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Long-time readers of this LJ will know that I am not a big fan of change (pity Joel when he upgrades some aspect of my computer that CHANGES HOW THE ICONS LOOK or WHERE THE MENUS ARE LISTED. I use the old LJ post mechanism AND friends feed. Ditto for Wordpress), and it seems like dealing with it only gets harder, rather than easier.
One of the things that sometimes still catches me by surprise about our current situation is how stable it is. It isn't just that I know where we'll be in another year or two, or what we'll be doing, I have a good idea where we'll be in another twenty years, and who I'll be doing it with. And when I realize that, it still takes my breath away.
Joel's birthday was yesterday, and Thursday we went out to eat to celebrate (we were going to go on his birthday, until we realized we had no groceries and nothing in the freezer...). In the morning, I told Gwen we were going to the Queen's Head for supper, and her comment was, "Is Thomas going to be there?" (not an unusual request, since we basically go to the Queen's Head for birthday dinners or to meet up with Thomas), and I laughed and said no, and thought about how quickly she has integrated the new people we've/she's met since moving into her life.
I remember my first few times going to ESMLS, how the senior scholars seemed so delighted to see each other, and not for academic reasons but for social reasons -- they were asking about each other's wives and kids and grandkids, and it seemed so...it's hard to describe it, it was both incredibly friendly and a bit exclusive, simply because as a young junior scholar you stand on the outskirts and realize that these people have been attending the same conferences, seeing each other every other year or so, for as long as you've been alive, and you know that by the time you've been around as long as they have, they'll be dead, so you'll never really be able to enter their circle, at least not in the same way.
And then it was maybe the very next one that I went to that I realized -- there are people at this conference that I only see every other year or so, but whom when we meet up with, we aren't just academic colleagues, we've become friends, and suddenly I realized that these were the people that 30 years from now would be the senior scholars chatting about our partners and children and grandchildren. And I've also found, over the years, that the generational difference isn't quite as big as it seemed when I was more junior. Depending on the constellation of people, I know these senior scholar's partners, and know of their kids and grandkids, and they know mine, and know or know of Gwen, so we have the same non-academic conversations.
One reason that it's always a bit sad going back to Amsterdam is that so few of the people we knew while there are still there. Most of them were students, and they arrived around when we did and left around when we did. The academic life is so transient that you really can't ever go back -- it is the people, not the place, and the turnover of people at any given place is 4-6 years.
Gwen asks if Thomas is joining us for supper, and I laugh in part at how easily she has slotted him into our social circle. And then I marvel at the fact that she is right to do so. The people that we meet here are for the most part people who will be here for good, just like us. When we tell Gwen she might not be going to the same school as her best friend at nursery, Thomas C., there is a point to suggesting that we can still invite him over to her house to play, and that he might invite her over. After we move, he'll be about a 15-20 min. walk away, and his parents are also full-time, non-fixed-term (essentially, tenured) university faculty. They're unlikely to have to move or to have reason to move, especially while they've got a young child! There is no reason that they couldn't still be friends 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 25 years from now. And that's just not something you can even contemplate at many stages of the academic life. There was no point in trying to keep in touch with her friends at daycare in Heidelberg (even without the language barrier): They're unlikely to ever see each other again. Even if we go back to Heidelberg for a visit, the chances that their parents' are still there are so low.
It's just really nice to be able to think in terms of 5, 10, 15, 25 years rather than in terms of 6 months, 12 months, 24 months, especially when you're one who dislikes change as much as I do.
One of the things that sometimes still catches me by surprise about our current situation is how stable it is. It isn't just that I know where we'll be in another year or two, or what we'll be doing, I have a good idea where we'll be in another twenty years, and who I'll be doing it with. And when I realize that, it still takes my breath away.
Joel's birthday was yesterday, and Thursday we went out to eat to celebrate (we were going to go on his birthday, until we realized we had no groceries and nothing in the freezer...). In the morning, I told Gwen we were going to the Queen's Head for supper, and her comment was, "Is Thomas going to be there?" (not an unusual request, since we basically go to the Queen's Head for birthday dinners or to meet up with Thomas), and I laughed and said no, and thought about how quickly she has integrated the new people we've/she's met since moving into her life.
I remember my first few times going to ESMLS, how the senior scholars seemed so delighted to see each other, and not for academic reasons but for social reasons -- they were asking about each other's wives and kids and grandkids, and it seemed so...it's hard to describe it, it was both incredibly friendly and a bit exclusive, simply because as a young junior scholar you stand on the outskirts and realize that these people have been attending the same conferences, seeing each other every other year or so, for as long as you've been alive, and you know that by the time you've been around as long as they have, they'll be dead, so you'll never really be able to enter their circle, at least not in the same way.
And then it was maybe the very next one that I went to that I realized -- there are people at this conference that I only see every other year or so, but whom when we meet up with, we aren't just academic colleagues, we've become friends, and suddenly I realized that these were the people that 30 years from now would be the senior scholars chatting about our partners and children and grandchildren. And I've also found, over the years, that the generational difference isn't quite as big as it seemed when I was more junior. Depending on the constellation of people, I know these senior scholar's partners, and know of their kids and grandkids, and they know mine, and know or know of Gwen, so we have the same non-academic conversations.
One reason that it's always a bit sad going back to Amsterdam is that so few of the people we knew while there are still there. Most of them were students, and they arrived around when we did and left around when we did. The academic life is so transient that you really can't ever go back -- it is the people, not the place, and the turnover of people at any given place is 4-6 years.
Gwen asks if Thomas is joining us for supper, and I laugh in part at how easily she has slotted him into our social circle. And then I marvel at the fact that she is right to do so. The people that we meet here are for the most part people who will be here for good, just like us. When we tell Gwen she might not be going to the same school as her best friend at nursery, Thomas C., there is a point to suggesting that we can still invite him over to her house to play, and that he might invite her over. After we move, he'll be about a 15-20 min. walk away, and his parents are also full-time, non-fixed-term (essentially, tenured) university faculty. They're unlikely to have to move or to have reason to move, especially while they've got a young child! There is no reason that they couldn't still be friends 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 25 years from now. And that's just not something you can even contemplate at many stages of the academic life. There was no point in trying to keep in touch with her friends at daycare in Heidelberg (even without the language barrier): They're unlikely to ever see each other again. Even if we go back to Heidelberg for a visit, the chances that their parents' are still there are so low.
It's just really nice to be able to think in terms of 5, 10, 15, 25 years rather than in terms of 6 months, 12 months, 24 months, especially when you're one who dislikes change as much as I do.
