Where We'll Land Nobody Knows

As Jeff moves into the final* stages of his PhD program, he's starting to think about where to go next. Professionally the next step for him is to take a post-doc position. Since we'll be traveling for a year, he won't move directly on to this step, but will take it on as soon as we return, hopefully. As finding a post-doc position while half a world away in a developing nation with unreliable means of communication could prove difficult (I love to understate things), he's working on making connections and investigating options now. (He's a thinker, I tell you.) Being unemployed and poor is not really something we are aiming for.

So we spend a decent amount of time these days talking about where we want to move, sometimes in a very philosophical if we could move anywhere type of way, but more often in a "there's an interesting program here; what do we think of the place" type of way. Locations that have come up in regards to the second type of conversation have been Memphis (St. Jude's Children's Hospital), Delaware (I can't remember what), and Sacramento (UC Davis program).

I can't say I was doing cartwheels over any of those. In fact, I was almost convinced that Jeff was trying to come up with some pretty bad locations as some sort of psychological tool to make mediocre places seem awesome. I was waiting for him to pull out Fargo, Boise, or Buffalo.

But then I got to thinking. First, a post-doc position usually only lasts 2 or 3 years. Second, I'm willing to travel all over the developing world with nothing but a small backpack, and I'm not willing to relocate with all of my things to any city in one of the most developed nations in the world? Third, is there anything better for a writer than to have a multitude of experiences, to meet all kinds of people, and to observe life in all its different forms?**

So, go ahead and bring it.*** Anchorage or Asheville, Billings or Bermuda, Charleston or Cleveland, Detroit (okay, I do draw the line somewhere) or Dublin....I can handle it.

(And yes, you can go ahead and give me the best wife of the year award.)

*The word "final" should be taken with a grain of salt. Jeff's working hard to finish but a lot of things still have to fall into place and the Neuroscience gods must smile down on us until we can say "absolutely final." We're hoping that's about 6 months from now. It could be 9. It will most certainly happen in 2008.

**What could actually be better for writing, in a weird, messed-up kind of way, is being stuck in a town that really, really sucks. Without anything else to do, there'd be so much more time for writing. And my imagination would really get a work-out.

***This does not mean that I won't come up with all kinds of negative things to say about any proposed place. I will most certainly still whine, moan, and complain. But then I'll buck up and and make the best of it. That's just my style.