Slowly inching out a future...

Well, things are slowly moving forward here as far as career stuff goes.

I talked again with Mike today about what will happen in the future, and I gave him the go ahead to talk to the head of Payson about a position for me here. If all goes well, the final arrangement will look something like this:

I'll join TASC as a full-time employee in September. They'll pay me a real wage, how much exactly has not been discussed yet. I expect about 40K, but I could easily see it being less or more by 10K. I'll also work in some kind of capacity with Tulane as a visiting fellow, faculty member, or something... some kind of capacity in which I'll continue to take about 1 class a semester and also work to build projects and a relationship with Chulalongkorn U., a goal that Bill (the head of Payson) has had a for a few years but never got going. I'll also probably work occasionally with Phuong if/when she needs some help in this part of the world (i.e. a tsunami project).

In return I'll get a real salary, tuition waiver, eventually a phd, and of course all the experience. It'll take a while, but at the end of 2 or 3 years of this I should come out very well qualified to either continue here or move to any number of other positions that requires data analysis, survey design/implementation, population surveillance, injury epidemiology expertise, or maybe even NGO management. Add a doctoral degree to that and I think I'll be in good shape. And I'll do this without having to live hand-to-mouth, which I've been doing way too much of since I left Singapore.

We'll see... it is a bit scary, I do miss home. But it's time I picked my own path and made it work, you know? And this way I get to do a large variety of interesting work that fits my skills (amazingly enough), get paid (eventually, very well I think), and travel (on company expense, hopefully!).

Now... can I get an X-Box live account?

Thupt!

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