In the past two months, we have driven from Kentucky to Michigan and back, twice, and all for very different reasons. Searching for an apartment, writing a thesis, moving, and vacationing have kept us too busy to write a blog… until now.
KENTUCKY: We mentioned in our last post that we spent a few weeks in Kentucky in May, house-sitting for some friends while finding an apartment of our own. What we did not mention was that I also had the privilege of going to Washington DC to speak at a Peace Corps sponsored kick-off event for a global partnership between USAID and Peace Corps focused on food security. Speaking on a panel to a crowd of a few hundred Peace Corps employees and other public officials, I shared some highlights of the food security work we were doing in Mali, including our task force. In addition to reconnecting with my former supervisors from Peace Corps Mali, I also met many international development professionals, including Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams (left in first picture) , who surprised me by telling me that he used to be a Peace Corps recruiter at Alma College, our undergraduate alma mater.
MICHIGAN: We then drove north, and I then spent the next two weeks subletting a room near Michigan State in order to work on my Master’s thesis. Naively, I’d hoped to finish it, but I didn’t even write a word. Instead, I spent the time meeting with professors, reading dozens of academic papers, and changing my thesis topic every other day. It was miserable, but my last day there we came up with an idea that is new, relevant, and feasible. Maybe another day, I’ll write a blog about what my thesis is about… but I’ll skip it for now.
KENTUCKY: On our next trip south involved a rental truck full with everything we owned, which was only a small storage unit worth of cardboard boxes. We moved into our apartment and discovered quickly that about half of these boxes were college textbooks, and that it did not include any furniture. So while Joye prepared for pharmacy school and I wrote my thesis, we also procured a mattress (our first with box springs), couch, television, and dining table (no chairs yet). While all this was accomplished during a heat wave, at least we got to enjoy the beautiful lawn outside our apartment window and a little creek nearby.
MICHIGAN: To beat the heat, we then travelled to northern Michigan to spend the 4th of July in my hometown of Harbor Springs, a coastal community on the shore of Lake Michigan with a population that quintuples every Independence Day with a crowd wearing khaki shorts and polo shirts. When we weren’t relaxing at the beach, we helped my folks clean out the house as they too are moving. As it was probably the last time we will visit Harbor Springs for a while, it was nostalgic week, but one that was filled with plenty of new memories.
KENTUCKY: And finally, we returned to our apartment in Kentucky today - already it feels like home. The next chapter of our life is set to begin. I will be officially starting work at the University of Kentucky next Monday as a research economist, and Joye begins classes next month. Soon we will start speaking with a drawl. While this will be very different than how we were living only a few months ago, it is a welcome change, and after so much travelling we are excited for some routine – though who knows how long that will last.
I hope this catches us up. Thanks for reading.
-James (& Joye)
