Chillin' with the fam

I interviewed last week in Mobile, AL, and then continued eastward to attend the memorial service for my grandfather. It was a good service, and also a very nice visit with family - both immediate, whom I last saw in February, and extended, some of whom I saw over Christmas 2005, and the rest I hadn't seen in at least two years.

Now I am at my parent's home in Greenville for the next week. Guess it's taken me ten years of being at university, and six years of living in Oklahoma, to start calling this place my "parent's home", even though my things have long since been moved out and most of the furnishings have changed! I'm working this week on two related research items: my dissertation and a manuscript that I will submit for publication. (The manuscript is a smaller, more condensed version of the dissertation, but both contain the same underlying research).

Next week I'll head to the beach with my family, just mom & dad (and maybe aunt & uncle) for the weekdays (M-Th) and then my 2 brothers and sister-in-law for F-Sa. I'll do some work but will likely spend more time relaxing than working. It'll be my first real vacation -- not as a tourist or going from place to place, but spending six+ hours per day lying on a sandy beach with a book.

I already read Harry Potter 7 (finished it late Sunday night after buying it Saturday morning and getting in a few pages between chats with my family and the memorial service). If my mother, who's reading it now, can finish in time, I'll probably re-read HP7 next week to get the details I missed. I don't want this to be a spoiler, but I'll admit I didn't laugh as much during HP7 as I did during HP1,2,3, and 4. The scenes were darker (I mean, the title is "Deathly Hallows"!), so I guess JKR didn't find room for as many humorous settings. On one related note, I like the British HP7 cover much better than the American one. You judge for yourselves.














I'll post my job decision later this week, as I know many of you have been asking about it. (Postdoc with the University of Chile, in Santiago, or Assistant professor with the University of South Alabama, in Mobile). I want to inform both universities before putting anything here, although I don't think many people read this site. (Related note: it's amazing after ending my long-distance relationship with Bethany that my daily site visits got cut in half, maybe more. She brought a lot of traffic here! [It could also be that at the time I was living abroad, and somehow far-away friends have much more interesting lives than those we see daily. Thoughts?] )

See you in ten days, perhaps sooner with beach photos!