How we ended up on Long Island.

This post kind of summarizes our second semester of married life, January-April 2012. It was during this time that we decided to move to Long Island for dental school, hence the title. I will get to that in a minute.

My second semester of graduate school was much less stressful than the first. I was taking fewer classes, and I enjoyed all of them, so that was great. 

Meanwhile, Andrew graduated in December (although he had already walked in a graduation ceremony the previous August), and he started working full time at Deer Valley Ski Resort in Park City, UT.

For those of you not from Utah, Park City is about an hour’s drive away from Provo. Andrew’s twin brother Matthew also got a job at Deer Valley, and Matthew moved down to Provo so they could commute to work together every day.

We had some good times with Matthew while he was living in Provo. I think my best memory is of their birthday party in February. We had a piñata, which Andrew and Matthew took turns breaking open with our wedding sword (see my last post) and a wooden sword we borrowed from my brother-in-law Chris. Too fun.

What is it with boys and swords?

Also, Heather Scott and Kayla Cardon made some incredibly delicious and beautiful birthday cakes.

The most adventurous part of the semester was in March, when the Kennedy family went to Hawaii. I have enough pictures of that that I will give it a separate post, probably the next one.

Those are sea turtles, not rocks.

Other exciting events between January and April included me walking in the April graduation ceremonies for my Masters Degree.

Walking in for the college convocation. Nice artsy picture Camille :)

I was technically graduating later in August of that year, but we would be gone then so I walked early with my brother-in-law Chris who was also graduating in April. 

We obviously knew each other and were sitting next to each other wearing wedding rings, so a couple of people asked if we were married. Hahaha. Even more awesome, I got my MS in math and he got his MFA in creative writing. Way to reverse gender roles! :)

Two graduation ceremonies in 8 months is kind of a lot. Thank goodness the next one won’t be for another few years!

Me and my sister Rachel (Chris's wife)

The most stressful/important/life-changing thing that happened during those four months (other than writing a Masters Thesis) was figuring out where we were going to spend the next 4 years of our lives. As anyone reading this probably knows, we ended up on Long Island at Stony Brook University.

Our new mascot.

I've actually seen this shirt on campus. I was wondering the same thing.

I don’t have too many pictures to document this process, but a lot of people have asked me how we ended up even applying to, and then choosing to go to Stony Brook considering we are from Utah and California. So here is the story for the sake of posterity (and anyone else who is curious).

When Andrew applied to dental school, I was also planning on attending graduate school for a PhD in Mathematics. Andrew’s application cycle was way before mine, and by the time my applications were due he had already gotten his acceptances.

Through a complicated series of events (and some bad timing), Andrew ended up putting tuition deposits down to reserve a spot at three schools, one in Boston, MA, Richmond, VA, and Stony Brook, NY. As a result I only applied to schools near those places, hoping that something would work out.

It’s kind of funny, because the place we decided to go was the only one out of the three where I received a rejection letter. So why did we choose to go there anyways?

The logical reason for us to choose Stony Brook was that the schools in Virginia were about an hour and a half apart, creating a frustrating commuting situation, and the schools in Boston were ridiculously expensive. I could reapply to Stony Brook the next year after getting to know people in the department, and then if I got in we would both be at the same (much cheaper) school.

This thought process all makes a lot of sense, but if a checklist of pros and cons was the only reason that I was forgoing graduate school for a year (or possibly longer), I think I would be left feeling less than satisfied.

At the core of our decision for Andrew to attend Stony Brook was the fact that we felt inspired to go there. We prayed about the decision for weeks and fasted a number of times about it as well. After a lot of soul searching, I had a particularly strong experience at the temple a few days before we had to make a final decision. I had the overwhelming feeling that Stony Brook was the place that we needed to be and the place where I would be able to find the most joy in life. I also had the impression that a Math PhD was not what I was supposed to do right then. Surprisingly, when that thought came to me I wasn’t really upset about it at all. In all actuality, I was probably a little relieved—and when I was honest with myself about that feeling of relief, I knew that Stony Brook was exactly where we should and would end up.

The fact that choosing Stony Brook made logical sense, combined with the experience I described above, helped us confidently go forward, and we haven’t looked back since.

So, have I found my life purpose here on Long Island yet? Not exactly. BUT, I ended up deciding not to reapply to the Mathematics Department, and instead will be starting a PhD in the Applied Mathematics/Statistics Department this fall. (The distinction between math and applied math might seem nonexistent to some, but trust me, they have some major differences that I am pretty excited about.) I’ll save that story for another post, but suffice it to say that I am glad we are here.  

Up next: Hawaii.