ABSTRACT
I recall revising an earlier form of this chapter late one evening in Terminal C of the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in Missouri, laptop on my lap, harsh lighting overhead, a cup of airport coffee at my feet, and two hours to kill due to a flight delay. Like so many Canadians before me, I moved to the U.S. (in 1993) to find work in a university; my Green Card application came through in February of 2001. Because of relocating in a new country, with different credentialing standards, my wife, who was a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing students in Canada, had to develop a new career – a fact that, for several years now, has necessitated us living in two different (sometimes neighboring) states and visiting as often as possible. I state this from the outset not to gain sympathy – for life is generally pretty good – but rather to help place readers who may be disconnected from the life of an average, young academic in the late twentieth century into the very real situation that I examine in the following chapter. We are hardly the first or the last to live this generally odd life, yet I know that I am lucky to have just these, and not other, problems.
