I read a book recently where one of the characters kept having a very specific kind of premonition. Every once in a while, he would do something, and then suddenly know that he would never do that thing again. “This is the last time I will ever pet a dog,” that kind of thing. It’s a fairly minor part of the book, but I keep thinking about it, because it’s a very exaggerated version of a feeling I’ve been having a lot in the last few weeks. On the way to my office, I stopped in for coffee from the coffeeshop on Lower Sproul. I’ve been buying coffee here a couple of times a week for about six years, and today I realized, this might be the last time I ever buy coffee here.
Why yes, the obvious implication of this is the correct one: I’m leaving Berkeley, after all these years. Starting next fall, I’ll be teaching history at a private high school in New York City. (I’m not naming the school not because I want to be coy or secretive, but because I don’t see any reason why this webjournal should come up in Google searches for my new school.) I’m very excited about this–it’s a great school, and this is a wonderful professional opportunity for me. It’s definitely a little bittersweet, too, since I’ve been living in the Bay Area for almost eight years now, and that’s a lot to leave behind.
Everything’s going to be chaos around here for the next couple of months. Matt and I are leaving Berkeley in just over a month, a month that contains both WisCon and my college reunion. And then, at the end of all the packing and the chaos, I have to learn a new city–I’ll have to find a new doctor, a new hairstylist, a new favorite coffeeshop, a new grocery store, a new set of routines and familiar faces. But first: I’m about to go to lecture, the last time I’ll ever give a lecture at Berkeley. Before you can say hello, you have to say goodbye.
Posted Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 11:48 am. Filed under: academic > personal.
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We’ll be happy to have you in NYC!
- Nick
Wah! We will miss you so!
So happy for you! And you’ll be closer to me over here now, so you’ll have to come out for a visit (I will certainly see you in NYC since I get there a couple of times each year). Goodbyes are hard, but it’s nice to start over in new places too. Lots of good energy gets revitalized that way!
When I finally left Harvard after 14* years of being a student and then employee there, I had the same thing, a month of realizing I was doing lots of little things for the last time, including things which had been a regular part of my entire professional life, which was a strange twist.
* (LOOK AT THAT SHIT, IS THAT EVEN A NUMBER OF YEARS THAT ACTUALLY EXISTS?)
Don’t worry, we will take care of you here. and by the time I’m done with you, you’ll know all the good coffee shops!
and in case you weren’t aware, Yelp.com is an excellent resource for narrowing down businesses and restaurants and such in whatever neighborhood you live in.
That premonition thing sounds familiar. Three Days to Never by Tim Powers?
Wow, big changes. I can’t wait to hear about it at Wiscon.
I’ve been having the same feeling for weeks now.
So you say, but we’re still pretty sure you’re a Mossad agent living in a Tim Powers novel.