on leaving

I am not good at leaving places. The summer before I started high school, my team spent a long week in Pulaski, Tennessee, a wretched place. We slept on hard tiled classroom floors, the only good thing about which was that the tile was cool at night, and summers in middle Tennessee are blazing. We played basketball for 10 or 12 hours a day and got sick on long john silvers fish. I got kicked out of a game for fighting with a girl who weighed way more than me, and our coach yelled and yelled and yelled at me and our point guard, the only two rising freshmen who would (he could only hope at the time) become starters that year. I should have been miserable--it was objectively miserable--but I cried when we left.

When I left for Illinois from central PA in the summer of 2000 to start my new job as an assistant professor, with my new (to me) whippet Jada rolled up in the back seat next to my big television, I went off the road a couple of times because my vision was all blurry and watery. State College had been so good to me.

When I left Illinois the first time (and yeah, yeah, as one colleague helpfully pointed out, I know we can't come back again), I was totally fine, quietly excited even, until I went to give my office keys to the secretary, a sweet woman who had just started working in the English department. One moment I was cheerfully offering her my keys, and the next moment I was sobbing so uncontrollably that her eyes filled with tears. Before that day, she had never even met me.

All this is to say what some of you already know: we are moving. I told my last phd advisee yesterday, and appropriately it was the most wrenching of the conversations. Let's just say there were, once again, tears, and I have been mopey ever since. If I think about how great my Aristotle students have been this semester, I'm afraid I'll break down even more.

JM and I are very, very excited about where we are going (Penn State), but the joy of going to a great department where rhetoric is cheered by department heads and higher-ups alike, and where there are hills to bike and hike, and where there is my favorite indian restaurant ever, and where E! and Z will both be seven or eight hours closer, still does not make it any easier, any less heartbreaking, to leave a wonderful place with such smart, good people and great friends.

Comments

[collin]

Congrats!!

c

[Michelle S.]

I had heard rumors, and am sad they are true. Happy for you and JM, sad that you are moving... I know that you both will love PS.

MDS

[jenny]

I personally look forward to hearing updates about my favorite PSU faculty member. I won't mention names, but I'll just say that this person is stylin' a shaggy beard and a wardrobe from 1972. Boy could that guy make a faculty meeting interesting. I miss him so much . . .

[mindy]

Congrats! And they say you can't go back...gives me hope:)

[Leslea]

So it really is the end of an era... Good thing I didn't stay or move back to UIUC to be with you!!! I'm really excited for you and JM. PSU is a great place & you'll have a wonderful time there. Hopefully I'll see you in SF soon, but I'll definitely see you in Happy Valley in the spring b/c I'll be there for a workshop in April. Congrats on the move!!! and good luck with all the logistic-y things. - mp

[Joshie Juice]

Happiness is always a hard won thing, and in general, isn't knowable without its opposite. Congratulations on your new positions. I'm sure you find comfort in knowing you are loved and others are sad to see you go, and in the fact that, as a full professor, you'll be helping even more students more ways than were open to you as an associate. You RAWK!

[Becky Howard]

Such. happy. news. And so well deserved.

[LK]

Completely devastated for us, completely happy for you and JM. We'll miss you so much!!

[chris]

Full prof already? Is that normal!? Daaang!!
Super cool! Congrats.

[Sue Wells]

Pennsylvania, mother of rhetoricians. Great to have you back as a neighbor!

[Sue Wells]

Pennsylvania, mother of rhetoricians. Great to have you back as a neighbor!

[7deadlycyns]

Who WANTS to go back again? Yeah, I still have moments where I miss things about CU, but they pass. Mostly I miss the people we were close with, and many of them aren't there anymore. (And now, MORE of them won't be there anymore.)

Congratulations on the promotion that comes with the move, btw. Clearly the best way to get such a thing, imho.

[Bill]

Good for you. Many many congratulations.

[Kory]

Congrats! I hadn't heard.

Like CC, I miss the people more than the place, though I sometimes pine for the cheap housing market in CU.

[cbd]

Congratulations. Well-deserved.

[caraf]

Sigh. Insert happy/frowny face and requisite happy-for-you-sad-for-us thoughts and feelings here...

[dave's not here]

glad to hear and sorry to hear -- they are both of the same emotional cloth, no? many blessings on the move!

[dave's not here]

glad to hear and sorry to hear -- they are both of the same emotional cloth, no? many blessings on the move!

[davetell]

Congrats! India Pavilion per chance? Or the place by the bus station? I miss State College a lot too.

[Z]

Just for the record: you will be a full NINE hours closer to me (according to Google maps anyway). And less than 3.5 hours away by car. (It's a very weird route too, along Rt 22. Maybe it's scenic, even. Not the Harrisburg part.) Not to mention the 20 minutes flight that goes a couple times a day. Woo-hoo! Weekend jaunts!

I will warn you: I totally miss C-U in precisely the mawkish way you describe, so you're screwed.

[rhosa]

wooooooo-hooooooooo!!!!!!!

[Ted Striphas]

Bummer--at least for those of us in Indiana. It was really nice having you "local." Congrats on the move, though, which I'm sure is a step in the right direction for you & JM.

[dew]

Bummer to hear, DH (since I'm at UI); but I'm glad you're keen on the move. Have a great time at PSU!!!!!

[Oronte]

I hardly knew ye, and my loss. But it's been a comfort knowing you're there. Also, you give good candy, or so the boys say. Congratulations on your enormous good news, and very best wishes from all the Churms.

[parrhesia]

I'm so glad I got to spend time with you at UIUC before you move on to PSU! Congrats to you and JM. Enjoy the transition and all the new things ahead of you! If you need some boxes, drive on down . . . .