Library Crisis 2009

So, we're moving from Madison to Orange County at the end of the year, because my husband (which still feels really weird to day, since we've been married less than a month) got a job, which in this economy is nothing to shake a stick at and, theoretically, at least, I can dissertate from anywhere. And since my department currently can't offer job security, and even if they could I still exist below the poverty line. So, he took the job offer, which puts him on the career path, and that's great.

But I've been having a lot of anxiety about the move. I think that most of it stems from my fears about leaving the liberal, academic bubble (having gone from Berkeley to Madison has really kept me in that world), and not having a world completely structured around those things that I do.

Especially the fact that I can't get to a library. I like to think that is my biggest problem, because getting a book from another library could be my demise. So I was talking to my advisor about it, and she reassured me that my anxiety was a productive one and gave me a whole list of things to do to inquire about getting borrowing privileges elsewhere. And it made me feel a bit better.

The good, even great news? I went to my campus library's main circulation office and they let me know that since I'll be paying dissertator fees and doing independent study, I'll still be a student and therefore I can use "distance services," something that is FREE and will deliver any book to my house, including a pre-paid return envelope, for free. AND I can request article delivery electronically. And they said that, as far as ILL (inter-library loans) services, our library let's anyone who lives in the area pay like $30 to use the services, so I should be able to find something comparable at the university libraries in the area, at the very least.

And so it made me feel a lot better. Even though I know I'll have to be a lot more disciplined, but I am just relieved to know my options.


- Blogging from BlogPress on my iphone.

outside the gate.

Okay, so I'm moving back to the west coast after five years of grad school in about four months, because I'm going to be a dissertator and I don't have a job guarantee and my soon-to-be-husband already has a job lined up (because accounting is something that happens regardless of the state of the economy and the enrollment of students in foreign language classes) and, well, I can write a dissertation from anywhere. Especially somewhere that below zero sounds like a make-believe temperature, right?

Except I'm really nervous. It's not a new place to live. I grew up in the same area where we'll be living, so it's not a matter of feeling out of place physically; maybe I would prefer that, though, because I felt out of place when I experienced my first real winter and realized I didn't actually know what a coat was. But there was an easy enough solution for that -- buy a coat where the weather is cold, because they'll sell something much more weather-ready.

So it's not that.  It's just that, well, I've been in academia for a while and I'm nervous that I will feel completely out of my element, without people to make erudite academic jokes and to discuss research or dissertation woes...am I being ridiculous? I've got loads of time to worry about this, and I should be worrying about the 125 item list looming in the ever-nearing future.