In My Mind I'm Gone to Michigan

I left Michigan almost exactly 8 years ago. It's hard to believe that it's been that long; it's hard to believe that I've lived in California longer than I ever lived in Michigan. For some reason, every time I hear Carolina in My Mind, I think of Michigan - I know, it makes no sense.

People talk about a certain time of your life that clings to you, the time you grow up, the "time of your life". That time came for me in Michigan. I never felt like an adult in Maryland - I still don't, when I go back to visit my family; I still feel like the awkward guy, who doesn't really believe in himself, and has no assertiveness.

That's one of the reasons I went to school so far away from Towson. I wanted to grow up, so I only applied to schools that were far from home - Georgia Tech, Clemson, Michigan, Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue, and Maryland (not far from home, but there was no way I was going to go there, unless I was rejected from every other school).

Michigan State was not my top choice, not even my second choice, but when a school says they will pay your tuition, you listen. So I ended up in East Lansing, not knowing a soul, and ended up living there for seven years.

There is nothing in particular I miss about Michigan; when I lived there all I thought about was moving away. But lately, with the economic situation the state is in, every time I see an ad for the state (I see more ads from the state of MI than any other state), I get this sadness, this longing to go back.

I didn't see much of Michigan when I was there, so my memories are primarily of the MSU campus in Fall, Winter (beautiful to look at, not so beautiful to live through), and Spring. I don't know if I just want to go back to see the campus, or actually see more of the state.


Either way, I don't really see when I will be able to get back to Michigan. I have no family there, I never seem to have to go there on business of any kind, and so if I go, I would be going for the sake of going to Michigan, and with the economy the way it is, I don't know if that's money I would want to spend.

So instead, I sit here, thinking of the life I had 8-15 years ago.

Oxford

So I'm thinking of moving to the UK.

At some point in my relationship with Lauren, I realized that I would have to move at some point; her job would move us. She was in her first year in her Ph.D. program when I met her, and 5 1/2 years later that point has arrived.

When Lauren started the job search, I said I would be not have a problem moving for a tenure-track position, one that offered more long-term stability, but a post-doc, which would last 1-3 years, with another move after that, would be problematic.

Over the past year, she applied for a number of tenure-track positions, and just missed out on a couple of them. I had accepted that the move would not be happening this year, and I would be at De Anza for at least one more year - then post-doc positions started coming up in several places around the country, and one in Oxford. The way Lauren talked about it, I didn't think she would get the Oxford position, so I wouldn't have to worry about uprooting; then the invitation to interview came, she was off to Oxford, then the offer came, and here we are.

Oxford is far away - 8 time zones away, an 11 hour flight, plus a 90-minute bus ride. That's far away. Looked at that way, the whole not-going-to-move-for-a-post-doc decision is tougher to make.

I've not made a final decision yet. I've agreed to teach an MPS class in the Fall, and it's hard to find people willing to teach those classes, so I'll at least be at De Anza through the Fall quarter, but I'm still somewhat undecided about what happens beyond that.

The decision is complicated by other factors, including finances and jobs.

Apparently I can go on leave from De Anza for two years, and come back. If this option was not on the table, I would feel like moving to Oxford would be a bad decision, for the sake of job security. But, by taking a 2-year leave I would be giving up two years of guaranteed income, for possibly sitting in an Oxford flat with nothing to do.

Most people I've talked to have said that I should go, but I don't think most people realize how good my work situation is. The thought of not having such a great job scares me.

I have this idea that this would be an opportunity to use the MBA I paid a ton of money to get, but with the economy the way it is, I worry that I would move to Oxford and not get a job. As someone who has been at the same job for 8 years, and has only worked in one profession, the thought of looking for work I have no experience doing makes me feel somewhat like a kid going to school for the first time (I hated my first day of school, and many days after).

So, I sit here, thinking, doing research, and wondering if I'll be in Oxford next year.

Hot!

It is very hot this weekend.

I had soccer practice this morning and a German guy was complaining about how hot it was. Another person asked if it ever got this hot in Germany. He responded by saying it did, but he would never think of playing soccer in that kind of weather; he would sit in a pool instead. An Algerian added that this weather was like winter in Algeria. Someone said I should be able to handle the heat because of my West African upbringing and roots.

One of the reasons I love the game of soccer is this kind of talk. Not talk about the weather, specifically, but talk of culture. It's cool to talk to an Italian, German, Algerian, a Dane, all in the matter of a minute, each bringing their own culture to the conversation.

I'm not saying these kinds of conversations don't come up in other cases, but in soccer, it's all there, it all matters, and doesn't matter at the same time. We are different, we have different backgrounds, that we bring to the soccer field (for those who don't know, different cultures are known for their different styles of play of the beautiful game).

After I gave up practicing (sadly, the West African caved to the heat quicker than the Dane), I came home and jumped into our newly redone pool. You can read about the pool in my last post.

I'm not really a pool person (black people don't swim), but it was calling me. Knowing I was going to be washing my hair soon anyway, so it wouldn't matter if it got wet. I jumped in, with my soccer shorts; I think I was the first person in the pool since it had reopened last week. I can count the number of times I've been in that pool on one hand; I've lived right next to the pool for five years. But it's hot this weekend, and the heat does things to you.

The Pool

A little over a month ago, we got a letter from the owner of our apartment complex; the pool was going to be worked on. It was unclear exactly what was going to be done with it, something about re-plastering the bottom, painting it, I don't know these things because construction/maintenance has never been my thing.

We were told we could not go into the pool area, and our porch gate would be locked with a lock we didn't have a key to, to prevent us from doing so. It seemed a bit extreme to me, but I guess that's what you have to do to avoid a lawsuit when some moron decides to go diving into an empty pool.
The work started with draining of the pool and 5-6 guys that would get to the pool area at about 9 am. One of them always was wearing a Harvard sweatshirt (I strongly doubt he's a graduate, but who am I to judge?). There would be loud noises, Geordi would hide somewhere all morning, which was not necessarily a bad thing. I would go to work with them still here. When I got home at 8 pm, everything would be quiet again, and Geordi would be back to his usual antics.
The work continued, wheelbarrows left in the empty pool over the weekend, random pieces of cement here and there. I was wondering how long it would take them to get through this after 3 weeks of what seemed like little progress. Then all of a sudden over this past week; one day the pool is completely re-plastered, the next day, it was completely repainted, the day after that the odd noise started at about 11 pm. Our upstairs neighbors running water, for what seemed like forever. We've often thought they were wasteful when it came to water, but this went on and on, deep into the night (Lauren tells me, because I was passed out sleeping).
The next morning, I realized what it was; it wasn't the neighbors, the pool was full of water.
So, it looks like the pool is back to normal. You can walk around it, as I've done, and probably go into it, if it wasn't 60-something degrees outside. For some reason though, we're still locked into our porch with a lock we don't have a key to. I don't know why we're being deprived of our porch gate.