Oregon visit retrospective and related reflections

[jrtom]

Megan and I spent the last week in Oregon, mostly around Portland. During that time we attended two baby showers for Megan (one thrown by her family, one thrown by friends), spent Thanksgiving with her family, attended two birthday events (one Megan's, one a friend's), and a bunch of miscellaneous social events and hangings-out.

We now have more onesies than the mind can comfortably encompass. (Registering for stuff for our wedding worked out pretty well; while we did get a number of things we neither wanted nor needed, people generally did pay attention to our registry. Registering for baby stuff resulted in an almost complete no-hitter, although in fairness we did ask for gift certificates so that we wouldn't have to haul or ship a ridiculous amount of stuff back to California: we got three items off the list, out of about 50 or so. Oh, and we had to borrow a giant duffel to get everything that we did get back to CA. *sigh*)

I like going to graduate school at UC Irvine: I have a good--sometimes great--advisor, I get paid decently for a student, I get to work (mostly) on what I want to work on, the intellectual environment is great, and I can work from home. (Which is crucial to our plans as of the end of January...) But I grow increasingly frustrated over the fact that UCI is, well, in Southern California--a place in which I actually have a negative interest in living. Yes, there are lots worse places. But I miss the Pacific Northwest, and Oregon in particular, for a myriad reasons, large and small, and I'd like to be done now, please.

Comments

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I believe that Dad was pursuing a Master's degree, not a Ph.D. Which is, again, a different animal: sort of a Ph.D. writ small (unless you're doing a course Master's).

And the other thing that I meant to mention: the plan is that I am going to be the primary caregiver for the baby while working on research at home, and that Megan will go back to work after a couple of months (at least until I've finished and have a job elsewhere). Which strikes me as a very different situation from what Dad had. I mean, yeah, Dad may have some useful insight--he usually does--but our situations really aren't very comparable.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Dad was primary caregiver while Mom and Sis (and I) were working, and it was a PhD in bioethics.

Up to you, but there are more parallels than you may realize.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Okay, I checked with Dad--MA. My memory grows hazy in my old age.