Draft done!

I got the dissertation draft emailed to my advisor at 2, and now I'm getting ready to jet out of town!

Midnight oil

Had a snack, and I'm working on getting this discussion done... I feared that it would take a while. My advisor would prefer to have the dissertation by 2 tomorrow, but he may just have to wait a few hours...

Assistant Professor

So, it's official! I have a job! Coming May 12...

Alisha H. Creel, (almost PhD)
Assistant Professor
Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Course: Social and Behavioral Aspects of Public Health (pre-fall, July 7-August 13).

Basically it's hard salary, federal benefits, one class, 3 years of startup research money plus a postdoc/RA, and really great colleagues.

Overall, the job search turned out great! I uncovered a real diamond with this job (had no idea how great the place was before I found out more about it during my phone screen). My luck never ceases to amaze me -- I end up in great places, far beyond my own work to get there.

In dissertation news, I promised the full draft to my advisor on Friday, and it looks pretty likely to happen. If I have time to get my tire fixed (idiotically popped it on a curb), we'll probably escape to NJ for some vacay. My excel spreadsheet is pointing to the second week in June as a strong possibility for a defense date, so let's hope that pans out.

Endless tables

Making tables is a fun break from actual writing. Until you get to the 5th iteration of the same tables.

Other than that, things are going great. Announcements soon, once things are finalized.

Best CFA book

If you're looking to do confirmatory factor analysis, especially with Mplus, run, do not walk, to Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Applied Research by Timothy A. Brown. Luxuriously lacking matrix algebra and other notation unnecessary to the average social scientist, it takes you through the basics of EFA and CFA, everything you need to check to see if your model is working it, and special topics like fixing your messed up model, multitrait-multimethod, missing data, non-normal or categorical data, etc.

It's the best, basically.