A New Round of Playing Cards
1) My graduation/hooding ceremony: I am SO glad I participated in graduation weekend events. Now I can't even believe I was on the fence about it even if only for a moment before convincing myself--and rightly so--that getting to celebrate my still-newly earned Ph.D. is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Why wouldn't I do so? And so I did and it was a very, very special weekend. I even got my father to hood me on the day of the university Lawn ceremony (the main university graduation event), and it was such a special way for him to pass on the torch of scholarly tradition/learning in our family. He even brought his own doctoral regalia and so we had a photo shoot together on the historic part of campus. Lots of photos were taken and I'm still just getting around to downloading them from my camera and my phone.
2) There have been some new developments on the job front, in three ways: First, my boss/mentor told me there is funding for me to continue my current postdoc another year. Second, I have ventured into the unknown by taking on a consulting gig as an educational consultant on a couple of projects. While it's just on the side, I think it's a great way for me to learn the ropes of consulting as it is probably the wave of the future in any field to be able to market oneself as a consultant. And third, the biggest news of all: I just completed a telephone interview today with a large, highly ranked research university in the midwest that is well known/regarded, and which I never thought would ever even look twice at my application and c.v./resume. (And yes...you read that correctly, the Midwestern part of the country--something I never thought I would be saying but that's a story for another day). The town that that university is in is supposedly rumored to have many similarities to Charlottesville in terms of demographics etc., and often is mentioned in the same breath, though I am, of course, biased toward my current town.
Of course a phone interview is still preliminary and absolutely nothing is in my pocket. So, the request for a phone interview at this university came out of the blue as a complete surprise, when someone from that particular university contacted me just over a week ago to request a two-part phone interview with me. There are no guarantees--it's still probably a long shot, but I'm flattered/honored and so excited just to have gotten to this stage in the selection process, given that it's so competitive. Having said that, if I do manage to get an offer and start negotiating with them, then it will mean I'll have some serious decisions to make and serious questions to ask including ones about geography and climate and how outside the box I'm willing to go, perhaps *(ALL STILL HYPOTHETICAL RIGHT NOW, OF COURSE)*. It may be a non-issue as I may not be offered a position or even get granted an on-site interview. Good god, the stakes are high in some ways, but on the other hand, I have nothing to lose going into this b/c I never expected to even hear back from them after applying! It wasn't even on my radar, as I was mainly trying to cast a wide net that was slightly wider than my comfort zone, which, admittedly may be somewhat narrow in some people's eyes.
And that is that for now. I will not comment further about this at the moment, other than to say think good thoughts, and to close with urban-dictionary words for those who are absolutely dying to figure out details about this: "Ace Deuce".
