During the months of August and September, not a whole lot of travel was done so I have decided to combine the two months into one post. Many interesting things happened during this time, but not a lot that I have photos of and since text alone tends to get pretty tedious, I decided that unless I can throw in some pretty pictures (and possibly some weblinks) , I won't spend too much time on what I've been doing the past two months.
In August, I officially resigned from my job at NCSU, ending a decade of existence on that campus in one facet or another -- excepting a couple of years when I was living in the UK -- and it was a fairly emotional moment for me. But it wasn't that emotional because I went on to a position at Duke University which is very similar to what I was doing before, but, you know, with more money. It's also a bit of a promotion.
Duke is much more convenient to where I'm now living in Creedmoor, NC with Edoardo.
We are renting a lovely three-bedroom house with an enormous yard (Edo would agree... he has to mow it) plus Cathedral ceilings in the Master and living room and even a wood-burning fireplace.
We love the house and the yard (read: I realize this is in direct contradiction to my recent comment about the yard; let me qualify it by saying we love the yard when Edo doesn't have to mow it), but it's a bit far out so when our lease it up next Summer, we'll probably move back into town.
Anyway, since my last day at NCSU was on August 18th, we spent that weekend with some family near Charlotte. We stayed with my Grandmother who lives on a lake in Norwood, NC (it's one of those sleepy, blink-and-you'll-miss-it towns that's great for when you want to get away and relax) and we enjoyed sitting by the lake and catching up on all the gossip. I've discovered that my Grandmother and I are really a lot alike -- even more than I had thought. We share many of the same opinions about issues relevant to the family and to life in general, and we seem to respect the differences of opinion that we do have. We also saw her friend Henry, who Edo has trouble understanding because of his thick Southern accent, but Henry has trouble understanding Edo's thick Italian accent as well. In fact, it was quite comical watching them try to communicate while my grandmother and I prepared lunch. We had a giggle over that.
We also briefly stopped by to see my Uncle Kyle and Aunt Mitzi, neither of whom I have seen in years. They live only a few doors down from my grandmother so it was very convenient.
The night we stayed in Norwood, we drove to nearby Charlotte for dinner with my cousin Brenda, who has the music in her soul! If the time at the lake was relaxing and tranquil, the time in Charlotte was like a whirlwind! But we had a great time chatting and watching people walking around downtown. We ate at Rock Bottom Brewery which has great food and is a great place to hang out and people-watch. The one thing I really dislike about the Raleigh-Durham area is the lack of an exciting downtown. Charlotte's downtown is a lot of fun (they call it "Uptown" for some reason) and I would like to be able to have a place like that to go.
The following Thursday, I started my new position as Assistant International Student and Scholar Adviser at Duke, and I'm really enjoying it so far. Everyone is really nice and funny; nobody takes life too seriously here even though we're doing very serious work (but hey, you have to laugh once in a while). People have a witty, sarcastic sense of humor and not a day goes by when someone in this office doesn't have me in stitches with laughter. Some days I think it's a matter of survival... one of those "if you don't laugh, you'll cry" kinda things, but generally speaking people seem to be really happy here.
Fast forward a few weeks to the middle of September, and my divorce came through! A huge thank you to Pam from NCSU Student Legal Services; I couldn't have done it without her. I'm currently in the process of trying to re-establish myself with my maiden name, but that will take a little while to be complete. But at least I'm finally free to live my life the way I want to, and I don't feel quite so weird living with my boyfriend since I'm now divorced :) I found that when you're filling out those "optional" equal opportunity questionnaires and they ask you about your living situation, there's strangely no option for "separated and living with partner". go figure. In fact, almost all of them fit me: married (check), separated (check), divorced (almost), living with partner (check), single (kinda). So at least that cleaned up that little portion of my private life.
Last but not least, last Saturday was my 10 year high-school reunion. We're not going to get into how old that makes me feel, but the whole experience was a sort of emotional catharsis for me. I'm sure the alcohol helped. The night went the way I had hoped it would: the cliques kinda dissolved although naturally people were more interested in catching up with old friends than with people they never spoke to in high school, and that's fair enough. Most people were very friendly and the ones who weren't, well it just didn't matter. If someone didn't want to speak to me, I really didn't care the way I did in high school. I guess all that teen angst has more to do with the high school experience than the fact that I went to Broughton, which is notorious for being snotty and clique-ish. However, Jen's husband Scott did mention at one point in the night that it looked like the Young Republicans convention in there. People can change, but they don't change that much I guess.
Some highlights of the night: having a drink with Jen, Scott and Kristy Lee at Nana's Chophouse across the street from Ess Lounge where the reunion was being held (that eased the pain, I'm sure); seeing James Little, Michael Kennedy, and Matt Meares who I always remembered as the "nice guys" and they're still nice; hanging out with all my old friends who I haven't seen in years like Kristine Vallila, Matt Sims, Erin Maynard, and Emily Howell (who, by the way, looks fabulous and is probably the only person there who looked significantly different than in high school); and finally, being spoken to kindly by people who never bothered to talk to me in high school and a. not thinking "ugh, you loser... you ignored me in high school so why are you talking to me now?" because I'm a bigger person than that, and b. not caring about the people who still didn't bother to talk to me... I can now look on these kind of situations and think that the problem isn't me, it's them. And I couldn't do that back in high school. So I enjoyed myself even though it probably won't go into my books as the greatest party ever; it was nice to catch up with people and realize that most people can grow out of their high school attitude (and laugh at the few who didn't!)
Until next time....
Tiffani
