RE-POST Finally Made a Decision

I posted this back in August, but at the request of L took it down until everything was signed, sealed, and delivered. "Everything" being an engineering job for L at the National Solar Observatory in Tucson. For those who didn't see it in the few hours the post was live:

After several months of trying to make a decision about what we do when L finishes I feel that we've made enough of a decision to share with, well the Internet, which is about as public as it gets. Since about May we've had different and new news every week. The vast majority of it has been good - interviews (universities and industry) and offers - but they've been trickling in over the course of the summer and that's lead to a lot of feelings of "hurry up and wait" followed by making a decision only to have another offer come through a week later that throws the decision we just made right out the window. We were choosing between a post-doc here and a post-doc in Big Bear, CA (skiing!). Although it took about 4 weeks to get actual offers, in the end they were paying about the same with advantages and disadvantages in both places (here- friends, community we know, geography we like, work for me, library for me; there - isolated but lower cost of living, I could write nearly full time, would have had to drive down a mountain to get to Universities and colleges but a good op for new networking). And we finally settled on a decision when a better offer, working in solar astronomy in Tucson, came through. The paper work is still tied up so we haven't signed on any lines, but the verbal offer and confirmation is good and we are excited to announce that we will be moving to Tucson in December.

Yes, Arizona. Home of the crazy minute men and the most recent scary changes regarding both immigration and the elimination of ethnic studies in high school. Tucson is one of the more liberal cities in Tucson and hey, we're brining blue votes into a red state. Plus, bonus of battles I can get involved in (right, right, after the diss... or maybe alongside...). And they have a fantastic dance, theater, outdoors, and GBLTI communities. But AZ is also inexpensive and this will give us much more stability than a 2 year post-doc which would put us right back in the same place we are now, just 2 years older. Plus, I'll be in driving distance from my mom for the first time in 12?13? years.

The current plan (likely to change) is for me to stay here and finish out fall quarter. This gives me one more quarter of work and time to wrap up research and administrative loose ends. We'll likely move in early to mid-December. Once I move, I'll begin writing full time and trying to weasel my way into research groups and other academic events at the UofA and ASU. Hopefully network my way into the lecturer pool or maybe even something better.

There are a lot of things I'm going to miss about Santa Cruz (weather, friends, otters) and a number of things I won't (smell of pee downtown, cost of living), just as I'm sure there are things I'll love and hate in Tucson. And I will definitely miss the people we've come to know and love here, but I'm sure I will see everyone in the digital, and I'll be able to say "you'll have a place to crash" with us and it'll actually be a room w/ a door.