My life is complete part II

You wouldn't know it, since he is being coy (but who needs credit? I know the truth, Josh knows the truth) but I am now published for the second time on TPM. All else is mere trivialities in comparisons....

Brag time 2

Talk about famine to feast. I talked with EK and with her wise council I decided to withdraw from attempts to manipulate N (who is officially AM, not to be confused with the other AM, so perhaps I'll call him NM) into wanting to see me before the new year (we have inverted schedules, so it is logistically difficult). So what happens? I get an email from saying that he thinks he could see me tomorrow.

But that is just prelude to the real good news. I got an interview offer for probably the most desirable job I applied for!!! Think 2 year post-doc, six figure (!!!!) salary, budget for research assistant, rich private top west coast research university, bay area....

yee haw!

Enough already!

What is it with this place? I keep running into people I know. I was just out foraging for food and ran into a girl I knew from summer camp many many years ago. She lives near me!

On other matters, all of the enthusiasm I was feeling hit a wall several hours ago. Now I just want to sleep! And of course trusting my happiness is hard. Doubt keeps creeping in.

I hope N gets in touch soon...

Brag time

It happens so rarely, and it is good to remind myself that sometimes people think well of me. The former dean of my grad school just sent this out to some of the places I am applying:

Abby **** tells me you’ll be meeting her at the ASSA meetings, and I wanted to let you know how special I think she is. She’s one of the most exciting graduate students I’ve ever had the privilege of working with.

At the **** Graduate School, where she has just completed her doctoral dissertation, I had the pleasure of being her teacher, her adviser, and her dean. I have continued to be in touch with her in my new position (since July 2005) as President of ***** University.

She was and is one of the stars in a program where the average GRE quant score is 780. She mastered all the analytical courses and did superbly on her Ph.D. qualifying examinations. She was a wonderful researcher as a junior partner on a number of **** research projects. You can read about them on her c.v.--the point I’d like to emphasize is that she’s done policy research now for several years, and brings a sophistication in both methods and application that I reckon would be found in few other candidates for junior positions.

Her dissertation—on auditors’ incentives to collude in financial statement fraud—is in an area in need of good policy analysis. Financial statement fraud has huge public consequences, but they are little understood. Abby's dissertation outlines the areas we do not understand and makes a strong first step in tackling some of those areas. Her combination of methods—game theory and historical analysis—is apposite and rare.

Abby came to **** with rusty math skills and no significant economics training. Of course, her perfect scores on the GREs and her remarkable record at ***** encouraged us to take a chance. And she excelled. She consistently was at or near the top of every class. She was the only person in her class (and only one of two in five years) to earn distinctions on two of her qualifying exams. Her trajectory continues to soar.

She’ll be an excellent teacher for you. She evinces genuine concern for the educational progress of others. She has been a superb TA in three different courses (which shows something about her versatility). She’ll also be an excellent university citizen. At the ***** Graduate School, she had a lasting and important positive effect on the school through her work implementing and then running a student-led organization that has significantly improved the on-the-job training portion of the curriculum.

Abigail ***** combines creativity and an understanding of the rigorous scientific underpinnings of policy research. Couple this with her strong writing ability, interpersonal skills, and leadership capabilities, and you’ll see why I’m betting that you and the University of Indiana will be thrilled to have her as a colleague. She’s one of the most impressive doctoral students I’ve ever seen.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me for further information.

With all good wishes for the holiday season.

God I'm good ;)

So happy

I know, I know, I need to blog more regularly!

I am not settled into a routine where I am at my computer for very long. No worries, all my anxious readers, that will change soon enough. ;)

But for now, I will try to fill in some holes.

I love this city. Place really does matter, despite my scoffing at it when I was tempted to blame LA for my limited social network and total lack of a dating life. Well, DC is totally different from LA, and I find it so stimulating to be here.

I went for my first run yesterday since coming here (I know, it has been a long time!) and I ran a loop around the capitol. I made it as far as the Smithsonian castle. How cool is it to be able to measure your running progress by how far along the mall you get? I want to get to the point where I am running regularly all the way to the Lincoln Memorial and back.

Everyone I meet is stimulating and interesting. My yoga class is full of hill staffers and the teacher works for the department of labor. What a difference from the people who attended my yoga classes in Santa Monica!

And I have been on 5 dates with 4 men in the last week (all online dates)! The second date with CH was a bomb, so he is off my list, and my very first date was with a suburban Virginia doctor and my guess is that one won't get very far with me. But yesterday I met two men that I would love to get to know a lot better. One in particular, but really both of them. One is a PhD mathematician and the other is a lawyer who does policy analysis and is thinking about getting a PhD.

When I was in LA, I dabbled in online dating, but always hated it. I got very few emails from guys and felt like I had to tone down my intelligence and that I wasn't quite skinny enough to attract anyone under 50. I was starting to think that by getting a PhD I had made myself unmarriagable. No longer.

I don't know that anything will come of the men I have met so far, but I do know that I will meet someone (lots of someones?) and that I am attractive here. Oh I am sure I will continue to write anguished posts about being lonely, but underneath the loneliness now is a rock of happiness....

The job front is going okay too. I have smoothed over a lot of the weirdness that I was feeling at my school by talking with the department chair. He made me feel MUCH better about my prospects for a tenure-track position here and in general. I have two interviews lined up for ASSA, and I am praying that I net a few more this week and next, though I don't really know what to expect with the timing of everything.

I'll be lonely and frustrated and blocked and confused, but I'll get through it! I'll get a job somewhere, somehow. I'll meet someone I'll fall in love with who will love me back. Maybe I'll even get knocked up....