Monday, December 14, 2009

A lot to think about

I've been sort of in a daze for the last few weeks. A lot of it has to do with the standard stuff. Winter is here, meaning holidays and a lot of travel, and having a lot of work travel right before holiday travel is always mind numbing. But this year there is more in the air.

For one, we are moving out of the physics building into a temporary building, so packing up my office by next week is needed. (They are moving us between Christmas and New Year's, but I will be out of town by Tuesday of next week.) There are a lot of details to manage, and my office is a mess. (My preferred organizational style, much to Corbett's chagrin, is to just pile things on my desk as I use them, so packing means a lot of digging.)

What adds to that, and really is the bulk of it, is the realization that I am leaving this town. In a year from today I will be somewhere else. I don't know where that somewhere else is, but I know it's not here. It's funny because things have popped up in conversations with friends (such as Sonya saying, "Well, next year we can...oh, wait, you won't be here."), and every day passes with another thought crossing my mind about this.

What is most dizzying about this though is that I don't know where I'll be. Applications have been sent out, and nothing is known yet. In January if I am lucky I will get a couple of requests for interviews, and then I'll be able to play the "oh, maybe it'll be there" game. (I don't even want to get into the issues of the two-body problem, that just makes it all worse.)

Ultimately it is again making me numb to everything around, and well, distant. Hopefully the feeling will go away, and definitely a ten-hour drive to Georgia will help with that. I'll at least have something else to think about. I'm sure it will only get worse after the new year.

by Topher at 1:42 PM |