Madison, WI

Exactly a month has passed since I started my new job inside this building shown. On the side of this red door, it is overlooking a hill, and on the other side, it is overlooking Lake Mendota. Unfortunately, my office does not have a window so I do not get distracted by a beautiful view of the lake. It is a wonderful view to see after a long day at work.

I have envisioned this transition from student to professor, from New York City to Madison, WI as a drastic change that is going to somehow hit me one day and immobilize me. However, the transition has been much smoother, I quickly and comfortably started my work in the department, and absolutely enjoy the work that I do here. I do not miss the hustle and bustle of NYC as much as I thought I would, where things that I miss are more associated with people and memories, and not places. As I read about context dependent nature of Japanese for research, I wonder about how my being Japanese may be contributing to the way I make sense of my transition.

My position at UWMadison is a very unique one, where I have a luxury of making it to be what I want it to be, except for the courses I have to teach. I teach two classes now that I absolutely enjoy, and do to the nature of classes, it takes up about two full days in preparation and meetings with students. Then, I function as a clinician at the counseling center for a day. I decided to sit in on SEM course offered in Educational Psychology Department twice a week. I have meetings with different faculty members to discuss research and professional development. I put all of these meetings into my schedule, my week gets pretty much filled. My focus, thus, has been on creating time to do my own work, mainly research and writing. I have already learned how easy it is to get swallowed by demands of teaching courses, and spending time thinking and preparing for classes. And as much as I love doing that, those are the moments where I often feel guilty for not attending to my research and writing projects. Everyday, I wish that I had 30 hours a day as opposed to 24. However, that is not possible, and I most probably just spend more time sleeping.... The first month has passed, getting settled in, starting teaching and doing therapy, and meeting new people. The second month, the goal is to start feeling comfortable in my multiple roles and the way I function negotiating them.

To start, I have online shopped for furniture, I have decided to get some collaborative projects going with my colleagues/friends, and I have made an appointment to meet someone outside of my department. And I am going to spend my weekend working on what I want to work on this weekend without feeling the pressure of having have to work on specific tasks.