Trips

I have been planning lots of upcoming trips recently and am learning one of the downsides to living in New Paltz.  While the location is great in many respects (near NYC, beautiful Hudson Valley, two bigger cities of Kingston and Poughkeepsie nearby, small town charm, etc), the worst has got to be transportation.  It is right off the NY Thruway, which is nice for driving some places, but otherwise it kinda stinks to try to get anywhere.  My nearby airport is pretty small and flights in and out of it are limited and more expensive.  I could drive an hour to Albany or figure out how to get to NYC airports, but neither of those is a fun way to add time to a trip.

My definite upcoming trip is for my official graduation ceremony at UT at the end of May.  I know that most people don't participate, especially if they graduated many months before as I did.  But I think it is a nice excuse for a trip back, and my mom of course wants to see the ceremony.  Also, when I was incoming and outgoing Graduate Student Assembly President I got to precess in and sit on the stage for both the graduate school ceremony and big university-wide ceremony at the tower.  The tower ceremony is pretty fun, and grad students get to sit in the front row.  The grad school ceremony actually was a big motivation for me when I was too ensconced in all the administrative stuff; it made me want to graduate myself and join them.  Plus, I actually know all the people whose hands you shake when you cross the stage!

I am pretty excited about visiting Austin again.  I am definitely missing out on the food, particularly Mexican food.  I have started trying to make a lot of things that I never did before.  Somehow restaurant food just tastes better though, probably because it is unhealthy.  And, for those who know what I'm talking about, Tom is trying to arrange a boat party during my visit.  Fun!  I unfortunately (?) won't get a chance to do any work with my advisor or anyone during the trip.  I give my last final exam here the day before I leave (and I will miss the New Paltz graduation ceremony), and I am leaving Monday morning for the next trip...

Key West!  My mom has a house down there and has been encouraging me to visit again for a while.  Unfortunately having a job puts a damper on that.  Fortunately I have chosen a profession in which I get summers off!  Woohoo!  I am sooo looking forward to summer.  Of course I have a ton of work to get done over the summer (research, class prep, etc.), but I can make my own schedule at least.  Anyway, back to Key West.  One of my friends from Austin moved to DC and has basically been adopted by my mom.  He and his fiance are getting married down in KW.  I'm going to head down for the wedding and all the preparations the week before.  It's going to be super fun!  I probably also will be driving down to Virginia right after that for my mom's birthday and step-mother's master's graduation ceremony.  I should have rolled it all into one trip, but I just don't like being away from my house for that long (3+ weeks)

I am really looking forward to that trip - Austin and Key West together.  Unfortunately flying out of my small airport and doing a multi-stop flight involving the tiny and remote airport of Key West means that this flight is unbelievably expensive.  It really sucks.  I guess living in Austin I got used to shelling out money for lots of trips, but now I prefer to do things like pay my mortgage.  So this means that I probably won't get to do two more trips that I really want to do.  The first is another Austin trip.  The honor society that I am a member of, the Friar Society, is having its reunion weekend in April.  I really enjoy the ceremony of it and seeing and meeting so many truly wonderful people.  The whole experience is always inspiring.  And they coordinated it to be the same day as UT's Student Leader Reunion, which would be more people to see.  But with flights around $500 out of my small airport, and no time to go to a different one, I don't think that's going to happen.  Sad.

The other trip that I will probably miss out on is going to Charlottesville for the Foxfield races with my UVa friends also in April.  You may recall that I went last year and its always a great time and a good chance to connect with my friends from undergrad.  Unfortunately it is actually easier in some ways to get there from Austin than from New Paltz.  A flight from my small airport to the small Cville airport is expensive.  It is oddly even more expensive to fly to DC.  It's a 6 hour drive to DC and another 2 to Cville.  And a train ride would only be a little bit shorter and would involve a switch in NYC.   Since I would have to leave Friday and come back Sunday that means a lot of traveling for not much vacation.  Lame again.  If only these other trips were over the summer so I could stretch them out and justify the costs.  I might push to make this trip happen though.

I am happy at least to have one big vacation coming up.  Being a professor has some definite bonuses schedule-wise in getting the summer off, but conversely you can't just take time off during the school year because you have to teach classes.  Meanwhile I have about a month left before I have finished my first year as a professor - crazy!