on going home (maybe)

This was a good day. We had a rockin' discussion in the Shakespeare class, all about Falstaff's speech on honor, and whether there's ANY way to see the king's actions as honorable, and the implications of Hal's "if a lie may do thee grace" line, and whether Hal actually likes Falstaff. And a few people who haven't spoken all semester piped up. And I had a phone interview that led to an almost immediate invite for a campus interview, at a place I'll call Last Chance Saloon College.

I'd want the job in any case, since it looks like it will be positively my last shot at a tenure-track job this year, but Last Chance Saloon College also happens to be in the great state of ... uh, Basketball. In fact, it is only an hour-and-thirty-minute drive from the University of Basketball, and not that much farther from the Beloved Alma Mater.

I don't think I realized I was homesick until this very day, but I am. I miss crape myrtles and Virginia pines and homemade pecan pie from the farmer's market and the smell of the University of Basketball library, and I want it to be short-sleeve weather already instead of endless cold and rain. And I have a grand total of about four actual friends in the entire Midwest, as opposed to moderately friendly work-related acquaintances. That didn't bother me so much when I was hoping to be here for life and expecting that my new colleagues would eventually turn into friends, but for the last month it has felt very isolating.

So I want this job very much. And yet I have mixed feelings about wanting it so much: partly because I've had so many hopeful-seeming interviews that haven't led to anything, and partly because one of the reasons why I chose an uncertain VAP over a nice safe postdoc was that I'd lived my whole life in two adjacent states, and there were always people I knew from high school at college, and people from my college at grad school, and I'd never had the experience of starting over in a totally new place. And I wanted that adventure, and I've mostly enjoyed it and I'm glad I have had it. But I meant to make a go of it for longer than a year. So I think I'm discovering that I'm more of a homebody at heart than I thought I was, and I'm not sure I like knowing that, especially since I know this job is as yet only a very uncertain hope.

Well. Wish me luck at the Last Chance Saloon.