Another 15,000 miles

Just back to Butare today after a 10 day trip to South Carolina. Not a lot has changed here since I left except that it has been raining ever since I landed last night. I guess the rainy season has really settled in. I finally read all three of my bachelor student's theses on the plane yesterday. It is a relief to have that done. I gave up on trying to get them not to plagiarize. I know that must sound horrible, but I can't tell you how many times we have gone through what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, replete with threats (by me) of expulsion and apologies (from them) and promises never to do it again. And I only had 3 student theses to supervise! Some professors have 10 or more. Anyway, all I can do is hope that the theses never see the light of day and get filed somewhere that no one can read them. Plagiarism here is too systematic for me to extirpate. Maybe I can just try and reduce it a bit.

South Carolina was a whirlwind. Working during the day and trying to meet with different people while I was in town and then house-hunting from 4pm on- every day of the week. It wasn't exactly relaxing. Although it was nice to have family come for a visit (Okan's dad and my mom). And I did get to enjoy the Waffle House on numerous occasions.  I think we're going to like Clemson but it will definitely take some getting used to. Clemson is super small and we probably tried at least half of the restaurants that they have just in our 10 day visit. Although of course anything/everything is a step up from Butare! We found a house in Seneca (just 5 minutes from Clemson) that we really liked and made the gigantic step to put a bid on it. I just found out from Okan that the bid was basically accepted (we offered $25K less than the asking price and they countered with only a $5K increase). We had such a difficult time deciding on a house. Okan and I are both super indecisive and as first time home buyers we felt very unsure of ourselves. But we finally decided that while it's bigger than we wanted, it was very competitively priced and had almost everything we wanted in a house. We're both so excited about the house! We feel like such grown ups! We hope the deal goes through and that we'll get lots of visitors.

I miss Okan a lot. It's so lonely here without him. Rwanda is definitely less fun without him. I went to the ice cream shop today and had an omelet, which made me sad, because we always split omelets! All the ice cream shop people asked where he was and I had to tell them he was in America.

While I was in South Carolina, Okan and I went round and round about whether I should take this trip to New Zealand in December. I had been planning for this conference since my paper was accepted back in April (well before the job offer). I had planned on using my frequent flyer miles for the flight and was excited to see another country. Okan was also planning on coming. But after starting at work last week, I started to seriously doubt whether the trip was feasible. Everything looked too stressful: go back to Rwanda, finish field work, return to NYC, move, and then go to New Zealand all in the span of 2 months. I even told my new boss (who knew about this conference when he hired me) that I was hesitant to go because I didn't want it to seem like I wasn't committed to this new job, etc. More than a little part of me was hoping he would agree and veto the trip. Then I could take it off my plate and feel a little more relaxed about this fall/winter. Much to my surprise, he took the exact opposite tact and encouraged me to go as professional development! So it looks like I'm going for sure now. Of course it will be a good opportunity to go and present my work and network at the conference but now I can't help but wonder what I've gotten myself into. Yet again. It's something I need to work on. Everyone who knows me recognizes that I have too much on my plate. I know that it's true. But I feel like every year that goes by I let myself get into these impossible predicaments with too much work, too many commitments, and I am increasingly spread thin. I guess maybe that will be my New Year's resolution: to be more proactive of protecting my time and stop over committing myself. So if you have invited Okan or I to come visit in the next few months, don't take it personally if I don't come!