Well, as some of you have heard by now (and others of you are hearing for the first time), Tyler and I have some exciting news to share... we are moving to SEATTLE!! That's right, we are homeward bound. This all happened just over the course of the past two months, but we weren't able to share the news with everyone right away until the job offers were official, work contacts had been appropriately informed, etc. But now we can shout it from the rooftops. We are moving HOME!
In summary, I was recently offered a post-doctoral research position at the University of Washington where I will be making measurements of atmospheric mercury from an aircraft. I'll be working with a professor who I have known for several years and with whom I actually did a short project several years back. For this reason, I already know quite a bit about his work and his laboratory. He verbally offered me the job in late August and I accepted. We were very happy about the idea of moving to Seattle, and we figured that Tyler would be able to pick up his research there and try to find a teaching job.
Less than 48 hours after I got that offer, Tyler received an email from both his PhD advisor and one of his undergrad profs letting him know that there was an opening for a Visiting Assistant Professor in the History Department at Western Washington University (where Tyler went for undergrad). The position was for someone to teach Pacific NW History and Indian American History, which happen to be Tyler's areas of expertise. We just couldn't believe that this job was presenting itself to Tyler less than two days after we'd made the decision to move to Seattle. He talked to the prof at WWU right away and was verbally offered the job on the spot.
After a bit of jumping up and down and shedding a few tears of joy, we then commenced rapidly trying to get our life in order, knowing that we both were busily working here in Italy and were both very much involved in a big international conference that took place in Rome this week. We began telling our bosses and coworkers, family and a handful of friends, but mostly we were trying to keep things on the D.L. until everything was in writing. It's all official now, and after the conference this week the word about us leaving the CNR is definitely out. Because Tyler has to start teaching on Monday (yes, Monday!), he is already on his way to the northwest. I am still here in Italy for a couple more weeks to finish up work and life things, then I will head to the US. It has been a whirlwind so far, but we are hanging in.
As for leaving Italy, there seems to be a general consensus amongst friends and colleagues that they are very sad to see us go, but they know this is a good opportunity for us and one that we just could not say no to. We feel pretty much the same. It's very hard to leave some of our wonderful friends here, who we feel amazingly close to after only two short years. There are parts of my job here that I am going to miss (and others that I won't...). With that said, we are elated to be moving home with jobs that we are both excited about. It sort of felt like the stars suddenly aligned for us. And as great as life in Italy has been, you all know there there have been a number of challenges for us in these past two years, so overall we are feeling pretty ready to head back to the good old U.S. of A.
I will conclude by attempting to visually summarize our feelings about this major life change.
My response goes something like this:
Since Tyler isn't here with me to express himself with his own photo, I will say that his feelings are along these lines:
Until next time, stay classy Calabria.
