If you're counting, yes, this is my fifth trip this winter, the third trip that involves crossing the Atlantic. I've seen a lot of films on aeroplanes now. This wasn't a trip I had anticipated making, but I got a call inviting me out to Hawai'i for a job interview! (All travel costs covered, of course.) This wasn't totally out of the blue -- I'd applied for the job, and I'd had a preliminary Skype interview, but there are usually so many applicants that the odds of being invited for an in-person interview are very low. So, it was time to pack my bags!
As you may know, my contract here in Paris ends at the end of August, so
I've been looking for new opportunities. As I explained in my post "
What is a postdoc?",
my goal is to get a permanent position in teaching and research. That'd
be a "lecturer" in the UK, an "assistant professor" in the US, and a
"maître de conferences" in France. The Hawai'i job is an assistant professor job, so it's a big deal if I can do it right.
It's nearly 7,500 miles from Paris to Hawai'i (that's nearly 12,000km), and that's plotting a straight line. There are no direct flights from Europe, so you have to fly via some major hub in the US (or in Asia, which is slightly longer but doesn't make that much difference). All told, it was about 24 hours from takeoff in Paris to landing in Honolulu. The time difference from Hawai'i to Paris is 11 hours.
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| The Sans Souci State Recreational Park. Yep, sans souci is French for "no worry". |
Given all of that, I decided to arrive in Honolulu on Monday evening, which gave me a couple of days to adjust my internal clock before my visit formally began on Thursday. Academic job interview visits in the US are fairly intense. In this case, it involved meeting one-on-one with each faculty member in the department (for 30 minutes to an hour), presenting a research talk to the whole department (faculty and postgraduate students, plus any other interested parties), teaching a (real!) class as a demonstration of my pedagogical methods, being formally interviewed by the entire faculty of the department, meeting with the dean of the college, meeting (and being interviewed by) the postgraduate students, and then also going to dinners with various faculty members in the evening. It's a real marathon, designed to test your skill and aptitude as a researcher and educator, and also your collegiality and ability to get on well with others. Those extra days were crucial for me in de-fogging my jetlagged brain, and also in allowing me time to explore the island and investigate what it'd be like to live there. This last part was especially important as it's not a temporary position, so any relocation to Hawai'i has the potential to be permanent.
Of course, you don't want to know the details of the interview process -- you want to know what was Hawai'i
like?
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| A view of Honolulu. The hilly crater in the distance is Diamond Head. Buildings on the left are part of the university campus. |
Well, it was quite lovely, especially in contrast to Paris in February (rainy, cold, dreary). It was apparently a little colder than usual when I visited, but I didn't notice. Since records began in 1877, Honolulu has never been colder than 11C (52F) or warmer than 35C (95F). It's usually between 23C and 27C year round (73F to 81F), so it's extremely pleasant.
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| A lovely tree at Kailua beach. Hawai'i has lots of lovely trees. |
Some miscellaneous observations:
- Everyone wears flip flops.
- No-one is in a hurry.
- Apparently there are centipedes and flying cockroaches. (I didn't see any myself.) They lurk.
- I had been in Hawai'i for three days before I heard a car sounding its horn. (You might get three minutes in Paris if you're lucky.)
- A quick scan through some radio stations while driving revealed chamber music, reggae, Japanese punk rock, Korean slow jams, and surf rock.
- This will sound strange, but the closest point of reference I have is New Zealand. Hawai'i is like New Zealand, but tropical and American rather than temperate and British.
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| There are several dramatic cliffs with secluded beaches below. |
The island of O'ahu, where Honolulu is located, is about the size of the isle of Skye in Scotland, and is home to about 950,000 people. (Skye has 9,000 people.) This means that it can be pretty crowded, especially in the city; but it also means that you can find most goods and products that you need, like any major city. You will pay a lot of money for them, though. Most cost of living indices put Honolulu at about the same level as San Francisco or London, just behind New York. It's not cheap to live in paradise.
Part of this is because most goods must be shipped in on planes or container ships. At more than 3,000km from the closest continent, Hawai'i is by some measures the most isolated archipelago in the world. Unlike the isle of Skye, there is no convenient bridge connecting you to the mainland.
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| A panorama of the Mānoa valley, the neighbourhood where the university is located. |
Even with the extra time I built in, it was a whirlwind trip. I was able to tour around Honolulu and some nearby places, but there's only so much you can do and see, especially when you're fighting an 11-hour jetlag! The 11 hour time difference also made it difficult to stay in touch with Talia. We'd talk in the mornings and evenings while we were both awake, me sharing stories of banana trees and mangos and her sharing stories of baby poops and interrupted sleeping. Before I knew it I was on a plane back to Europe and home in sunny Paris.
PS, I got the job! I start in August.
