Indiana

The lyrics from "The Music Man" have gone through my head today (about Gary, Indiana) as we found out today that Paul's most recent phone interview resulted in an invitation to interview on- campus at Earlham College in Indiana on January 31. The good news is that if he is offered the job, he would be teaching physical chemistry at a small four-year school, which is in his opinion the ideal job. The bad news is that it's just a temporary job, but the reason we applied for it is because it's a three-year position, which means we'd get a two year break from submitting applications and interviews, and it would mean that when he resumed the search for a permanent job, he'd have four years of full-time teaching experience under his belt. We were hoping that our next move would be to a place we'd live for decades, but maybe we need to make one more move before that happens. Time will tell. At the very least, Paul will be getting a little more experience with interviewing. Another professor has agreed to cover his lab on the 30th so that he can fly out that afternoon. Paul interviewed at another university in Indiana this past July.

Although Indiana wouldn't be our first choice of where to live, it's not at the bottom of our list either. We'd be about 8 hours from Paul's parents. My parents had been considering moving to be closer to us (once they knew where we were moving), but I doubt they'll move closer if it's just a temporary job. Richmond, Indiana would put us 3-3.5 hours away from my aunt and uncle and six of my cousins (and their spouses and children), about one hour from another cousin, and about four hours from my sister, Wendy. We'd certainly be able to see those relatives more often than we have the past 10+ years. Since a permanent job would be our first choice, I am praying that if another school will offer Paul a permanent job in the next few months, that Earlham won't offer him this job, but if this is the best option for August 2014, then I am praying they will offer him the job. I went to college in Ohio for two years, and I student taught in Dayton, which is less than an hour from this college. It's a small world after all! If they do offer him a job, it would mean far fewer interviews and applications this time around compared to last year, as I've only submitted 20 applications thus far, and it took 88 applications last year. We haven't heard anything back from Florida, so we assume he wasn't picked to interview on-campus there. He definitely wasn't picked to interview on-campus in New Jersey, and we weren't interested in the community college in Ohio where he had a final interview last month after we found out the salary he'd be paid. We don't know yet what the salary would be for this college, but the cost of living is lower there, which is nice.