Okay, so y'all are reassuring me that I probably can make friends okay if we move, so that's good. But I do love Chicago, and I'm so settled here, with good friends and a great S. Asian artistic community that's just getting off the ground. The only place I think I'd actually be eager to move to would be the Bay Area, for the combination of lots of friends there and Kevin's family. Which doesn't mean that a lot of other places wouldn't be good options too -- they just don't seem as immediately appealing as staying right here. (The Bay Area, btw, is a slim possibility, with job applications in at Stanford (v. unlikely long shot) and Davis.)
The job stuff is all just so unclear right now. The Oxford job isn't quite as high-level as his current job, and they still haven't told us exactly what the salary etc. details are, so right now, we're in limbo, waiting to find out whether job-wise this would actually be an improvement even just for Kevin, much less for all of us. Hopefully soon.
Also coming in the next few days, supposedly, is a concrete offer from UIC (Kevin's current employer) which hopefully will include both a raise and possibly some sort of part-time teaching for me. Once we know that, it'll make it easier to make decisions.
Kev's been e-mailing the other places he applied, but most of them are replying saying that they just haven't started their deliberations yet and don't know anything. So it's likely that we'll have to decide about England before we know about the other jobs. He's applied about fifteen places (most in the U.S., a few in Canada), and I've applied to schools near those.
Looking back, in 2004 I got my first interview request on Nov 22, the second on Nov 27, the third on the 29th, and then a wave of them. Should I be worried that I haven't gotten any interview requests yet? Maybe not quite yet, but I'm starting to get a bit nervous. Am I less desirable now than I was two years ago? One short story collection out, to very good reviews and poor sales. Thankfully, academics tend not to care about sales. One new arts council grant, possibly impressive? One novel, still under contract....
Baby's doing fine, by the way. Every once in a while I go on Amazon and look at baby stuff. I'm not ready to start a registry yet or anything like that -- there's clearly tons of research to do before we can make any decisions about what kind of crib or car seat or whatever we should get. And it still somehow feels a bit too early to start really buying stuff. I have a totally irrational fear that I'll jinx this if I start acting like it's really happening. Maybe it'll all feel more concrete once I actually have a tummy (that's clearly baby-related and not just flab). I know that'll be annoying in terms of getting dressed, but I still can't wait. I want visible signs.