the move and the job

Okay. In between packing boxes, analyzing HIV statistics, playing Stars Wars Monopoly, cooking dinner, spontaneous slow dances in the living room, making snow forts, basketball practice, and addictive video games, I've found a minute to sit down and write about what's up with the Beckhams.

Well, Justin got a new job. But not just any new job. This one allows him to still be a student, an involved daddy, and be home most of the time. And the big bonus: it comes with an apartment. Much bigger than the one we have now. Pretty odd job, eh?

His job title is--get this--sexton. Since most people don't know what the he-- a sexton is, I usually tell people he's a "facilities manager" or "caretaker." A sexton, though, is traditionally someone who takes care of a church or synagogue building, and once upon a time, they dug graves, too. But luckily, Justin doesn't have to do that.

He does take care of a building, though, that belongs to a church. And our new apartment is on the third floor of that building, called a parish house. The Parish House is where they have their church offices, Sunday school classes, soup kitchen, reception hall, board meetings, etc. The Meeting House is the actual chapel where they have Sunday services. The church also regularly rents out both buildings for other uses--rallies, weddings, receptions, small congregations' church services, dance troupes, World AIDS Day services, etc, etc.

So Justin's job is to coordinate and contract all those extra functions in the Parish House. Which is pretty sweet considering we will live in the building, so he just has to run downstairs to let people in, and can come back up and do his normal stuff--read 10 books a day, teach a couple classes, have light-saber fights with Juma, give me massages, all that good stuff. There's more to the job than that, of course, but I won't bog you down in the details. (And we all know what blogging about your job can get you.)

Another bonus is that the church itself is rich in history. It's the oldest church in New Haven; it was founded the same time New Haven was, in 1638, back when New Haven colony had a theocracy. The Meeting house is in the center of town, on the town "Green," and was built over an existing graveyard, so there's a preserved crypt under the building.



We haven't moved in yet, though, since they are fixing things up after the last family (good friends of ours) moved out. Plus, Justin takes his oral qualifying exams this next Thursday. This is a huge deal and Justin's been working very hard toward this, reading like mad, for the past few months. He has two full bookshelves of books he has to not just read, but know, and be able to debate about.

Once he's done with the exam, he'll be what PhD students call ABD, "All but dissertation." After that, he'll TA a class this semester, and then he gets to research and write a book. Gee, that's all. Actually, that'll take at least a couple more years.

In the meantime, I start the last semester of my master's degree on Monday. Hooray!

Oh, and Juma's working on addition and subtraction, reading "chapter books," busting out with Latin names of prehistoric animals, dribbling a basketball, and making a career out of hammering ice in the courtyard. There are four other first-graders in our apartment complex, so he's never short on playmates. Which will change when we move downtown and live right by the library, the courthouse, and a preschool. We're looking forward to being so close to the library and other downtown amenities--restaurants, campus, bank, etc. But the lack of neighbors will be strange. We might actually have to--gasp!--try to be social and invite people over.

Update: Oh, and another huge bonus at the apartment. Dishwasher. Wash and dryer.

Let me repeat.

Dish. Wash. Er.

Washer. And. Dryer.