford, and there�s light at the end of my debt tunnel. I can�t quite believe it all! We looked at the apartment over the weekend and it�s great�huge windows, lots of light, fairly good kitchen, lots of space, four bedrooms. The closet in the master bedroom is beyond huge. It is exciting. And it is a bit off to the side and across the street from the actual campus, so there�s some distance-cushion. And the train station for getting out of town. It will be a good place to settle in for some years before we buy something somewhere more exciting.

Of course, between then and now, there and here, there are still obstacles. The house won�t be ready until October, or November, maybe even later. So in the meantime it�s not clear what will happen. And Gus is on leave from Haverford in the fall and was offered an opportunity to teach a graduate course at NYU in NEW YORK, heh. And he is taking the opportunity, because, why not? At Haverford we don�t get graduate students. So it looks like we might end up keeping the two apartments for the rest of the year anyway. I still have to check with my apartment�s management company whether they�ll let me go month-to-month rather than signing a new year-long lease in June.

So project debt-removal will be on hold a bit longer. But that�s OK, as I would NOT like to have to pack up all my stuff and have it moved into storage for a few months and then have it moved again, ugh. The expense and the worry and the living out of suitcases and boxes. Nor is it really feasible for Gus and I to live together in his tiny studio in Philly for that long. You know, without killing each other. So it looks like we�ll just switch apartments and remain unsettled for some more months. We�ll still get more time together, as his course in NY will only be one day per week, so we can have extra-long weekends sometimes.

But still! Not a bad deal we�ve gotten ourselves into.

Now I've got to deal with finishing up this semester (two more CUNY events, some meetings, wrapping things up, packing up two offices, giving a talk this Thursday at the New School) and figuring out this summer (San Francisco, Toronto, Vermont, New York, Philly, the whens and the wheres and the hows and the $s).

But right now Gus is almost done making dinner, so it's time to go!

8:06 p.m. - May 03, 2009
Texas Cousin - 2009-05-04 02:10:41
That is great news, cuz, and it's great we might have some overlap in the same city. We are apartment hunting right now. In fact, I'll email you about that. xoxo
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Becky - 2009-05-04 14:56:48
That's very exciting! Congratulations! A lot of people I know (me included) have had good job karma over the past few weeks. Gives one hope for the future!
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