(no subject)
Hi folks,
Been some time since my last update, so I thought I would share.
Life is good at the moment and I am very happy. My classes are decent and I'm still on track to graduate in May. At the beginning of June, I'll be driving across to DC to search for housing. I have about two weeks to get situated, and then will be flown over to Washington state for the first round of orientation for my new job with the NNSA. My official start date is June 27. I can't properly express how stoked I am about this. I've been training most of my academic life for a role like this, and now finally I get to work on the stuff I care about in a policy role.
I am not stoked that Christine won't be coming with me. In fact, I am decidedly upset about it- but we both understand that there isn't much we can do. Her job at Stanford is great, the economy sucks and I do not know where I will be going after my year is up. If she leaves to come to DC with me only to find that afterwards I need to go to Chicago or back to California or god knows where else, that would be horrible.
I did manage to find out a bit more about some of my probable options today, however.
Backing up a bit, I'm in DC right now for the Carnegie 2009 Nonproliferation Conference. It's a big deal in this field and pretty much everyone who is anyone in this line of work is going to be there.
Yesterday and today, I got to hang out with Brian and Alexis, which was a lot of fun. We even played some Settlers of Catan... ah the memories...
I am now staying with a good friend from grad school named Elena, who is presently in the program that I will be entering. She had a birthday party tonight and many of the other people in the program showed up (including some other ppl from my school and a number of others I know from other contexts like CSIS, IAEA, etc.) With their year coming to an end, they are all in job hunt mode and have all seemingly done pretty well. The guy I will be replacing got a really sweet job at Lawrence Livermore (where I interned this summer) and evidenty the pay is a great deal better than I was thinking it would be.
So it is possible that rather than having Christine come out here after my year is done, I could go back there. I do enjoy the sunshine.
But we shall see. It sounds like there are quite a number of options, all of which sound attractive to me at this point. Once I am more familiar with the bureacracy, I'll have a better idea of what I want.
For now though, I am, as previously stated- really happy. My part time work with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies has been particularly cool of late (they just recently sent me to France to hang out with high-level ambassadors at a chateau on an alpine lake), and my classes are entertaining. And having my job lined up already is definetly a stress reducer.
Not living with Chrisitne is not going to suck. A lot. But with both of us making decent money for once, we should be able to arrange to see each other a bunch. Bleh. I don't really want to think about it too much.... if it were not for the dark cloud of her absence on the horizon, life would be perfect. As it is- still pretty damn good. And once I have some stability after the year is done, all should be quite well indeed.
Been some time since my last update, so I thought I would share.
Life is good at the moment and I am very happy. My classes are decent and I'm still on track to graduate in May. At the beginning of June, I'll be driving across to DC to search for housing. I have about two weeks to get situated, and then will be flown over to Washington state for the first round of orientation for my new job with the NNSA. My official start date is June 27. I can't properly express how stoked I am about this. I've been training most of my academic life for a role like this, and now finally I get to work on the stuff I care about in a policy role.
I am not stoked that Christine won't be coming with me. In fact, I am decidedly upset about it- but we both understand that there isn't much we can do. Her job at Stanford is great, the economy sucks and I do not know where I will be going after my year is up. If she leaves to come to DC with me only to find that afterwards I need to go to Chicago or back to California or god knows where else, that would be horrible.
I did manage to find out a bit more about some of my probable options today, however.
Backing up a bit, I'm in DC right now for the Carnegie 2009 Nonproliferation Conference. It's a big deal in this field and pretty much everyone who is anyone in this line of work is going to be there.
Yesterday and today, I got to hang out with Brian and Alexis, which was a lot of fun. We even played some Settlers of Catan... ah the memories...
I am now staying with a good friend from grad school named Elena, who is presently in the program that I will be entering. She had a birthday party tonight and many of the other people in the program showed up (including some other ppl from my school and a number of others I know from other contexts like CSIS, IAEA, etc.) With their year coming to an end, they are all in job hunt mode and have all seemingly done pretty well. The guy I will be replacing got a really sweet job at Lawrence Livermore (where I interned this summer) and evidenty the pay is a great deal better than I was thinking it would be.
So it is possible that rather than having Christine come out here after my year is done, I could go back there. I do enjoy the sunshine.
But we shall see. It sounds like there are quite a number of options, all of which sound attractive to me at this point. Once I am more familiar with the bureacracy, I'll have a better idea of what I want.
For now though, I am, as previously stated- really happy. My part time work with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies has been particularly cool of late (they just recently sent me to France to hang out with high-level ambassadors at a chateau on an alpine lake), and my classes are entertaining. And having my job lined up already is definetly a stress reducer.
Not living with Chrisitne is not going to suck. A lot. But with both of us making decent money for once, we should be able to arrange to see each other a bunch. Bleh. I don't really want to think about it too much.... if it were not for the dark cloud of her absence on the horizon, life would be perfect. As it is- still pretty damn good. And once I have some stability after the year is done, all should be quite well indeed.