Holly: Wow! 2007 was a wild and wonderful year, and 2008 has been just as promising! Jerry completed his thesis last July (wahoo!) and immediately headed to Boston to scout out Boston University (BU) and find us housing for the fall. He had been accepted with a scholarship to a one-year master’s program in International Relations and Religion that we were really excited about. We had originally hoped to be on to a PhD in Comparative Literature, but none of the programs he applied for came through.
Jerry: This was surprising to us and many others, but sometimes the Lord has other plans.
Holly: We felt good about Boston, but we were apprehensive about how expensive it would be – had it been a PhD program instead of a second master’s, we probably would have gone.
Jerry: I had a great time in Boston with my father; he had come as a guide to the city (he’d been there; I hadn’t) and to help think through logistics to find the best situation for Holly, Hannah, and I. Had we gone, we would have lived on-campus with the St. Charles River just 200 yards away and a beautiful green belt that goes for a couple of miles all the way into Boston Commons (where many of the early American historical sites are found). Plus, Fenway Park was literally a five minute walk. Although I loath the Red Sox, I can appreciate Fenway’s importance in baseball history and would have enjoyed watching the Yanks play there. And it would have been quite the experience being there when the Red Sox won the World Series this last year.
But look at me digressing about baseball….
Holly: Anyone surprised? ;)
Jerry: After talking to some people at BU, I realized that just as not getting a degree from certain universities would prevent me from teaching at certain universities, the amount of debt we would incur at BU combined with any debt from a PhD might prevent me from working at smaller universities and junior colleges—which is what I’ve always wanted to do, if that is what the Lord wanted. So I felt we should think a little more about the decision to go to BU.
I had imagined getting a break after returning from Boston—since I had spent the last four years with the thesis hanging over my head, and a particularly intense first seven months of 2007 applying to multiple PhD programs and a few teaching positions, preparing for a presentation at the BYU Religious Studies Student Symposium, writing a large paper on Romanian adoption policy, and working intensely on my thesis for three months—it seemed like all I did for seven months was write and write and write!
Holly: It seemed like all I did for seven months was edit and edit and edit! Anyone want to guess how much sleep either of us got?
Jerry: Holly was wonderful. Unfortunately, for both of us, there was no break in store; I spent three weeks in July and August scrambling to figure out what we should pursue if we decided not to go to Boston—Jobs? Foreign service? Other schooling options?
Thinking about a discussion in Boston with my father led me to look up whether Utah State University had a PhD in Political Science. While they didn’t have a PhD, they did have a master’s program which accepts students year round. I immediately made a phone call to talk to the graduate coordinator and find out more about the program, and learned that they would most likely accept me and provide financial aid. I could tell they really wanted me to come and after further researching the program I discovered that they had a great record in placing their students in excellent PhD programs.
After more prayer and fasting, Holly and I decided to go to USU. They started a week earlier than other programs so we had about a week to find housing, pack, and get moved in before school started. In other words, I only got a half-day of summer to relax and worry about absolutely nothing. Oh well!
Fortunately, Holly and Hannah were great trusting me and talking and working with me through these projects and decisions (okay…not so much talking from Hannah actually, but she sure put up with not seeing much of Dad for a couple of months).
Holly: So we packed our bags and headed to Logan instead of Boston – not quite as exciting, but it’s turned out to be great. We settled in just fine and made friends with our neighbors and ward easily. Hannah and I have especially enjoyed long walks in the nearby cemetery and making friends with the neighbors.
A couple of weeks into school I got appendicitis and found myself face-to-face with an unexpected surgery. Not so much fun, ey? Jerry was great helping with Hannah while I recovered and my mom came to help out too. Mothers are amazing!
Jerry: The poli sci program has been great, with wonderful professors and colleagues. Looking back, I realize the PhD application and Boston experience were all part of a process: the applications helped me in my writing ability, the Romanian paper helped me figure out how to do the thesis quickly, the experience deciding on Boston helped me realize that maybe I need to go into Political Science and use my Humanities training there instead of vice-versa.
Holly: I still love being a mother and getting to spend all of my time with Hannah. She is growing and learning so quickly! It’s amazing how much she understands, and it’s fun to have her talk. She wants to be involved in what we are doing constantly (excluding Sacrament Meeting where we’re lucky to have her sit still for more than 3 minutes)! She’s not quite two and already has an obsession with shoes. For Christmas she got some Sunday shoes from Grandma Parker and some pink crocs from Grandma Hansen and Aunt Lizzie that she absolutely loves! She’ll dance in front of the mirror when she gets to wear them and she’s even insisted on going to bed in them at times.
Jerry: Her grandpa Hansen was playing with her and put them on his ears one day, so she decided that’s cool too. She is a very careful observer and there is nothing better than having her give me a hug or blow me a kiss.
2008 started with a bang. January was busy. I was asked to be a teaching assistant for the European Governments and Politics course and teach the course for twelve sessions while the professor was away on extended professional trips. Most of those came in January, so I was busy learning and prepping material and preparing to teach. In February I was ready to be able to concentrate more on schoolwork, but I got bronchitis which turned into Influenza A and I was down and in quarantine for a full week; wouldn’t have been so bad, but the intense headaches kept me from schoolwork.
Holly: I was a lousy wife. I made him check himself into the InstaCare and tell me when to come back for him. I didn’t want to expose Hannah to the sick people at the doctor’s office, and I didn’t realize he was as sick as he was (since Jerry’s so tough). I was surprised when I came back an hour later and the nurse came outside and tapped on my car window. She told me Jerry had passed out in the waiting room and that they’d put him on an IV, he had bronchitis and Influenza A, they were testing him for pneumonia, and that Hannah and I needed to be tested for the influenza as well. Although Hannah and I had had flu shots, I started to get ill later that day and was grateful that the doctor had given me a preventative prescription. Needless to say, we had a lousy week.
Jerry: When I returned to school, a friend mentioned that there was a full-time teaching position in Political Science at Snow College, and I decided to apply for it. They currently have only one political science course and it is taught by professors in other fields, and so they were looking for someone to build/develop their political science program. However, they retracted the position this year before interviewing people because enrollment and the economy are down. We really hope that they will post it again in the future, but in the meantime we’ll keep moving along the current track and trust the Lord will lead us to where He needs us and where we will be the happiest.
As for the summer, it’s going to be busy but enjoyable: I’ll be working on my thesis, going to New York for a week for an interfaith dialogue conference and making my pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium before it’s demolished, and in July, I’m probably headed to Prague for a week-long conference on Cultural Dimensions of Politics in Europe. I’ll also be teaching Romanian 340 for BYU again, which means Holly, Hannah, and I will be in Provo from mid-June through mid-August. And as always…we’ve got plenty of other things in the works.
We wish you all the best and will be better at updating the blog in the future. We would love to hear from any and all of you and are grateful to have so many wonderful friends.
Sincerely,
Jerry, Holly, and Hannah Hansen III
