The View From Kalamazoo

So I’m *quite* done with the MA, made it through the first year of my Son’s life, and decided that as near and dear to My Chosen Profession my clerical caper is if I don’t move on soon, I may be ranting about what an Important Historian I Might Have Been with my teeth in a cup on a nightstand to an aide who wouldn’t know a manuscript from a manicure changing my soiled drawers in some Home. Perhaps I’m being silly and paranoid since I’m not even settled into my mid-30s yet, but perhaps not – I swear this place is the LaBrea Tar Pit … I feel like I’m being sucked farther and farther under with each passing year. (She’ll never return, no she’ll never return…no singing, nevermind)

Anyhoo, so despite continuing to give papers and organize sessions (and meaning to clean some things up to submit to a few journals that I never seem to get cleaned up or sent) I feel like I need to get my happy fat ass in gear and send out applications this year. Must. I’ve come up with a list of possibles to whom I will send a request for information (the web is useful, but some sites are damn near unnavigable..and I like hard-copy. Paper. OOh.) and then pare down to 7 to actually send applications (more and we’d not eat. we still might not with 7. ugh).

They are (right now..maybe I’ll add a couple. Anyone with suggestions or invitations are So Very Welcome to comment or email!):

Kentucky (Bruce Eastwood and Gretchen Starr-LeBeau)

New Mexico (Anthony Cardenas, Timothy Moy and Tim Graham, if he’ll have me)

Virginia (Erik Midelfort and Anne Schutte)

Pennsylvania (Edward Peters and Ann Moyer)

Michigan (Diane Hughes or Valerie Kivelson and Helmut Puff)

Indiana (History and Philosophy of Science, Ann Carmichal and William Newman)

Northwestern (Religion/History combo program, Richard Kieckhefer and William Monter depending on how retired he really is)

Saint Louis (Christine Caldwell)

and WMU (who knows!) for a grins and giggles back-up plan, although if I do another degree here I’ll appear a three-eyed inbred on paper. (if I don’t get in anywhere with funding, however, I may decide to do a second masters in Educational Technology here while I’m biding my time. Couldn’t hoit, yaknow?) I’m not really considering California anywhere, Hawaii anywhere…Brian wants to move to Texas – I resist. Maybe I should add Arizona (Monica Green) to the list…maybe I should stop while I’m ahead.

We’ll see. Since I’ve such a weird hybrid of interests (“My academic disciplines are history: social/intellectual and science/technology/medicine, and my focus is inquisition, magic and magical texts, and the heresy of witchcraft (particularly as it relates to women).” from my bio page) I could sort of fit with quite a few, but really and truly fit with very few, indeed.

Oh, and let’s see how much fun it will be to do all of this with a family and have to move them somewhere (and Brian find a job, and manage our health insurance, and switch my kid’s school and the daycare issue, and, and, and…)…am I NUTS?!?!

Of course, add to the list of Things To Do the grad one-year revisitation of the thesis from hell. I think the editing papers for journal submission sounds like more fun, frankly.