Back Home Again...in Ohio...

Back from Canada! It was a good trip, but I was ready to return. Not necessarily to Ohio but I was ready to move on to the next phase in the my life and I knew it wasn't going to happen while I was in Canada.

First, the conference. It was really nice. I was finally speaking on a topic I was passionate about (and therefore I know the most about - literally. There is not a person living who knows more on the subject of the history of the Chinese in Colorado than me. Sounds cool, but really, its a niche. Like most history. Anyway...) and I loved it. I probably obsessed over my presentation a little more than was necessary because it went really well. The rest of my panel were all professors of Asian History (who were also Chinese) but my presentation did not stand out as amateur among theirs. It was awesome.

This actually felt like a nice goodbye to my time in academia. I will never stop loving history, the study or the research of it, but I won't be writing it again for some time. I think graduation would have been a nice ceremony to go to, but it would have been short with my name being called, a little walk, and thats it. I am glad I chose this experience over graduation. I look forward to when I might attend conferences in the future - and maybe I will even catch one while I am overseas. Who knows what might happen.

<Once I figure out how to upload pictures I will post some of the conference, Seattle, and Vancouver - they were all awesome>

Now that I am home I feel a little odd. It reminds me of when we were waiting to hear about the FAA position for Scott. We knew a big change was coming, but out lives were kind of suspended as we waited for it. In that case, we didn't even know the date until about a month before. At least I had two and half months to prepare for this. But now that its only two months left I still feel like I have so much to do and yet nothing I can do until I get more information.

I am currently waiting on a packet that will contain my salary offer as well as other important paperwork about moving and so on. I was hoping the packet would come last week and now I am hoping it will come this week. Something tells me I may be hoping the same thing next week. Once this packet with the salary offer comes I feel like this will finally all be real. But perhaps not. Maybe it won't be real until I am sitting in a room, dressed in a suit I just bought with heels that hurt my feet, being welcomed into a new job and lifestyle with an overwhelming about of information thrown at me. Yes, that seems most likely.

And now, I must get to the Cheesebarn. The cheese is not going to slice itself.