Today (tonight, really) I had my first class of the semester. It's the "Libraries and Information in Society" core course so not too terribly much to report awesome class-wise (that should be tomorrow and Thursday), but I did see my seat buddy/ group project partner from last semester's classes and it was nice to catch up. I told her about Alaska, she told me about Scotland and just as I finished my oft-repeated sigh of "oh, I have always wanted to live there, I gotta make that happen one day", a girl sitting in front of us piped up saying that she had lived in Edinburgh after college and (a) can show me how to get a student work visa for up to 6 months (b) her old roommate is a librarian there and could help with the finding of a job (c) knows how to find short term furnished apartments. Awesome. Add the fact that I could probably squeeze in a class or two to apply toward my degree(s) (I'm working out the history component) and that could be basically awesome.
It's not the permanent move I've long wanted to make but it's a start, and now that this is becoming more reality I'm not sure if I'm totally up for a permanent move to someplace I've never been, even if it does seem like a match made in heaven. Or, well, I'm not sure if I'm totally up for a permanent move at all to anywhere because I seem have a strong aversion to making permanent decisions (God help me on that front or I'll never marry!). But if I were up for a permanent move somewhere, Edinburgh would be top on the list along with Philadelphia (home), Portland and Seattle. I had others (extremely random others) listed but then, upon reflection...no. I wouldn't wish to end up in those places permanently...not saying that I wouldn't DO it, I just wouldn't make it one of my "genie wishes".
There are also seriously promising avenues on the international development front. In fact, the American Library Association has a whole "working group" for international sustainable library development within its International Relations Roundtable and on TOP of it, one of the members just so happens to be a Catholic professor. Add the encounter last semester with the new president of the International Federation of Library Associations (who happens to be African and have contacts with some programs for library development that I found on my own), and that, too, is a promising avenue. I doubt that any of this would result in long-term relocation because the nature of these programs is to get them to be self-sustainable. For me, that's good and bad (and for the libraries, all good, obviously).
The good is that I do like to keep on-the-move and really don't like feeling "stuck" anywhere (even if I like it there) but the bad is the exact flip side of that coin and it is that when you're living and working somewhere you love it's really hard to move on. This insane conflict of desires is a constant in my life and I'm getting kind of sick of it. But just think, the longer time you spend in one place or doing one thing, that is time that you are necessarily withholding from other, possibly more interesting, prospective living and working situations. Basically, every month you spend in DC is one month you won't be able to spend elsewhere. Every day spent on one project or in one job is a day you can't spend in your "next" project or job. It's maddening.
But either way, on the development front, 3-6 months of work developing specific outreach programs, funding projects or library worker training (or just helping get a new library off the ground) would be both fun and rewarding....I'm just sure I'd want to stay longer while having the drive to go back home and also wanting to live someplace entirely new. Crazy, I tell you.
But then we come around to the constant sticking point.....the cats. What to do with the cats? They do qualify for the special US/UK pets program that does not require quarantine but I kind of question Penny's ability to survive the stress of that particular trip, as well as much longer ones (most of the development stuff I've looked into has been in Central and Southern Africa). This is the same cat who wound up in the kitty ICU the one and only time she was present to witness a move. What was wrong? Respiratory distress brought on by stress related to moving. I kid you not, I have a cat with a nervous condition. Something tells me that 6 to 12 hours in a cargo hold (after several hours of driving to airport/being in airport) would not do the wee beastie any favors.
Can you leave kitties behind for 6 months? The longest I've left them was for 8 weeks, once for the campaign and once for Vietnam. Does it even make sense to bring them for such a short term? What happens if I DO wind up moving permanently? I don't want to leave them behind but I don't want to risk killing them (or, well her...Toby would be fine because he really doesn't care what you do to him as long as it doesn't involve water and provided there's food afterwards). I love them, but I kind of get a little regretful about the roots that they've given me. Stupid roots.
So....in case you haven't caught on, the wanderlust is gnawing at me again. I have no big trips planned (I WAS going to do the January term class in Nicaragua but it apparently filled up in a matter of hours), and have been discovering and re-discovering just HOW MANY options there are in this field and it's kind of overwhelming....like "trip to the fabric store" overwhelming, not scary overwhelming, and I suspect that this is the source for this particular bout of the travel bug. For the record, though, I have visited 10 international library development sites, 6 cities' Craigslists (for apartments) as well as a few Edinburgh specific rental websites, and 3 international pet moving specialist companies all in the past hour.