Did you catch that?
WE ARE LEAVING MY DEAR BELOVED ITHACA AND MOVING TO DUBAI.
Commence tears of weeping, and also squeals of excitement for lo, there have been many.
But let me back up and tell you the whole story. I've tried to think of all the ways I could write this in one post and be done with it, but there's just too much to say. I've had it all bottled up inside of me for 2.5 months so it's going to take a little while to decompress on the blog. It will probably take up three or four posts over the next week or two.
Some of you know bits and pieces or even large chunks of this story but no one knows the entire history except Jeremy and me, because we wrested it from chaos, together, in almost complete secrecy, with our own bare hands.
We knew from the moment Jeremy accepted the job at Cornell that it would probably not be a permanent move. His was a very good position but as far as the career path Jeremy was hoping for and planning on, Cornell could only ever be a stepping stone. That said, we thought we would spend a good few years at Cornell. In the meantime, we cultivated an idea of the kind of job that could lure him away from Cornell, should it ever come up. The plan was that the first year, Jeremy would only apply to jobs that met our criteria very specifically. The second year, he would apply to jobs a little less selectively, and so on, until he had achieved his goal of being advanced to a better position within a few years.
Meanwhile, we moved to Ithaca and fell in love with it. The green, the hiking, the seasons, the preschool, the friends, the quality road trips - even the winter, a little. And I didn't hesitate to embrace it all. I had decided from the beginning not to treat Ithaca as temporary because, first of all, I didn't think that would be a very healthy attitude, and second of all, it was entirely possible that we would be there for several years.
I hate to use the word "meanwhile" again, but obviously there were several layers of things going on so it will have to do. Meanwhile, Jeremy was scanning the job listings and picking out those that met our pre-established criteria. There ended up being three: one in Cairo, one in Beirut, and one in Dubai. The job in Beirut was a bit of a stretch from Jeremy's field of expertise, but hey, BEIRUT. So he applied to all three. And then we forgot all about it because if there's anything we learned from the job search the first time around, right out of his PhD program, it's that you really can't sit around waiting anxiously because these things take time. A lot of time. And some jobs you will never, ever hear back from, no matter how much you get your hopes up (I'm talking to YOU, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, circa Fall 2008). A friend of mine once described applying to jobs like going on casual dates, except after the one date (the application), you start imagining your engagement and your wedding and your house and the rest of your lives together...and then your date never calls back for a second outing.
So Jeremy applied, and then we went on with our lives and didn't seriously expect to hear anything back from Cairo, Beirut, or Dubai, ever.
But then we DID hear back, from one of them, at least. It was Dubai. And they wanted to meet with Jeremy for an interview.
To be continued...