Indiana

Paul is in Indiana today, and he has my laptop so I can't post any photos today although I did take some yesterday morning at the playground and swimming pool. He almost missed his connecting flight in Philadelphia. The chair of the department picked him up at the airport in Indianapolis, and he found it very easy to chat with him during the car ride, dinner, and such yesterday afternoon and evening. They have his schedule pretty filled up between 8am and 2pm today and then someone is driving him back to the airport. It will be after 11pm until he arrives home. I'll be asleep in bed because Oliver gets me up before 6am every morning. Actually Oliver woke up at 4am this morning, but I let him cry for 15 minutes until he went back to sleep because that is just TOO early, especially as he didn't get to bed until 9pm due to VBS. Normally I find Oliver's short naps to be very frustrating (the two naps put together generally last a total of 75 minutes), but this week and next week it's actually a good thing he takes such a short morning nap because he wouldn't have been able to take a long one due to swimming lessons unless he slept in my arms the whole time we were at the pool (9:45-11:00).

Paul found out yesterday that the search committee purposefully only selected candidates who had just earned their Ph.D.s what a pleasant surprise! For once he'll be on a level playing field, and his lack of experience won't be held against him! Eric also told him that in the spring they'll be conducting a search for an instructor, and that contract will be for 3 years. So if the temp they hire for one year likes it there, and they like that person, it could turn into a 4 year job rather than a 1 year job. He also said that they will pay $1,000 for moving expenses. The 3 schools he interviewed at in NY all said they wouldn't pay anything towards moving expenses, and those were for tenure track jobs so we didn't expect a school would pay moving expenses for a temporary job. Also, Eric said that the person hired can request to teach an upper level course in the spring, if desired (in other words Paul could teach a physical chemistry class). They have the resources and would encourage Paul to continue his research, and they would be happy to have folks conduct observations early in the fall semester so they could write him letters of recommendation so that as he continues to apply for jobs he won't need to keep using his PSU references. That would be most helpful! Here's to hoping and praying that next week one of these three schools offers Paul a job. I would need to keep submitting applications for jobs that start in 2014, but I would be able to stop applying for jobs that start next month, and we could start making plans for the fall -whether that's signing the kids up for things around here or packing for a move to Indiana. I realize it's not a definite that any of the schools will pick him, but it's really hard not to get my hopes up as I would really love for the suspense to be over!