Good News!

So...I don't know if you've heard the good news yet, but I got a job offer. :D I'm pretty psyched about it. It's for an academic publishing company called Lexington Books, a division of Rowman and Littlefield, and my official position is called Associate Acquisitions Editor. Basically, I'm going to be in charge of a couple of subject sets, currently sociology and literature with a third coming my way once I figure out what I'm doing. I think it might be religion. Within those subject sets, I'm in charge of reading proposals submitted by mostly junior professors hoping to get their first or one of their first books published. I'm not actually in charge of determining the pure academic validity of their books. They contract professors in those fields to do that. However, I am in charge of making sure that those proposals sort of fit into what we want published and that they aren't completely ludicrous. Then I create contracts for these books and have to follow up on them to make sure that these books are getting completed if they aren't complete yet. Also, currently their literature set is pretty small and I'll be in charge of aggressively trying to expand it. It's pretty much one of the ideal things I thought of doing in the publishing world. That being said, it's in Lanham, MD, which, if you think of the beltway as a clock, is about 3 o'clock. Basically I'm going from one suburban area to another. Not exactly my ideal job location, but I can deal with it. I'm going to have to spend a day sort of driving around and getting a sense of how far it is from other places/driving around the area to see what's there. If anybody knows anything about west DC or that Maryland area, please let me know.

I haven't officially accepted yet as I'm waiting to get the benefits information from them first, but there's virtually no way that I'm going to reject the offer. I just want to make sure that I'm making an informed decision and know what I'm getting into first. I'll be starting on June 23rd, and they'll be sending me out to the big sociology conference in Boston the first week of August. This also means that I'll get to go to the wedding I was hoping to go to in Spain the first week of September. Super psyched for that.

Other than that, I've had a pretty good past few days. Met up with some UVa chaps Friday night, helped my friend Alex celebrate his 26th birthday on Saturday (He's ye olde), and saw an old friend of mine who's currently living in Spain for the first time in 4 years for brunch with his parents on Sunday. They are very old family friends. Dan's actually a year older than I am, and it's his sister whose wedding I'll be going to in Marbella in September. Also, I went and watched the US-Argentina friendly with T at this awesome place called Babylon Fútbol Cafe in Falls Church. I was pretty impressed that the game ended in a 0-0 draw. I expected a bloodbath, and it looked like would be because in the beginning. Argentina was just too fast for the US. That being said, the US defense held and Howard played well but as the game played on, it became painfully obvious that the US simply lacks a premier striker. I understand that neither Ching or Twellman, perhaps 2 of the best American-born strikers in MLS, were called up, but that line up they fielded against Argentina just isn'tt going to cut it. It's time Eddie Johnson gets demoted from being the starter because he can't do shite. Lastly, I've been watching Euro 2008, that's like the World Cup but for just Europe, and felt an incredible amount of glee when I watched Spain demolish the Russians 4-1 on Tuesday, including a David Villa hat trick. It was actually pretty dicey early on, but towards the end, La Furia Roja simply showed why they are the 4th ranked team in the world. Let's just hope they keep it up.

Until next time.

Music listened to while writing this post: Viva la Vida or Death and all his Friends-Coldplay. That's right. I downloaded an advance copy. :P If anyone wants it, let me know and I'll make you a copy.