As soon as I get the contract in the mail, it will be both the end of a trying time and the beginning of a wonderful adventure! Ever since Andy and I returned from eloping last August, it’s been nothing but stress related to establishing FL residency status in order to save my tuition waiver, teaching way too many classes at once, and writing up tons of job search materials, not to mention the jumping through the hoops of prospectus writing and IRB paperwork-ing.

In fact, only a few weeks ago my dissertation director and I started planning out my taking another year to finish up and focus on publishing. Then phone calls started coming in, quite out of the blue, and I learned the most important lesson of all–the job search isn’t over until you say it is! In December, I had over a dozen phone and MLA interviews–heard back from some then never another word from others. I was honestly relieved at getting some of the rejection letters. Sometimes you just know when something isn’t a good fit.

But then there are times you instantly hit if off with a place [and its search committee] and you don’t even think about being nervous…and that’s how it was for me this week at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Without gushing too much, I just loved the laid back meeting and greeting, interviewing and teaching demonstrating, and overall feel of the campus. It truly is a school that my previous teaching and tutoring experiences have prepared me for.

Now back to the dissertation!