Relocation, Relocation: Durham

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Right now I live in Edinburgh, but I'm in a PhD program at Durham University. Here's how this happened.

After graduating from UNC, I just wanted to move back to Edinburgh to be around my spiritual community that had shown me such great love while I had studied abroad. This meant me applying for a Masters of Science program in Medieval Studies. The program itself was an absolute joke, but it fulfilled its purpose: it got me back to Edinburgh and now I must be officially addressed as "NJM, MSc". Well, once my year-long program was up, I wanted to stay in the UK, but had no idea how. Idiotically, I could have applied for a post-study work visa, but this didn't occur to me.

Instead, while writing an essay for my MSc on "Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval Romance" I realized that the subject fascinated me and that the leading person in this field was at Durham (who just happens to be the head of department). In a fit of madness I applied. In June. For a course that would begin in October. This was Durham, like one of the top 3 Universities in the British nation (or near it), and the Number 1 program in all the country for English Literature. I laughed at my abysmal attempt to get in, and doubted very much I would be accepted.

Well August rolled around, and I was just beginning to wonder how I could stay in the country, considering what I would give up for a green card (or whatever the Britain equivalent is) when I decided to give Durham a call just to check, to make sure, for certain, I didn't get in. When the woman told me I should have received my acceptance letter a few weeks ago, I had to ask her to repeat herself about 10 times and to make sure that they had the right person.

At this point, I had already begged the people I nanny for to continue my job and the thought of leaving Edinburgh and the lovely family I work for, my church, and my flat and friends, horrified me to no bounds. I decided that since PhDs in the UK are pretty much self-propelled, I could commute when I needed to.

So that's that. For the past 5 months, I've gone down to Durham to meet my advisor when I need to, see some friends from my college, and attend the MEMSA seminars. Occasionally I'll even get to go to a formal. For the most part, this long distance thing has been doable.

Not so for next year. I'll begin teaching classes (!!), and if I'm going to take myself seriously as an academic (and who knows if that's going to happen considering how bad my MSc was), I need to at least try: show my face at events, work at these papers, help at conferences, etc. etc. So I've had to face that I'll have to move from beloved Edinburgh and make the transition to Durham.

How, when, or where, I have no idea. Considering how crazy this spring semester will roll, I'm thinking it'll likely be mid-summer. Keep me in your thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes as the idea seems to grow more daunting every day. Thank goodness I have the ever-affectionate, worshipful, almost dog-like nature of --- who am I kidding? Those bunnies don't even know I exist. Such a Machiavellian relationship.