Job Interviewing

It has been a week since my trip around the US. I first flew down to Jacksonville, Florida. I had a nice time down there and Jacksonville would be a nice and warm place to live. It did seem green and that was nice, since that is one of the things I love so much about Raleigh. The department there is growing so rapidly and so they are hiring new faculty every year which is very nice. On the flip side, since they are a bigger school, they require a little more research than the other schools.

My next stop was Austin, TX. The flight over there was a nightmare. I was flying over the evening of the tornados that hit Florida so there was a lot of turbulance. I can handle a little, but I get freaked out when the plane does the little drops in the air. Well we did a few of those and there was turbulance for the first hour of the flight. And the flight that was suppose to take 2 hours, took almost 3 because the air was so unstable in the upper atmosphere and the headwinds were that strong. I missed my second flight so I was put on the later flight to Austin. I didn't get in till after midnight and by the time my shuttle got me up to the hotel is was 1 am. I was so happy to finally go to sleep.

My time in Georgetown was really nice. The school is much much smaller but the students are extrememly bright and faculty was really fun to be around. Also on the plus side, one of my best friends lives in Austin, so it would be really cool to live near her. After my interview, my friend came and picked me up. We just hung out, went shopping. Went to the Kansas State-Texas basketball game, which was really good. It was so nice to see her and meet her "friend".

My last stop was Oklahoma City. I was a little skeptical about OK. But it was rather suprising how nice it was. There was a really nice downtown, an area called Bricktown, where all the buildings are in brick. They drove me by the OK City bombing memorial and we walked around. It is pretty flat there, and nothing was green, but it is winter so nothing is in bloom. The school is outside the city, so that is appeling. The faculty were really fun and nice, but the teaching load here is really high.

I flew home and got in around 1 in the morning. I was so tired and just wanted to get home, of course I was speeding through Cary...well I got pulled over and got a ticket. Actually, I was going so fast that I have to go to court to get it taken care of. Yikes. We are thinking about getting a lawyer...maybe that will help with the insurance costs that might be coming.

It is nice to be home and not be traveling so much. I have one more interview set up at Meredith, so I don't have to travel anywhere which is so great. So, we'll see what happens. We should know in a couple weeks what is going on and where we might be headed.