Stranger than Fiction

Alas, I’m still very much online. Rotten habit. But this week featured an encounter of the strange kind that seemed notable enough, so here goes: Elle and I were sitting on the outside patio of a local coffee shop (not Starbucks, for a change), eating gelato and discussing relationships in Gilmore Girls, specifically those between Rory and Logan and between Lorelai and Christopher. For anybody who might have casually listened or overheard us and who was not familiar with the show, it might have sounded as if we were discussing actual relationships, real people. At the only other occupied table on the patio, a woman and a girl were playing a board game. When they packed up and left, the woman turned to our table and said, “this guy keeps texting me.” She said it completely out of the blue, and it wasn’t until after she’d left (while I just sat there like an idiot, Elle was enough on her toes to give some kind of reply) that I realized that the woman had probably thought we were talking about real people, perhaps even friends or coworkers, and now expected some kind of advice or input from us. I can’t really blame her–except for a few references to “plot” and “narrative structure” and maybe “dialogue,” it likely did sound as if we were talking about real people. English majors are weird like that.

The Trashy Novel as Means of Recovery

For a few days now, I’ve been practicing the fine art of doing nothing. Okay, so there’s making breakfast and lunch and that kind of stuff, but for the most part I’ve been recovering from applying for jobs by reading completely uncanonized stuff. I’ll admit that I even consumed two and a quarter Nora Roberts novels–they really are well written, but predictable enough to be  shelved before the heroine and the hero got it on in the third one I borrowed from the library. There, wasn’t that an elegant way to let you know that I didn’t actually spend money on trashy novels? If you’re into trashy (or well-written, whatever) romance novels, check out the site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (thanks, Elle!). Very funny, very smart, and very comprehensive (I’m running out of veries here) site that reviews and comments on, well, trashy romances and absolutely refuses to apologize for any lack of literary content. My other reading material, less trashy, though purists might disagree, is Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, currently the installment titled Angels Flight. It’s a safe bet that readers who like Sara Paretsky’s Warshawski series will like Connelly’s Bosch series, though the latter is quite possibly darker as it it consistently reveals corruption inside one of the institutions we tend to trust–the police department. Paretsky’s villains are typically powerful corporations or families, and while she sees her fair share of corruption in the police department, her heroine doesn’t nearly get as close to it as Connelly’s does. Comparing the two might make a nice paper…

Enough of that. Back to my novel, and I’ll be offline for a while.

Encore Interview

Second interview today at let’s-call-it Brighton College with the president and one of the VPs. It was more like a pleasant conversation than an interview, and I take my hat off to them for the nice atmosphere. How did it go? All I can say is that it went well from my point of view. I’ll find out next week how it really went and then I’ll know for sure what I’ll be doing in the fall.

Seriously Serious

Here’s a summary of the last week or so: all signs support the notion that I will be able to continue at my present place of employment for another year. My name is even listed online next to the courses I’m scheduled to teach. However, I still don’t have a contract, which, I’m assured, is in the making. On the application front, I declined an interview from one of the colleges I’d applied to. On a similar note, I’m very close to withdrawing my application from let’s-call-it Drayton College because the workload would be absolutely insane, and while I love my job, I’d consider myself  mentally stable. And just today, I got called back for the second interview round at let’s-call-it Brighton College. This second interview round makes me nervous. It means things are getting seriously serious. I’m happy that I’m in demand, but I also feel like I’m thrown off balance. Perhaps that’s what happens when nothing happens for weeks or months, and then they all call at the same time. Hmm, not to sound too smart here, but it’s pretty much what I predicted a few weeks ago. But, to be honest, I played the role of my own Cassandra and didn’t really believe it–it was an expression of hope rather than a conviction of things to come.

Time to Say Good-Bye?

I haven’t been posting for the last few days because, frankly, I didn’t feel like it. There was also the bit about not having any particular news, other than: I did go to the interview on Tuesday. It went reasonably well, but I don’t expect an offer, and if I received an offer, I’m not sure if I’d want to accept it–that’s as much detail as I’m willing to go into.

The real problem (and this has been brewing for a while) is that this blog has lost its purpose–for now, at least. I started it because I wanted a sense of accountability as I was exploring networking and other career opportunities, but in the last two months or so it’s all narrowed down to teaching. While I’m happy with that decision, it has had a somewhat reverse effect on the dynamic of this blog: instead of exploring, the focus shifted to a kind of narrative reporting, so there was a lot sense of adventure. Or perhaps, as it became increasingly clear that I would keep teaching in higher ed (at least for another year), a sense of security outpaced that sense of adventure. Long story short, I’m trying to decide what to do with this blog: should I freeze it “as is” and keep it as a record of these past months, or should I rename it and use it as a “regular,” everyday-kind-of blog? I have also considered beginning a completely new blog and linking it to this one–my favorite solution right now.

School’s Out…Again

A very happy I stayed up very late Thursday night to type up final comments for students’ portfolios and drove everything out to campus on Friday. Completely exhausted but also giddy and relieved–felt just like a student after turning in that term paper. So tonight an even happier I will occupy the couch with a low-brow novel and a movie of the same kind. Tomorrow I plan to switch gears and prep for the interview on Tuesday. Sounds much more professional, right?

Opportunity?

Incredibly, I received a call from a college today where I dropped off an application several weeks ago (see blog post “Roadtrip”)–they wanted to know if I was still interested in interviewing for the instructor position. I said yes because I still have not signed a contract for the fall anywhere else. But I also said yes because I need the interview experience and because I’ll have to give a teaching demonstration in form of teaching a lesson, something I’ve not had to do yet. So three good reasons to take advantage of this interview opportunity. Information about the demonstration, I was promised, would be sent by mail. Hmm, now I can already think about the lesson I could teach…most likely, though, the information they send will help me make that decision.

Rejection Collection

Yesterday was a blistering hot day (the thermometer cracked the 100 degree mark–38 Celsius–for the first time this year). The weather, of course, is hardly relevant to the letter I received in the mail from one of the private universities. It was a polite note thanking me for my application and notifying me that I was not receiving a job offer “at this time.” But, hey, at least they took the trouble to send a letter, which, by the way, was signed by the Dean of Arts and Sciences. For those of you who are not familiar with academic hierarchy: the dean of a college is the person all department chairs report to and who, in turn, reports to the provost, or vice chancellor of academic affairs. So if the dean signs a rejection letter, it’s a pretty big deal–at least for me. And this university gets brownie points for going the extra mile and sending out a letter to someone they didn’t even interview.

By the way, the title of this post is an homage to the New Yorker’s rejection collection, a book with–you guessed it–cartoons that were deemed unacceptable for one reason or another. Or several reasons. You get the idea. Click on this link for a tiny preview, but be advised–it’s not for the squeamish or those of delicate taste. And just in case you’re wondering: no, I did not insert inappropriate cartoons into my job applications. And because I haven’t included links to cool websites in a while, here’s another one to a site called Rejection Collection. This site is a bit older (last updated in 2005, or so it says), but the creator promises “some good, old-fashioned, immature bitching, moaning and commiserating.” So, if you feel rejected today, don’t. Click on one of these links and join the club!

Elevating News and More Couture Cupcakes

Monday and then again today I received good news. I consider myself particularly lucky as the state of the economy has recently generated a new acronym: ITE, short for “in this economy.” This phrase probably deserves its own acronym because it explains so much in so little space, time, and effort.  So…I have heard more good news, along the lines of the good news I hinted at a few weeks ago. Quite possibly, this job search is coming to an end. More about that later, but this is a careful “thumbs up.” No major celebration yet, but we did eat some of those delightful cupcakes again (the store does not have a website, but they are on Twitter). I think the flavors we ate today were black currant and mint chocolate chip. Delicious!

Disconcerting Holdup of an Application

Since it’s been three and a half weeks since the submission deadline for resumes at one of my favorite community colleges, I gave their HR department a call today to find out at what stage the application process currently was. After exchanging pleasantries, I was told that the department I’d applied for had not yet requested the files in question and that there was, indeed, no indication when they would be requested. Ouch. At the same time it’s fairly clear what the cause of the holdup is–at my present place of employment, e-mails concerning the state budget are sent out on a daily basis. And it doesn’t seem a stretch of the imagination at all to assume that the situation is alike at other state colleges and universities until details of the budget for the next fiscal year are known.