How did I get here? Part One

I still sometimes wake up and say to myself, "you are in pennsylvania now. this is not idaho." And then I answer, "I know. it's ok."


And I still often mentally review how I ended up here. Here in Langhorne, Pennsylvania with a husband working in Princeton, New Jersey.

I'll start as close to the beginning as is reasonable. I have begun to think that this move was in the works for many years, but I will start in July.

Husband guy had begun seriously looking for jobs. Oh, he had been saying for months that he needed to be applying for jobs. And I agreed. No way to know how long a librarian is going to have to search for a job before he's hired in this economy. And I'll admit it, I was nervous. Stressing. I'm sure he was, too, but I can't speak for him. He was finishing his final term to complete his masters in library and information science and it was keeping him busy. But he made the time. He applied. He had probably 3 or 4 resumes out there when he came upon a job posting for a social science librarian at the Princeton University library. And the position closed soon. He came to bed one night saying he had applied for it. Great. I was thrilled to hear about every job he applied for.

This was appoximately July 11th. The next day, July 12th, Jeremy was in his office and I was in the kitchen when the phone rang. I went and looked at the caller ID. It said "Princeton University."

I answered it. The man at the other end asked for Jeremy. I gave Jeremy the phone.

The man, Alan Napier, told Jeremy that his application had made it through the first round of eliminations and that they would like to do a phone interview with him. Jeremy was told that someone would be calling him to schedule this phone interview, but that Alan was just calling to let him to know that would be happening. Good job, you made it this far.

Jeremy thanked him and hung up the phone. From that moment, I never stopped thinking about the Princeton job, wondering if he would get it.

It was not until July 14th that someone called to schedule the phone interview. It was Jasmin. She arranged for Jeremy to get a phone call on Thursday, July 22nd at 9:15am. He would be talking with Alan Napier, Bobray Bordelon, and Nancy Pressman-Levy.

The morning of the interview, I got the boys out of the house. We went to Jazzercise. I tried to concentrate on exercising while I really could only think about how Jeremy was doing. But before the class was even over at 10:00am, he had called to say he was finished.

We raced home. He told me all about it. He felt he had done OK. The first part, where they asked him questions, had not been wonderful. He felt he had totally flubbed it on one of their questions. And answered a bit weakly on one or two others. Then, when it was time for him to ask questions, he felt better. He had asked intelligent things, there had been a good discussion on a few points and he had learned many interesting things.

He told me all he remembered about what his interviewers told him about Princeton and its library. About the job itself. How Princeton hasn't been hurt by the economy the way most other libraries have, how the collection of books and other information is world class and unfathomably large, how the budget for acquiring new materials in the politics segment of the social sciences is generous and it would be his duty to spend it all. How the position is mostly aimed at providing Princeton students with one-on-one research help. How being able to teach is key. How they needed someone who could start immediately, really--hoping to have someone there as early as Labor Day, if possible.

And everything he told me made me want that job for him even more.

That same day, July 22nd, about 1 or 2pm, the phone rang again. The caller ID again said "Princeton University." Jeremy answered it. It was Jasmin. She was calling because the interviewers wanted her to schedule a time when Jeremy could come for a face-to-face interview, if he was still interested. Was he still interested?

Yes, yes he was.

***I'm dividing this into a couple of parts because the posts would be unbearably long for you readers if I didn't.