new adventures await

I was only back in Cali for about 6 weeks and now I moved again! It was about time I guess, I was getting bored with no job and funds were starting to run low. Matt and I took a 4 day, 2541 mile road trip from Irvine, CA to Morgantown WV in my Civic Coupe. I was able to stuff my most necessary belongings in the car to bring here with me. We took the southern route, using I-40, I-44 and I-70, going through 11 states in total. We stopped by the St. Louis Gateway Arch, which was cool to see and learn about. There was a museum about westward expansion and Lewis and Clark's expedition to the Pacific. The first 2 days were about 12 hours each, stopping in Albuquerque the first night and Joplin, Missouri the 2nd night. The 3rd day was shorter, since we took an hour stop in St. Louis and ended up in Richmond, Indiana at night. The 4th day was really short and we took our time getting to Morgantown, WV by about 4pm. We went through 3 time zones in 3 days!

My new job is as the Education Coordinator for WVNano (http://wvnano.wvu.edu), which is the state's nanoscale science, engineering and education initiative. I'm not sure what my day to day work will be like, but it is an office type job that will involve coordinating nanoscience related education at many levels: K-16 and graduate level. They already have an Outreach Coordinator, but they were looking for an Education Coordinator with a PhD and nanoscience research experience. West Virginia Univ is the founder of this initiative and so our offices are located within the WVU Research Corporation, so I am considered an Affiliate of WVU. I have always been interesting in other aspects of education, besides actual teaching, so this should be interesting. Also, I've been interested in getting involved with science policy, so the combination of science education and policy would not be a far jump from the work I would be doing. I think. From the interview for this position, which was done in November of last year over Skype, it seems like there will be some flexibility and independence.

Morgantown is nestled the hills of the Appalachian Mountain range, along the Monongahela River. From the I-79 you can't even tell there's a city beyond the hillside, things are pretty well hidden behind the hills. The campus is split into 3 areas connected by a "tram" type thing called the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). It was built in 1975 as an experiment and is still used today. I'm living in an on-campus apartment for grad students and staff, and this past week was Spring Break, so things have been pretty calm and empty. The weather has been cold, but nothing terrible. It did snow very lightly on Wednesday and Thursday, but there's been plenty of sunshine yesterday and today. My first day of work is on Monday!