Arrival in exile

This is a beginning of sorts. It is an ending of sorts. It's also sort of like hitting the "pause" button on your DVR.

Last May, I graduated with Ph.D. in political science from a rather high-end program in the Midwest. After two years of searching and sending out roughly 100 applications, I have failed to find a job. Out of options, without a prospect of feeding myself for the short term and no clear career path for the long term, I moved to Houston three weeks ago to live with my fiance. She is a lovely, smart woman who has an MD from a high-end program at the same Midwestern school and a year-long gig at a major hospital in town here. I'm extraordinarily grateful to be with her, but as a child of the Midwest, I am in an unexplored country -- and this place that is most certainly not home in any sense of the word.

The politics, city planning, the weather and the attitude of this state are all foreign to me. This fall will be the first time I have not been teaching undergraduates in eight years, and coincidentally, the first time I haven't had a paycheck for an extended period of time. I'm still working on research, but I'm cut off from easy access to much of the academic community I've grown to rely on over the last decade. In multiple states of being, I am in exile from much of what I know and love.  

This blog is my commentary on my predicament, and reflections of how it fits in with the bigger picture of the world around us.