Life decisions

I made a decision this weekend that I am staying here regardless of what happens.  As I was working with one of my co-workers to talk about values and weigh them.  Staying here right now is more important to me than moving somewhere for a job that will pay me approximately the same amount as some jobs I could get around here.  I can continue to look at ISU and DMACC and some other places close enough to commute.  I'll see what happens.  It took me a long time to come tho that conclusion.  Now, as I look for apartments in Ames, I am a little calmer because I made a decision.  As I was reading through some of the chapters about the first professional position, and making the transition back to get a Ph.D., I did not feel worried or sad that I wasn't pursuing moving somewhere for a position right away, because I think I'm making the right decision for me for right now.  I'm just hoping I can get through these last couple of weeks and figure out where I'll be living come August.

Transitions

This past week was an incredibly uneventful one in comparison to others this semester.  On Monday I turned in my College Teaching portfolio, so I knocked one other thing out that I needed to do to be finished.  I think that's pretty much where the excitement ended; everything else was very mundane.  I heard no news (except for bad news) about jobs, and applied for a couple more.  I organized what the last things I need to do for my classes yet.

I was thinking a lot about transitions.  While I do not know what is going to happen in the next month, I know that I have another couple of friends who are going to be making really big changes, as well.  This couple of my friends are graduating with their Ph.D. and Masters and moving to Colorado Springs where my friend got a position as an assistant professor.  I am very excited for her (and them in general), but am incredibly jealous.  She has it figured all figured out.  I don't think she feels that way, necessarily, as there are still many things to do before the move and her partner does  not yet have a job lined up as of yet, either.  Beyond that, it still has to be scary, even if she does have a job lined up; transitions are just scary in general.  What will life be like without taking classes?  Will it be easy or difficult to make friends?  I have always thought it was not too difficult to make friends, but it is not easy to make good friends.  When you come to college, most people are looking to make friends, but as you get older, people have their friend groups and it is more difficult to move into a group.  The only people who have been integrated into my social circle recently are people who have started dating friends, and even then it is difficult to bring that person in.  I think my point is that if I know my group of friends, who I feel are very social, extroverted people for the most part have difficulty bringing new people into the group, what does this mean for the transitions we are all about to make?  Sure, I'll get along with people, but will I make friends like the ones I have now?

The closer I get to graduation, the more aspects of this transition I'm about to make come to light.  I'm just not really sure what to expect for myself.  I guess I'll see what happens.

ACPA!

Lots of things happened since my last blog post.  Nothing that has been especially life-changing, but I have definitely been keeping busy.  I am currently waiting to hear back about a lot of interview at ACPA. I did 6 interviews while there, and it was pretty exhausting.  People always would say to me to make sure that I keep in mind how good of a fit the school would be for me while in the interview, and that I am interviewing them as much as they are interviewing me.  I never thought all of that was bogus, but it never really hit me how true that is until now.   None of my interviews were particularly bad (from where I was sitting, anyway; I imagine the people interviewing me could have a differing opinion), but there was definitely one or two interviews that I left thinking that maybe that place isn't for me.  However, all of the other places were schools that I could really see myself.  I don't want to put too many details here, but hopefully something comes of my time spent there.

Other than that, I went to a few sessions.  I tried to vary the kinds of sessions that I went to because I do not know where I am going to be a month from now.  One of the sessions I went to really got me thinking.  There was a session I went to on having senior year experience classes for graduating seniors as a requirement.  This was something that I had never thought of before as explicitly as it was laid out in the session.  I have talked about how we are preparing people for the "real world" after graduation, but not really in terms of how to buy a car, how to rent an apartment, and how to pay your bills on time.  When I really thought about it, none of those things were really anything I had experience with until grad school.  Sure, I paid some bills, but I didn't buy a car or lease an apartment until grad school, and when I did do those things, I was really scared because no one ever talks about that--they're things people... just do.  The major problem we discussed in the session was figuring out whose responsibility it would be on campus to develop something like that.   Even now, I am struggling to think of who would take something like that one.  It is also really tough when you think about someone even wanting to take it on unless they got more people and money for it.

As I said, lots of things happened in the last week, and I learned a lot.  Hopefully I won't have to wait too much longer to hear something back!