Standing in Holy Places

I'm holed up right now in a hotel room in Donegal, PA.  The temperature is quickly dropping below zero, and we're snowed in completely.  The boys and Jenn are playing United States Bingo, and I'm reminiscing about where I was just about a year ago: stuck in London while Jenn and the boys were snowed in during Winter Storm Nemo.  When Nemo hit, it dropped nearly 3 feet of snow in a day and closed down Logan Airport completely.  I suddenly had some extra time in London (not a bad place to be stuck!) while Jenn couldn't get out of the house with 3 boys to take care of (a much worse place to be stuck).

With my new-found leisure time, I jumped on the tube and headed to St. Paul's Cathedral, a place that Jenn and I hadn't made it to when we visited London in 2010.  I happened to get there at 4:00pm, just 45 minutes before it closed.  I did a quick version of the audio tour, and when I was turning in my player they mentioned to me that I was welcome to stay for Evensong, a 45 minute long worship service in which a men's and boy's choir sings verses from Psalms.  I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I decided to stick around.  I ended up being one of the first people seated and was placed in the Quire, which are those fancy wooden seats that are intricately carved:

The next 45 minutes were, in a word, divine.  I was in the middle of a very stressful job search, and it was just amazing to sit in a place where men and women had dedicated thousands of hours to building an edifice to the Lord.  Each chanted verse of the Bible seemed to strip off a layer of worry and stress, and replace it with peace during this beautiful and simple service.  Afterwards, I stepped out, admired the magnificent dome, took a deep breath, and then re-entered the world feeling much more focused on what really mattered to me.  Despite differences of belief, I had found a new holy place for me.

Fast forward six months, and once again I found myself on another continent with a few hours to spare.  This time I was in Tokyo presenting a paper.  After the conference was over, I had a few hours before my plane left so I braved the subway system (which was surprisingly easy to navigate, actually), and made my way to the Meiji Shrine, in downtown Tokyo.  I know pretty much nothing about Shinto spirituality, but I couldn't help but feel connected to the idea of wanting to cleanse yourself before entering a sacred place, as you are asked to do before entering the center of the Meiji Shrine:

I also really loved this tree in the middle of the shrine, where visitors are allowed to hang prayers written on small plaques.

Most of the plaques were in Japanese, but I feel pretty confident that I would agree with what was written on nearly all of them.  I loved the few hours I had to wander the grounds of the shrine, nestled in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world.  Again, I was struck by how close to God I felt, despite the huge differences between my beliefs and Shinto spiritualism.

And finally, a few weeks after being in Tokyo, I was in Tucson visiting Dan and Autumn after going to a conference in Southern Utah.  On a Sunday afternoon, they took me to the Mission San Xavier del Bac, which looks like this on the outside:

and this on the inside:

It was blistering hot while we were there, and it was very easy to imagine the effort that must have been required to build this mission way back in the 18th century.  And once again I was very glad to find myself in a place where my fellow brothers and sisters had worked very hard to set aside a holy place where they could worship God.



In the past year, I logged over 62,555 total miles (that's equivalent to 2 1/2 times around the world!) and passed through 30 different cities.  I missed being home during those trips, because my home is a sacred place for me.  But I'm so, so glad I was able to find just a few moments to stand in new holy places, and appreciate just how strong the human race's desire is, in all times and places and cultures, to connect with God.

Fame finally comes to Ben

In case you missed the New York Times last week, Ben was on the front page of the science and health sections!  His face was popping up all over the Times.  Lest you think he was being quoted for his robust economic research, I will point out that he is, in fact, a famous testosterone study participant.  What would you do for $1000 and your picture in the paper?

Just read the article!  I don't think Ben has ever been more embarrassed in his life, and I don't think I have ever laughed so hard . . .

It has been a good week.

Meet Dr. Iverson

Dr. Benjamin Charles Iverson

Graduated May 30th, 2013

Ph.D. in Business Economics

Harvard Business School

 Hip, Hip, Hooray!

After five years, he's finally done!  

"We did it!"

 That's "Mrs. Dr. Iverson," to you!  

 Henry missed three days of school that week.  One day was to attend Ben's graduation.  I think watching his dad walk across the stage was pretty darn educational.

(whale watching - also pretty darn educational - was one of the other days Henry missed school) 

Thanks to this smart couple for encouraging and supporting Ben from the day he was born!  Aren't they a good-looking bunch?

My parents also attended, but they didn't make the cut on the pre-lunch photo session.

We had a birthday/graduation party with our parents and friends after all the Harvard festivities.  This carrot cake cheesecake must be repeated! 

 Our friend Tim created an awesome HBS quiz, complete with cool Harvard prizes for all of the winners!

Some of the girls I love: Stephanie, Laura, Christy, Jamie, and Becky... 

 We never want our conversations with the Wilsons to end!  They stuck around to the end of the party.  We have a special bond with them, as Becky, Ben and I are all from the same hometown, and Becky was one of the first people I saw at church when we moved to Boston.  Ah, this is where we started thinking about missing people . . .  :(

This is the Thesis that Ben Wrote

Please read this aloud.  Preferably as a bedtime story for a future or current grad student.

This is the thesis that Ben wrote.

Chapter 1: Get in Line: Chapter 11 Restructuring in Crowded Bankruptcy Courts

Chapter 2: The Ownership and Trading of Debt Claims in Chapter 11 Restructuring

Chapter 3: Can Gambling Increase Savings? Empirical Evidence from Prize-linked Savings Accounts

These are the words 

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

This is the computer 

that typed the words 

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

This is the data 

that vexed the computer 

that typed the words 

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

This is the program, all 80's and dated, 

that crunched the data

that vexed the computer

that typed the words

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

This is the code, formatted and shaded,

that ran the program, all 80's and dated,

that crunched the data

that vexed the computer

that typed the words

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

This is the brain, ELATED! deflated,

that wrote the code, formatted and shaded,

that ran the program, all 80's and dated,

that crunched the data

that vexed the computer

that typed the words

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

This is the office, quite isolated,

that housed the brain, ELATED! deflated,

that wrote the code, formatted and shaded,

that ran the program, all 80's and dated,

that crunched the data

that vexed the computer

that typed the words

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

These are the professors, some helpful, some jaded,

who visited the office, quite isolated,

that housed the brain, ELATED! deflated,

that wrote the code, formatted and shaded,

that ran the program, all 80's and dated,

that crunched the data

that vexed the computer

that typed the words

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

This is the class, all lectured and graded,

that stressed the professors, some helpful, some jaded,

who visited the office, quite isolated,

that housed the brain, ELATED! deflated,

that wrote the code, formatted and shaded,

that ran the program, all 80's and dated,

that crunched the data

that vexed the computer

that typed the words

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

And this is the idea, so long awaited,

that began in the class, all lectured and graded,

that stressed the professors, some helpful, some jaded,

who visited the office, quite isolated,

that housed the brain, ELATED! deflated,

that wrote the code, formatted and shaded,

that ran the program, all 80's and dated,

that crunched the data

that vexed the computer

that typed the words

that formed the thesis that Ben wrote.

Patterned after This is the House that Jack Built.

How a Finance Ph.D. Gets a Job

Well, the word is out:  We're going to Chicago - that toddling town!  I'm super excited, and super relieved to have made it through the crazy process of finding a job in academia.  The past few months have been just stressful and wacky enough that I think they deserve their own blog post from me, if only so that in ten years I can read this post and remember what a time it was.  Maybe you'll find some entertainment value in imagining what my life was like as well!

Here's how the job market works for economics and finance Ph.D.s.  First, you spend several years putting together enough research to make a dissertation.  One of those papers you work on will become the all-important job market paper, which is basically what is going to determine the job that you get.  It's the paper you present to the profession as your best work, and then everyone gets to judge it and you, sometimes mercilessly.

Once you've got a job market paper, it's time to send out applications!  That happened in the middle of November.  I sent out just over 60 job applications to universities and government institutions all over the country, and a couple in London as well.  It's kind of ridiculous to send out that many, but you're never quite sure where you're going to end up so it's best to cast a wide net.  It took me basically a full week just filling out the same information in every form over and over again.  Ugh.

And then, I ate lots of turkey and pie at Thanksgiving.  And there was much rejoicing.

During the first week of December, my phone started ringing as schools contacted me to schedule first-round interviews.  Every time my pocket started to buzz, I'd just about jump out of my chair as I reached for my phone, not knowing who it might be on the other end.  It was super exciting.  A lot of this part of the process relies on your adviser, who is hopefully calling all of his or her friends and telling them that they should interview you.  So, I have to give a huge shout out to my adviser (who isn't reading this) for being a huge supporter of me during this whole process.  Now, one odd thing about the academic job market is that all first-round interviews take place at this giant conference called the AEA meetings (American Economic Association).  So, as schools called I'd whip out my schedule for those three days and plan out my schedule.  By the end, I'd scheduled 23 interviews during the 3-day conference.

During that same first week of December, I was invited to fly out to BYU for a job interview.  (BYU works on a slightly different schedule because to make hires they have to get approval from Salt Lake.)  So, Jenn and I and the boys took a quick trip out there, and Jenn and I even got to be interviewed by a general authority (Elder Haleck), which was pretty cool as well.  We really enjoyed the whole visit with the guys at BYU, actually.

When we returned from Utah, it was time to practice for first-round interviews.  Academic first-round interviews are all nearly exactly the same.  They start out by saying, "So, tell us about your research," and then you tell them about your research for the next half hour, while they interject questions about your research in the middle.  And that's it.  They don't ask about your teaching, because they're hiring a researcher, who happens to teach a bit on the side.  So, I scripted out my whole spiel of what I wanted to say during these half hour interviews, practiced it literally dozens and dozens of times, and did several mock interviews with Harvard professors.  I even met for an hour and a half with a professional presentation coach that HBS had hired to help the job candidates to practice both my job talk and these shorter interviews.

And then it was go time.  Just after New Years I packed my bags and headed off to sunny San Diego for the AEA meetings.  A few hours after I landed, it was already time for my first interviews, so I put on my tie and put on my game face and headed out.  For those of you who aren't familiar with my game face, this is what it looked like on that day:

Pretty impressive, eh?  Anyway, for three days straight, I essentially went from one hotel room to the next repeating the exact same thing 23 different times, trying to act excited and friendly and fresh each time.  The first 5 interviews were nerve-wracking, the next 10 were good, and the last 8 were a real grind.  Each evening in San Diego I'd go take a walk by myself and breathe a huge sigh of relief, and then each morning I'd wake up and groan as I realized I had to do it all again.  But, I took pleasure in the simple things, like watching myriads of other job market candidates lining up in front of hotel rooms every half hour.  We looked like a bunch of secret service agents in our dark suits, pacing nervously around.  Anyway, after 23 interviews, my game face wasn't quite so impressive:

But, at least I got to go to San Diego in January.  I'd recommend it to anyone:

Before I had even returned to Boston, calls were starting to come in from various universities inviting me for second-round fly-outs to visit their department.  This was again a super exciting time, as I was on pins and needles waiting for my phone to ring all day long.  Luckily, and despite my game face, I got a really great set of fly-outs: University of Chicago, Ohio State, Dartmouth, NYU, Columbia, the NY Fed, Yale, Duke, London Business School, Northwestern, Berkeley, and USC.  

I was super excited and blessed to have such a great list of places.  The only downside was that I had to actually fly out to each of them, and a spend a full, grueling day at each place.  All of these campus visits are basically exactly the same.  I'd fly in the evening before and make my way to a relatively nice hotel, paid for by the university.  I'd iron my shirt for the morning, call Jenn, and then hit the sack.  Usually, I'd toss and turn much of the night, not because the bed was uncomfortable, but because I'd be just nervous enough about my interviews the next day that I couldn't get a great night's rest.  When my alarm would go off in the morning, I'd roll out of bed, order room service for breakfast (I loved this part of having my trips paid for!), and then suit up.  After arriving at the finance department, I'd meet with 11-12 people for half-hour long interviews throughout the day, and say basically the spiel to each one of them, telling them about my research, and sometimes asking about their work as well.  Somewhere in the middle of the day I'd present my job market paper in an hour-and-a-half long seminar, during which everyone would try to poke holes in it, and I would attempt to deflect the criticisms.  Then, around 6pm, they would take me out to a fancy dinner where I would hope that I could at least pronounce something on the menu.  Then, go back to the hotel, call Jenn and talk incoherently to her (sorry, Jenn!) about my day, and collapse.  The next morning it would be off to the airport again for the next visit.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.  For 5 weeks.

Needless to say, it was exhausting.  Here's a picture I snapped of myself when I was at JFK for the third time in four days:  

But, I got good at getting through security, and it was cool to see all of these different places in such a short time.  Here's a few pictures from my phone:

Chicago, IL (University of Chicago)

Hanover, NH (Dartmouth)

New Haven, CT (Yale)

Durham, NC (Duke) - out of my hotel window

Big Ben and parliament in London, UK (London Business School)

Happened across this road in London

Westminster Abbey in London

Evanston, IL (Northwestern)

Jenn wouldn't let me post one other photo, which was a framed picture hanging in my hotel room in Berkeley, CA.  She deemed it too inappropriate for the audience that reads our blog.  Any guesses what it was of?  Yep, two free-love streakers (a man and a woman) who are joyously flinging their clothes off.  Seriously, Berkeley?  Is that still what you're most proud of, 40 years later?

Anyway, I traveled by bus, plane, train, and taxi (no boats, unfortunately) over 24,000 miles on these treks.  Amid all of that travel, I had only one serious delay, when Winter Storm Nemo hit Boston.  I happened to be in London, hoping to land in Boston at 12:45pm on a Friday afternoon.  Unfortunately, the storm was scheduled to hit at 12:00pm on Friday.  My flight was completely cancelled, leaving me stranded in London while Jenn was stranded with three boys at home while 36 inches of snow fell in 12 hours.  I definitely got the better end of the deal there.  I took advantage of the time by going to the Sherlock Holmes museum at 221b Baker Street, wandering around random neighborhoods trying to figure out if we really could live in London (we could, quite happily, but it would be crazy expensive!), and then in the late afternoon I went to St. Paul's Cathedral:

I happened to get there close to closing time and didn't have tons of time to tour the place, but luckily they have Evensong every night which is open to the public, so I stuck around.  I'm so glad that I did!  I got to sit in the quire seats, the ones that look like this:

while a choir of men and boys sang for 45 minutes.  It was a little bit of peace and calm in the middle of a very stressful time, and I would highly recommend it to anyone.  Absolutely amazing.

After that beautiful experience, however, things went downhill.  I was scheduled to fly out the next day around 10am to get back to Boston, a full day late.  I figured I'd go to the airport and hang around and try to get on standby for an earlier flight.  I got to the airport around 10pm, and was informed that the airport closes at midnight and so I couldn't go in through security.  Who knew that some airports actually close?  Well, I hadn't booked a hotel for that night, so I ended up hanging out at a 24-hour cafe just outside of security with about 40 other weary travelers who were also waiting for the airport to re-open.  I'm still mad at the Hilton at Heathrow who wanted to charge me 205 pounds ($300!) for a room at 2am when I would leave the next morning by 6am.  I tried to reason with them that if they didn't give me the room it would just go empty and they would get nothing, but no dice.  Idiots.  So, I trudged back to a little patch of tiled floor by the cafe and went to sleep.  The next day I wasn't able to get on any standby flights and so boarded my regularly scheduled flight, which had been delayed a few hours waiting for the Boston Logan airport to open after the storm.  Finally we took off.  Then, about an hour before landing, the pilot came on and told us that Logan still wasn't open, and so we were being diverted to Detroit.  Ugh.  That night I ended up in a grungy Best Western (paid for by Delta, at least), and I didn't get back to Jenn until Sunday afternoon, two full days late.  My reward was getting to turn around the next morning and leave again.

Still, it wasn't all bad.  I actually enjoyed meeting a huge chunk of the profession and getting to know a lot of people.  Of course, meeting with over 130 socially awkward academics I was bound to have some funny experiences.  One guy spent the full 30 minutes asking me about the Church's stance on gay marriage and what the Church teaches about food storage.  Another guy asked me a question about my paper, I responded, and then he sat there thinking about my answer for at least a full 2 minutes, in complete silence.  It was so awkward, but I didn't dare interrupt his train of thought.  Another guy talked to me for about 20 minutes about how much he hated [the city we were in] and how it would be a terrible place for a guy with kids like me.  Academia is filled with odd people.  Mostly good, nice people, but decidedly odd.

And, I had a lot of really nice meals.  I tried cow tongue, foie gras, osso buco, and a bunch of other things that I'd never heard of or at least never would have eaten otherwise, and most of it was spectacular.  Definitely the fanciest place I went to was in London, where they must have laid down at least $1,200 for a dinner for 5 of us.  The wine alone cost $350 (and I didn't even have any)!  The funny part about that meal was that one of the people in our party found a hair in her dessert.  One of guys in our group was a bit of a foodie (and maybe a bit tipsy) and he loudly called the waiter over demanding to know what he was going to do to fix the problem.  The poor waiter started to say he would bring another one when this guy cuts him off and says, "I suggest you should be a bit more creative in thinking how you'll make it up to us."  The waiter apologized profusely and said he'd talk to the manager.  They ended up giving us all a tour of the kitchen (it was just like Ratatouille!), removing the service charge for our table, and giving the lady her whole meal completely free.  That was one expensive hair for them!

And now, I've come out of the other end of the job market alive, well, and better for the experience.  I'm much more comfortable in my own skin now, knowing that I can survive brutal seminars just fine, and that most everyone is actually pretty nice and wanting to help.  And, I got four spectacular job offers as well:  BYU (Marriott School of Business), London Business School, Dartmouth (Tuck Business School), and Northwestern (Kellogg School of Management).  We agonized over the decision for a long time, but in the end I'm joining Kellogg, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Now all I have to do is defend this dissertation and walk across the stage...nearly there!

The weekend of everything getting canceled . . . almost

This past weekend turned out to be pretty crazy for us!  The blizzard that hit our area was predicted to be record-breaking in snow accumulation and severity.  

 While the storm wasn't supposed to get bad until Friday night, our school officials went ahead and canceled school on Friday.  So Henry was home, which is actually a great thing for me, because Ellis is much happier when Henry is here (above, he is reading Ellis all the names of the characters in their Star Wars Encyclopedia).  Hours of fun, right there!

Meanwhile, Ben was interviewing in London, and the very important airport people decided to cancel all flights arriving after noon on Friday.  Ben's flight was scheduled to arrive at 12:40.  So he was stuck in London.  Which means I was stuck at home to face the blizzard alone with the boys (after flying solo all week) while Ben got an extra long tour of London.

A little after noon, we got a knock on our door.  Our amazing friend Cale Brown had shown up with a Wii in his hands.  He said, "I heard Henry and Ellis might want to borrow this?"  Um, he was heaven sent!  Turned our downer weekend into a party for these thrilled-beyond-belief boys.

 

And then the storm hit.  By 9:00pm, the snow on the side of the house was already up to the top of my rain boots (12-13 inches).  It came hard, fast, and windy!

At this point, I started wondering things like, "Am I hard-core enough to live in New Hampshire?" and "Would we really want to deal with international flights as a family of five?" and "Do you think I could pass as a snow goddess?"  Shortly after that, the power went out.  And then my cell phone gave it's last warning before it was about to die!  I had forgotten to charge it!  And what if the power was out for days?  What should I do about communication, heat, food, etc.?  This is when I really really wanted Ben to be home.

I put some milk out on the porch, just in case.  It stayed pretty cold, I guess!  But thankfully, we had power again by 5:30am.  Such a blessing!

 And we were completely buried in snow!

It took a long time for my neighbor and me to dig our cars out of this snow.  I have always been the one to happily stay inside with the kids while Ben did the shoveling (making hot cocoa for him, of course).  This was my first time having to take on the shoveling alone (alone, but with a very strong, fast-working upstairs neighbor Alex who put me to shame, and who probably wished Ben was here as much as I did!).  Again, the Wii came in handy while I was outside shoveling for hours.

Ben's flight was re-scheduled to come in at 1:00pm.  And then it was rescheduled again to come in at 4:30pm.  I was excited because we had planned a birthday/Valentine's date for Saturday night, and it looked like he was going to make it just in time!  Finally, at 4:45, Ben called to tell me that his plane had landed.  In Detroit.
I may or may not have eaten about 40 peanut M&Ms after hanging up the phone with him.  I was SO ready for him to be home.

Fina-fina-finally, Ben walked in the door on Sunday morning at 11:30!  I had already given up on hoping that he was ever coming home.  So seeing him was like something out of a dream.   He was scheduled to leave again for his next interview the next day around noon, so we had about 24 hours together.  Church was canceled too, so we had the whole afternoon to spend time as a family.

We went for a walk to check out how the neighborhood was faring in the aftermath of the storm.

Kind of a lot of snow everywhere.  25 inches, all in one night!

We had a little birthday party for me, and I insisted on a family photo.  Pretty good for a timed shot, hey?  If I had known it would be this good, I might have done it before pajama time.  :)

 The next morning, school was canceled again, so all five of us got to go out for breakfast.  Yum!  And then Ben bought me flowers (picked out by me - my favorite!) and then he left for his next trip.

 

I have some amazing friends who know what I like.  Thanks, Jamie and Christy, for a perfect lunch, delicious cupcakes, and great company! 

They even sang to me.  Can you believe I'm already 31?  Just for the record, my favorite cupcake was the chocolate mint oreo one (yes, I shared them).  Um, yeah.  It didn't take long for chocolate to grow on me.  I'm trying to remember that one year ago, I felt like I had finally gained enough self-control to welcome chocolate back into my life.  What I'm learning is that chocolate has a power of its own . . .