I won't say "oh my." Nearly six years ago, The Prof and I moved to "lovely" Northwestern PA to begin his academic career. After seven years of graduate school and three years of a post doc (post-doctoral research), he was more than ready to begin making a name for himself in his profession. During the first three years, I lived 250 miles away while attending law school. This arrangement, although hard, helped The Prof focus on his work. He spent long days creating lectures, running experiments, grading tests, quizzes, lab reports and homework, and writing papers to be submitted to peer reviewed journals. In the meantime, I studied, drank, and drank some more. We traveled weekends to see each other and I spent my summers at home. Despite being tough and certainly not ideal, it worked. I graduated from law school, returned home to study for the bar, and found a job.
For the last two years, The Prof continued his hard work and published probably more papers during his tenure track than any other young professor in his department to date. Plus he began collaborating with professors at larger universities and seems to be making a name for himself in his field, whatever field that is. I mean come on, I finally learned (and was disappointment to hear) that he does not actually work with lasers. Damn! How cool would it be to play with lasers all day? I can hear Lorraine making her little gun noises Pe-uw! Peeuw! She is such a girl.
So now that we are drawing to a close in the whole hectic tenure process, the celebrations are about to begin. First is the party. I plan on inviting a somewhat small group to a party at our FAVORITE Mexican restaurant. I salivate just thinking about their food. Although the Prof is like me and does not enjoy attention, I think he does deserve several pats on the back. The party will be in a May, meaning I have to start saving up, and I desperately need to think about the invitation list. The Who's Who of our friends will be there! With a red carpet! And the paparazzi! Or something like that. Of course I will leave someone out and it will suck and I will look like the Ice Queen Bitch or something but who cares. It's his party and I'll be a snob if I want to. So there. Meh. There are some people who will not be invited for personal reasons and I cannot go into it here, although I would like to name names, point fingers, and give certain people the smack down, but I won't. I play nice or at least I try.
What is probably the more exciting part is the Trip. The Trip. At the end of August, we will be taking a two week trip to Scandinavia. We will drive to Boston, stay with his father, and then fly on Iceland Air to Reykjavik, Iceland for two days. In elementary school, I had a good friend, Harold, from Iceland who I would love to see again. Of course I can't remember his last name so I might have my mother do a research project back in SB, Vermont and see what she can conjure up. It's a long shot but it's nice to have friends in odd places. Plus I have been following Doin' Time in Erie, PA blog because she and Sailor Man recently took a trip to Iceland. Her Iceland Chronicles could seriously be the beginnings of a travel book.
Next we will embark on our next leg of our trip to Oslo, Norway. We will probably head straight for the fjords and perhaps spend the night in a quaint little town. I know that I will get that nervous bum feeling being near such heights but I'll try not to pass out, vomit, or act like a chicken. Does anyone else get that feeling when near heights? That weird sensation where you feel like your legs will give out from under you? No? We will then return to Oslo and see the sights, look for the cool parts of town, eat traditional Norwegian food, and take in a museum with time permitting. Yeah, we are cramming everything in but who knows the next time we will be in this part of the world.
Our travels will take us east to Sweden where we will hook up with one of my good friends from college who returned to her home country after living in the United States for ten years. Hopefully, she will take us to all the cool places, introduce us to hospitable Swedes (read: people who will feed and house us), and spend good quality time with us. I plan on buying tons of decorative Scandinavian items because I love the coolness (not hip cool, but decorative cool or whatever, you know what I mean) and simple lines of the furniture. I somehow doubt I'll be able to fit a dining room table and chairs in my backpack.
I believe while we are in Malmo visiting her parents, The Prof will insist on going to Copenhagen to visit the Bohr Museum. Hopefully my friend will be with me because the last time I went to the Einstein exhibit with him and another college friend, he spent FIVE HOURS reading every paper on display. He even read the papers in German. And he doesn't speak German. I fear the same will happen at the Bore Bohr Museum so my friend better be there or I'll have a stroke. No really, I will have a fit and throw myself to the ground. I'm mature that way. And incredibly impatient. And borderline ADD. Can anyone spend that much time looking at an exhibit or I'm really shallow? Don't answer that.
Crap, this post is really long. I think I will continue it tomorrow so the two of my faithful readers will come back.
