My Dream Location

The August Scientiae Carnival asks “what is going on in your life right now? What will be happening in six months or a year from now? What are your goals? Are you looking forward to the next year, or dreading it?”. This is a good time to be asking these questions of myself, since I have only six months remaining of my 1.5 year contract. I am starting to see jobs advertised with January start times, and have been re-vamping my CV and sending out applications and letters of enquiry. I’ve also been looking into the process of applying for funding, with the thought that while it is certainly easier to simply accept a job that is already funded, if I were to do my own funding application I would be able to work in a place of my own choosing doing a tasks that I want to do.

Where do I want to be in six months time? If I could have *everything* I want in life, I’d want to be doing research at a University located in a large town (or small city in the mountains). Someplace with a moderate to cold climate, and a winter where it not only snows, but the snow stays on the ground all winter. I’d want there to be plenty of hiking and cross-country ski trails in easy access from my home. I’d want an indoor rock-climbing gym at the Uni, located reasonably near my office. I’d want there to be a locally active branch of either the SCA or some other Medieval Reenactment organization that hosts camping events in the summer and has lots of music/singing/dancing at their winter events. I’d want my research to involve both field work and laboratory work and involve interesting metamorphic rocks that are pretty and have lots of information to convey. Does anyone know where this dream location is?