Passion for the Field

Alex Starts

Alexander woke up early. Earlier than expected. He was still adjusting to the time difference. Moving from the east coast to the west was hard on his sense of time. He laid in bed for a few minutes considering the previous day. He had thought that the move out west to State had been a mistake. His graduate mentor had suggested it when he expressed his issues with his current position. State needed someone to reinvigorate their once preeminent program. His new theories and studies were exactly the kind of research that was needed to make that happen. It had been a sudden decision. State had yet to make the official announcement of his appointment. That would happen later today. The university president was having a press conference with the whole department attending. That type of fanfare wasn’t preferred by him but he knew it would create a buzz for the university which it needed. He had been unexcited for the whole venture but he had been pleasantly surprised at the faculty mixer last night. It was standard fare for most department faculty to host a function with their professors staff and graduate students. He attended them at his previous universities. They were usually filled with small talk and people stammering to get his attention. Dr. Andmonsen’s doctoral student had been a welcomed surprise. How had he never heard of her before? She was project manager for a huge NIH grant and doing her own work. Last night after getting home he felt compelled to look up and read her masters thesis. It was brilliant. It had used several of his papers as references. He would have to ask Dr. Andmonsen why it hadn’t been published in the journals yet. Alex decided he needed to get up and start his routine since he was unlikely to get back to sleep. Alex had started running in his undergrad program as a way to decompress and he had never given it up. He decided to head to the university fitness center and then he could go to the program building afterwards. He checked his phone. Emma hadn’t emailed him yet with the information for the lab meeting. He wondered if she was ok. Maybe he should have insisted on walking her to her door. For now he couldn’t do much but start his routine.

The university had set him up in an apartment close to campus. He had minimal furniture until his moving company got him his things which wasn’t going to happen for several weeks. That was fine with him. He didn’t need a lot of things to survive. He packed a gym bag and headed in. Walking across campus early in the morning was always invigorating to Alex. At a university all things felt possible. Students pursuing their dreams had a beautiful energy to it and Alexander knew early on that he would never leave a university. He had grown up in a small town on the east coast. His mother was a teacher and his dad worked for the town maintenance. He had 2 sisters who lived in the same town as their parents. They had never been close but he loved them all dearly. They had encouraged him through his studies and were always proud of the work he was doing. His sisters had settled down fairly quickly after high school. He knew they wished he would find someone to be with. Holiday celebrations were always left with him being the odd man out. And as his sisters started having children he became a fun uncle to his nieces and nephews but struggled to relate to his brothers in law who were blue collar like his dad. He didn’t look down on them but they had little in common. They spent Sundays watching football with his dad, something Alexander never did. All of this factored into his decision to move west. He thought the space would be better for everyone maybe he could come back for one holiday and things would be better.

Alex completed his run and then lifted weights. He showered and dressed in his dress pants and a button down shirt. He then started his walk to the building where his office was located. He checked his phone and saw Emma had invited him to the lab meeting. It was in the department conference room. He smiled to himself as he clicked yes to the invitation. He had a reasonably large office on the main floor of the department. It was just down the hall from the doctoral student offices. He remembered from the tour the chair of the department had given him when he arrived last week. He unlocked his office door and walked inside. He felt tempted to go to the student offices but what reason could he give for going there. To see Emma? To see if she needed anything for the meeting that morning. Every reason to stop by felt contrived so he decided he had better wait until the assigned time to see Emma. She was of course a student and he needed to watch his behavior lest he make her feel uncomfortable with him.