"Please explain your life to me. What the heck is going on with you?": On Life and the House (for the patient and confused among you)
The title to this post is from a friend who realized that within two months time, our lives were completely different than what we had previously reported they would be. This post is for her and for others of you who have wondered the same thing. It is also for those of you who voted for your house preference (thank you!!) and have since wondered about our choice.
David and I are happy and positive about the future. I will start there :) But I will admit, things are very different than we had planned. When my mentor at BYU suggested two years ago that I could complete a graduate degree if David and I lived separately for a time, I laughed at him. I valued education and had ambitions for my future, but I didn't value education that much and I didn't hold that many ambitions! It appeared an unnecessary sacrifice and one that would ultimately be detrimental to the goals David and I had for our marriage and family. It seems, though, that the words of my professor were prophetic; I both begrudge him for it and stand unwillingly impressed. We had intended to be in Cambridge together, maybe for several years beyond the end of my courses here. For various reasons, those hopes disintegrated and we are working our way through the first of five lonely months. However, we were extremely blessed in Dave's options for employment. He received two Bioinformatics job offers during his final semester at BYU: one for a position at Rutgers University and one at Arizona State University. We chose the job at ASU because of its proximity to family and its opportunities to work with some of the impressive names in his field. We moved to Arizona on Monday, January 3rd, which made our holidays slightly hectic! In a way, though, it was nice that I had so much time to acquaint myself with the area before returning to England. Dave found an apartment close to campus and began his career (!!) on January 10th. He likes his coworkers and is loving the opportunity to become an expert in the Bioinformatics ways. Whenever he misses me too much, he reminds himself that he works in a high-security building protected by a retinal scanner, and that cheers him up well enough! To break up the time apart, David is coming to England for two-weeks in March (negotiated up front in his interviews and included in his employment contract - phew!). I'm afraid I have spent long, distracted hours this term planning our time together :)
During my time in Arizona, I spent long hours driving the neighborhoods and visiting houses with our realtor. When I left at the end of January, we had narrowed our options down to two, as many of you will recall. I will admit, we had already decided on the condo when I posted, but I was curious for the opinions of house-owners and house-owners-to-be! The proximity to campus sold us on the condo; if the house had been closer I think we definitely would have jumped on it. As poor first-time-homebuyers, it was comforting to know that we could always rent the house to students if for some reason we were unable to sell the next time we moved. What actually happened, though, was that both the house and the condo fell through. After considering several other options, we decided to put our house-buying on hold. Never fear, though! The words of advice so many of you offered will go to good use when we return to our search in a few months. I will be sure to post pictures of the house or condo we purchase later this year.
SO, in summary: David is in Tempe and I am in Cambridge. David is a Bioinformatics researcher at ASU at the BioDesign Institute and I am a master's student in Jewish-Christian Relations at Cambridge. When I return (permanently!) to the States in July, I will be returning to Tempe, Arizona, where David and I will commence our search for the perfect first home. In the meantime, we both love each other and talk on Skype every day :)
David and I are happy and positive about the future. I will start there :) But I will admit, things are very different than we had planned. When my mentor at BYU suggested two years ago that I could complete a graduate degree if David and I lived separately for a time, I laughed at him. I valued education and had ambitions for my future, but I didn't value education that much and I didn't hold that many ambitions! It appeared an unnecessary sacrifice and one that would ultimately be detrimental to the goals David and I had for our marriage and family. It seems, though, that the words of my professor were prophetic; I both begrudge him for it and stand unwillingly impressed. We had intended to be in Cambridge together, maybe for several years beyond the end of my courses here. For various reasons, those hopes disintegrated and we are working our way through the first of five lonely months. However, we were extremely blessed in Dave's options for employment. He received two Bioinformatics job offers during his final semester at BYU: one for a position at Rutgers University and one at Arizona State University. We chose the job at ASU because of its proximity to family and its opportunities to work with some of the impressive names in his field. We moved to Arizona on Monday, January 3rd, which made our holidays slightly hectic! In a way, though, it was nice that I had so much time to acquaint myself with the area before returning to England. Dave found an apartment close to campus and began his career (!!) on January 10th. He likes his coworkers and is loving the opportunity to become an expert in the Bioinformatics ways. Whenever he misses me too much, he reminds himself that he works in a high-security building protected by a retinal scanner, and that cheers him up well enough! To break up the time apart, David is coming to England for two-weeks in March (negotiated up front in his interviews and included in his employment contract - phew!). I'm afraid I have spent long, distracted hours this term planning our time together :)
During my time in Arizona, I spent long hours driving the neighborhoods and visiting houses with our realtor. When I left at the end of January, we had narrowed our options down to two, as many of you will recall. I will admit, we had already decided on the condo when I posted, but I was curious for the opinions of house-owners and house-owners-to-be! The proximity to campus sold us on the condo; if the house had been closer I think we definitely would have jumped on it. As poor first-time-homebuyers, it was comforting to know that we could always rent the house to students if for some reason we were unable to sell the next time we moved. What actually happened, though, was that both the house and the condo fell through. After considering several other options, we decided to put our house-buying on hold. Never fear, though! The words of advice so many of you offered will go to good use when we return to our search in a few months. I will be sure to post pictures of the house or condo we purchase later this year.
SO, in summary: David is in Tempe and I am in Cambridge. David is a Bioinformatics researcher at ASU at the BioDesign Institute and I am a master's student in Jewish-Christian Relations at Cambridge. When I return (permanently!) to the States in July, I will be returning to Tempe, Arizona, where David and I will commence our search for the perfect first home. In the meantime, we both love each other and talk on Skype every day :)
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