As Keith informed you all, I accepted a new job on Wednesday, October 18th! Yay Alyssa! Yay!!!!! *trumpets sound, roses thrown into the air* Raaaahhhhhh!

All in all, my tossing and turning about what to do and what jobs to consider was for naught. It was a pretty brainless decision. When offered the job on Wednesday, I accepted immediately, despite conventional wisdom to ponder the offer--to at least sleep a night on it. My interviews with the three prospective faculty members I would be working with were warm, friendly, and informative--they seemed to like me and my impressions were certainly positive. Exceedingly positive, actually. And there's nothing more that I want in a position than to be somewhere I think I can be respected, appreciated, and warmly welcomed. You can have the best job in the world, but it means nothing if you can't stand the people you work with.

They asked a lot of questions about little ol' me. ME. Nobody asks questions about me. Conventional interviewing wisdom is that you talk about the job and the needs of the employer. Not about yourself and your hopes. Can you imagine? They asked my thoughts and hopes for the future, my long term career development, goals, my educational interests---was I interested in pursuing a PhD down the road? As I interviewed more for the position, I certainly felt that working as a faculty assistant for a couple years would give me some incredibly valuable insight into the faculty support end of affairs and only make me a better higher educational employee, and perhaps a better doctoral candidate and professor someday.

So I took the job. Congrats to me. More so, if I may say, congrats to them. They had the same "concerns" about me being "overqualified"--the one common denominator in every interview I went to. I was able to honestly address those concerns. They had the guts to take a chance. I truly don't feel that this job is "too good" for me though--although it is flattering. Money and prestige is nice. But it isn't everything. A job that is interesting, informative, and filled with honest work and allows you to stretch your intellect at least once in awhile has the potential to make anyone feel like a million bucks. Right now, as I start the honeymoon period of this new venture, I feel like I've won the lottery.

Thursday after I accepted the job I received two calls from the faculty members I interviewed with on October 12th congratulating me on my job offer and acceptance. I thought this was SO SWEET. Unfortunately, I was not available when Professor Margolis called. But today, I found out that that just wasn't any call Thursday night. Professor Margolis made a phone call to congratulate me from a business trip. From Scotland. He just returned to the office today.

How many prospective employers do you know that even call to congratulate the successful candidate at all, let alone late at night (about 11pm-12am) from Scotland!? I think my instincts about the good naturedness of the faculty are pretty dead on.

These next few weeks will be filled with copious trainings, orientations, and benefit package reviews. That's another thing awesome about Harvard. The benefits. Don't even get me started. That's a whole other blog. Not to mention that this lil' ol' job represents a 25% pay increase for me. That's not really the feather in my cap it sounds like because I was undoubtedly severely underpaid at my last position considering the large scale logistics, crisis management, and stressful interactions with the parent population. HBS is going to be a wonderful change of pace.

So now I have the job. Now my job is to keep the job. Its mine to lose. This goodwill and dare I say, euphoria, at my arrival is mine to squander. I am now setting my sights to getting good at what I do, learning what I need to learn, and setting a routine for myself. Once that happens...I will work on losing 50-60 lbs and reaching other personal goals.

So that's all! Look for more adventures as they unfold.