Had the following e-mail correspondence throughout the day with my former advisor Eric (who, by the way, just got tenure! yay for Eric!):

Any chance you'd be interested in a position working with us when you're done?

to which I respond:

If you guys don't mind waiting another 3 years, I certainly wouldn't mind having a job after graduation!

And he says:

That would be fantastic if you were interested in a position here. You are a known and excellent quantity, and in a couple years I am likely to be in a position to have several postdocs and new faculty working with me. The timing could work out quite well. Let's touch base about this periodically. I am sure that you are going to have other prospects, too, but this is a good group with whom to work, and we could do a lot of fun and meaningful things together pretty quickly!

Obviously, three years is a long time from now, and it might be even longer if I'm a slacker (or even slightly unmotivated) about my thesis. Nevertheless it is so incredibly awesome to be wanted. "Lucky" seems like a really inadequate word for describing my good fortune in getting to work with Eric.

In other news, Atrios posted this about the media today:

"TV producers choose which issues they want to cover and who they invite on to discuss them. Then they pretend they're just passive actors, passing on the news of the day. It's a lie. They control what and who they show."

Which, surprise surprise, reminds me of a West Wing quote:

"I don't like being a stenographer. And I don't like writing gossip. I read a column last week where a lady bemoaned a decade of scandals she's had to cover as if the news was to blame for the quality journalism. I don't know if there's ever been a more important time to be good at what I do. Can you imagine how much I don't give a damn about what Toby said to a staffer?"

Ok, back to writing. I promised myself one more page on the health and human rights paper and two more on the flu paper before bed. I think I can...I think I can...I think I can...