The saga of Astrid's job hunt is pretty remarkable. It all started back in the fall of 2008 when our lives were picking up steam with a recent engagement, new pregnancy, and the now infamous hurricane Ike forcing an evacuation on us. It quickly became apparent that our stay would be 'of indeterminate length.' And so, we wound up going on many day trips with our friend who had evacuated with us: to the Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, and various other places in San Antonio. One fateful trip led us to the new Government Canyon State Natural Area that had opened up just outside the city. The facilities were very new and there were many programs being offered including a spider and bug hike later that night. After a long day of walking the trails we almost didn't stay for the night hike having found lots of exciting bugs including several black widow and lynx spiders, scorpions, and a plethora of butterflies. In the end however we decided to stay for the hike.
The guy that gave the talk had his daughter with him helping him to wrangle various spiders and bugs and was an excellent speaker. He turned out to be a professor from a local university and Astrid struck up a conversation with him as she is wont to do with random people from time to time. In the course of the conversation it was revealed that Astrid is a post-doc looking for job opportunities and that they happened to have an opening for a biology faculty to teach genetics and other molecular biology subjects. Serendipity? Well we sure thought that was a neat coincidence but at the time we were still looking all over for job opportunities.
Fast forward a few months, now we're married, the end of my graduate studies are within sight, and Zolo is getting very ready to come out and join the world. Its also the traditional time for colleges and universities to do their hiring for the next year so Astrid sent off her application and mentioned that she was as big as a house. The search committee fast tracked her application and they quickly invited her down to give a lecture and spend a day interviewing with faculty and students. So off we go to San Antonio on a whirlwind trip. We pack up and go Sunday, and Astrid has her day of interviews and lectures on Monday. Then Monday night we pack up and drive back home so we can both get back to work. Well its a bit of a long drive and we're doing it very late when we're both tired and Astrid winds up having a few contractions on the drive home but manages to have one less than the limit when we are supposed to go to the hospital. So we feel we've dodged a bullet and try to ease back into our routine. Well, two days later Zolo decides he's waited quite patiently enough, afterall we told him the elevator needed to be fixed and Astrid needed to have her job interview (both of which had now happened) and so he pops his first water balloon and enters the world 17 short hours later.
The rest is pretty much history, Astrid wound up with the job, Zolo still has only as much patience as is absolutely necessary, and I finished up my degree.
I originally started this post months ago (it now being June 4), but it turned out to be a very busy time and really its still crazy. Even now I can hear the little one stirring and I'm on watch tonight, but hopefully Astrid and I will get better about posting.
-Tycho, Astrid, and Zolo
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