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BEECHNUT13's Recent Blog Entries
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Friday, March 04, 2011
I still haven't heard from Bridgewater... they told me they would be contacting their top candidate last week. I've been told these things always take longer than they say they will, so I haven't given up hope yet. Last week I was a nervous wreck though. I had an upset stomach, wanted to eat chocolate and sushi, had an upset stomach, back and forth. Even if I'm not their top choice, their top person might say no... and I might be their second choice. I haven't give up the fight yet.
But... in the meantime, some great things are happening!
I had a phone interview with Adrian College this week. They are a small (1600 student) liberal arts school in Michigan, about 30 minutes south of Ann Arbor. Within driving distance of my family and my husband's family.
Here are some pictures of the school:
This is the only original building from when the school was built in 1959.
It's related to the Methodist Church... but a lot of small liberal arts colleges are churchy. I don't think this one is TOO churchy though.
Maybe a little phallic?
Anyway, I had my phone interview with the Interim chair on Wednesday, and it went well. We were on the phone for about 45 minutes. And she offered me an on-campus interview right then and there!
This is great news! Time to slice my foes into smithereens!
So I will be going for my interview on March 16th, which is only 12 days away! Eeeekkk!!! I've been working on my job talk (it can be whatever I want, it's mostly to undergrads though, so they can assess my teaching).
Adrian was one of my top schools. I was checking to see if they were hiring, and then I saw they were looking for someone to teach developmental - that's ME!!! - and a variety of other classes - that's also ME!!! - so this school will be a great fit. It's also a small department - only like 5 faculty. But I'll get to teach a lot of different classes, which I like. I get bored teaching the same classes all the time. And I'll get to work with a great group of students at a nice small liberal arts school.
That will help soften the blow if Bridgewater doesn't want me!
Bridgewater, you said you would call... I'm lonely, call me!
But the good news doesn't end there!
I AM FINISHED COLLECTING DATA FOR MY DISSERTATION!!! It took only 13 days, and my sample is 260! Holy crap!!! I'm opening my studies up to get some more people enrolled, but I could stop here if I wanted to. My first studies got filled up by lazy stupid students who wanted to do the study for credit. Now they fill up much more slowly, but I'm getting more thoughtful answers.
So although I am analyzing what I have, I want to increase my sample over the next couple weeks and replace some of my... lazier... answerers wtih some better ones. I mean, seriously, how do you complete a 182 question survey, with lengthly vignettes to read, in under 20 minutes?
Anyway... so far, things are looking OK. I'm going to analyze it so I can put stuff in my talk and start writing, or at least thinking about what I'm going to write. But I would really like to increase my sample and clean up my responses. The last 5 or so groups of surveys were much better quality than my first few. And - I have some HYPOTHESIZED FINDINGS! HAHAHA!!! It worked! AMAZING!!!
It's also been warming up here and there again, so I've been trying to get out and run. I am much slower than I was in October... like instead of 5.8 mph, I'm at 5 mph. And instead of 3 miles, I'm at 2 miles. But that's OK. I'll get it back within a month or two. Or three.
I'm helping out with a running camp starting in a couple weeks, running with newbies. It'll be nice to have some purpose again. :)
It was at a camp just like this, last spring, that I trained to run my first 5K. And I did the whole thing without stopping (at about 4.8 mph...).
Monday, February 28, 2011
I am still waiting to hear from that school. I keep cycling back and forth between "THEY LOVED ME" and "THEY HATED ME".
They love me! They hate me! They love me! They hate me!
My friend told me Friday that these things usually take longer than they say they will, so I've been trying to relax. It is out of my hands. I did what I could.
I did get an e-mail from Adrian College in Michigan, which is about a half hour south of Ann Arbor, one of the best towns EVAR. And they want to have a phone interview with me. That is so awesome. Adrian was one of my top choices, so I'm really happy about this.
There is hope for me yet!
I spent the weekend with my in-laws, sans husband and stepson. It was a great time, and I am so glad I went. I got there Thursday night, and came home this morning. Though I must say, they talk about my husband's ex a lot. I think they're more comfortable bringing her up with me than my husband. But I relaxed, had fun, ate too much, only went to ONE yoga class all weekend, and drank some tasty new beers with my SIL (who I looooove).
Got some new shoes from my MIL - two pairs! None of my shoes fit, so she took me out. How sweet! It sucks being poor. I need a job so I can stop this poor bull-crap.
Also, it's the last day of February. Which means I am 3 months from bikini-time. And I am 170 lbs on a 5'4 frame. Not good. And I'm 5 months from the warrior dash, and I'm still an upper-body wuss. Also not good. I need to get my a$$ in gear and moving. I have been so focused on getting a job that I've been forgetting everything else.
Don't forget me!
AND DON'T FORGET WHAT YOU'RE FIGHTING FOR, GIRL!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
I'm waiting.
Today, the psychology department at Bridgewater had their meeting to decide who they were going to make an offer to. Then they have to clear it with the provost, and then they make the invite. Will it be me?
I was waiting for a month for the interview. Preparing. Practicing my talk. Fretting, reading, thinking about how I would answer interview questions.
Then I had the interview - 9 hours of flurry, meeting new people, running around. I really did enjoy myself.
And now it's been a week of waiting. On pins and needles. Hoping for the best, dreading the worst. Or even the not-best, which is also not that great.
Maybe they already called the person they chose, maybe they chose me but have to wait to get the all-clear... I'm scared. I'm excited. I HATE THIS!!!!
I don't believe in fate, so this makes things very difficult. People say "Oh, you'll be where you're supposed to be." What? That doesn't make any f-ing sense. Where I end up, that's where I will be. That doesn't make it magical.
I believe people make the wrong decisions. I believe that horrible things happen. For no reason. Not because "that's how god wanted it to be" etc... just because circumstance is a bi+ch. But sometimes, things work out, and I'm hoping for that to be the case.
I have been preoccupied with this... I keep fretting, and checking my sample size for my dissertation. Looks like I'll be done collecting data by this weekend.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
I haven't written in a long time, because I have honestly been working pretty much all day every day. From the time I wake up, till the time I go to bed, I have been working: teaching, writing cover letters, and most of all, preparing for my first on-campus job interview.
The interview was on Tuesday the 15th. I met with probably 75% of the psychology faculty at the school. I really felt great there, and had an easy time talking with everyone. In most cases, our interviews had to be cut short because I had to move on to the next one. The hardest part about the interview was preparing my job talk. For that, I had to present some of my research, and teach some research methods, to a class of undergrads. The faculty hung out in the back.
The talk went really well - I just sort of forgot about the faculty toward the back and paid attention to the undergrads, and it was fine. It was smooth, polished - basically I just started teaching and I did fine (when I try to present it goes badly, when I teach I do it well).
They are meeting on Tuesday to decide who to make an offer to. So, I have been waiting for 5 days now, and I have a few more days. I will know by the end of the week. I think it went well... we will see. I felt like I fit well in the department - I will fill a lot of their teaching needs, and I can collaborate with SIX people in the their department (I am more a generalist than what you usually get at a researchy school - which helps in liberal arts schools, hurts if I try to apply to big universities - that, and my lack of publications), and I can easily fit undergrads into my research labs because I have lots of data from my dissertation and I can use data that has already been collected. And my research is fun.
The school is very nice, and it's in a nice area of MA. It's just 45 minutes from Boston, MA and Providence, RI and the Cape, and beaches. It's in a beautiful area. It is so much nicer than Detroit.
Here is a picture of their favorite building. The psychology department is in a boring building but it's pretty awesome because it's full of students - the psych department at WSU is tomb-like.
And the surrounding area is also really beautiful. It's like 75% rural near the school, but not rural like Michigan, where there's farms and women wearing camo and heels.
I saw a winter version of this on my way in to my interview:
So... now I am waiting. I have had some bites from other schools though. I had a phone interview with St. Joseph's College in Maine:
They are a very small college, with only 1100 or so students (Bridgewater has about 10,000), which was the size of my high school. My phone interview with them went really well, but they're 2 hours north of Boston... which means it's colder. And they're a Catholic school. I am an atheist, and I don't know if they would want someone like me around. What would I say if a student came to me confused about how the Bible is conflicting with something they learned in another class? Otherwise, the school would be great - they're looking for someone in developmental or personality psychology. I'm developmental, but I'm interested in personality development, and I've taught both classes several times.
Then I have a phone interview with Mesa State College in Grand Junction, CO. Which, as it turns out, is a valley between awesome mountains, and awesome canyon rock formations. The campus is minutes from the Colorado National Monument:
They're looking for a psychology lecturer. My interview is Wednesday night. I definitely wouldn't mind teaching in Colorado. It is gorgeous there too.
And I am 1 in 20 of the top applicants to Adrian College, in Adrian MI. That's only less than 2 hours from here, which makes it ideal for my family and my husband's family - we won't be moving 14+ hours away. They sent out a feeler e-mail a couple weeks ago asking if I was still interested, and they're calling people for on-campus interviews to happen in March. We'll see if I'm in the top 3, and I wonder if they're going to do phone interviews.
And I'm still writing cover letters and sending out applications. And there are lots of schools I haven't heard from yet. I applied to Mesa State back in November, and I just heard from them last week. So I guess these things can take some time. Even if Bridgewater hires someone else, I still have lots of other chances.
And... my dissertation is moving along! I've collected half my data to run my first set of analyses, and then I'll only need 50 more to add in a couple other analyses. I've been downloading my data and that's going very quickly. It looks like I'll be done with data collection by the end of the month (I started 4 days ago, and my N = 100, I need about 200 for my first tests, 250 for rest). I'm going to start writing immediately, and so it looks like I will be defending in mid-May. And then I will be Dr. Beechnut.
I should be more excited that I'm almost done, but I'm so worried about not having a job when I'm done that I can't even really look forward to it. It will be nice to not have to work on it though... so I guess I can be happy about that.
Oh, magic 8 ball... where am I going to be next year? Please, not huddled in a cardboard box clutching my degree, cold and alone...
Friday, January 21, 2011
Breakfast: Eggs, toast.
Lunch: Beef sloppy joe on bun.
Dinner: Pulled pork sandwich on bun.
Seriously, I don't think my in-laws venture very far out of the meat and bread food groups. If I'm not feasting on cows or pigs, I'm eating unborn chickens. Yum, love eggs though. ;)
But - my sister-in-law did make the most ---- PHENOMENAL ------ guacamole. Oh. My. Gawd. It is delicious. And my mother-in-law has some puffy round things that are only 15 calories, and are about 6 inches in diameter. They do the trick.
Today I went to a *real* yoga class for the first time. The one at my gym totally sucks compared to going to a real yoga studio. This was great. The instructor was excellent. I found my edge today and rode it - it was so f-ing good. I paid $14 for a week pass, and I'll be going tomorrow and Sunday morning too. I felt so good afterward, and my legs felt like jelly. They're a little sore now, but I keep trying to stretch them out. People say that yoga isn't a real strength training work out, and that it should be an addition to a ST and cardio program. But I was working - and my muscles are sore, my biceps are toned up, and I was sweating. I feel I got a great work-out today.
Tomorrow and Sunday is power yoga (Vinyasa), which is like what I did today, but a little harder and a little faster. I'm looking forward to it!
  
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