Let's Forgive Each Other for 2020

[iseedoug]

Ill bounce off my guy @woelkers, who bounced off my guy @AdamS. 

2020 was a pretty crazy year, and I was extremely fortunate, particularly given the circumstances. 

The year started out with me traveling 6 weeks straight around the U.S. for interviews. This was after applying for over 50 TT jobs in the fall, 12 phone interviews, now funneled down to the campus visit interviews. COVID in the US news started dropping as I was in an airport, drinking a beer at this neat little Heineken pop up bar in the seating area. Once I got back, I got sick, luckily not COVID sick, but some other ailment from my travels. This paired with the COVID concerns, forced me to cancel my last interview at Texas A&M. 

From there it was basically write my dissertation from my apartment and wait to see if anything would hit. It has always seemed that everyone (particularly the internet) is negative about academic job markets, even before COVID. Yet, I somehow ended up with 5 competing TT offers of the 6 places I traveled to. Accepted the job at University of Tennessee Knoxville; moved; bought a house without seeing it in person until the closing. And actually, my first semester, despite COVID craziness, went great. 

I still feel like I don't live in TN, since all I do is stay in my house and go to the uni (and some hiking). Its hard to feel apart of a community when you can't just go to a local bar or restaurant. But the ISFL community is always there!

Some things I hope for 2021:
1. New York Silverbacks get a chip
2. @mabb recreates (I think I have her convinced to recreate with the new sim!)
3. Push out some cool papers
4. My programming class to go smoothly
5. Broncos figure out how to be a winning team again. 

Also, woelkers once you get in that political science PhD program, if you have some similar interests, we should work on a paper together IRL. I work with lots of political scientist. (also why do we have so many law people in this league??)

Go