Arrival in the US
Published:
Hi people, this is the first entry on the blog. Whoop whoop! This marks the beginning of the BOULDERING Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, funded by the European Union (thanks again!). If you’re curious about what a Marie Curie postdoc entails, check out more info here. My fellowship will span three years—two years at Stanford University, followed by a final year at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Oslo. I have no idea what the next three years will hold, but I’m feeling a mix of excitement and nerves. My plan is to share the evolution of the project with you through this blog.
I like to think of this fellowship as my own version of The Fellowship of the Ring. My quest? To conquer three years of planetary research and throw “the One Ring” into Mount Doom—figuratively speaking!
The move to the Bay Area is officially underway. For those unfamiliar, Stanford is about a 45-minute drive southeast of San Francisco, in the southern part of the Bay Area. I’ve been preparing for the transition from Norway to the US over the past few weeks. Having lived in various places—South of France, Svalbard, Oslo, Berlin—moving isn’t new to me. But Oslo has been home for the past decade, so this feels different. A new country, new colleagues, and the challenge of doing well in this role—it’s both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.
The departure date is set: October 2, 2021. My wife, Siri, will join me to help ease the transition. She’s currently doing a postdoc in botany at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences near Oslo, so she’ll be splitting her time between Norway and the US. For the first ten days, we’ll stay in a hotel in Menlo Park, just 5–10 minutes from Stanford, while tackling a mountain of administrative tasks and—most importantly—finding a place to live.
The next entry will be from the US. Here I come, Bay Area! 😊 S