done with the day

Post-mortem on the Teaching interview:

Again, I felt like it went all right, but who the hell knows.  They (the actual guy doing the hiring and also an auxiliary interviewer guy who I presume will weigh in with his opinion but not make actual decisions?) seemed to dig my sample syllabus, which is cool.  I said some clearly Correct things about the pastoral role of a teacher on a summer program for high school kids.  My friend Queen P asked me afterward if I'd gone close to the limit of time on the interview, and in fact I'd used it all -- they book you in for half an hour and then they look at the clock and in fact the 6:30 knocked on the door just as I was putting on my coat, which Queen P said was good, because if they didn't like you they'd find a reason to be done talking to you sooner.  So, whatever -- schedule-wise it's not a Dramatic Thing anymore, so I didn't have to do my cute pretending-to-ask-one-question-but-secretly-meaning-something-else thing, where what I meant was "I'd prefer this to be only an afternoon class three times a week, because two days a week I want to take another job", but what I said was "Is there any indication of whether it will be running as both a major and minor class?, because if it's not and it's just a minor, I'll have to find something to do with my mornings."  Yeah -- didn't have to do that.  Which, yay.

So I'm supposed to hear from them by the end of the month.  Current enrollment:  9 kids want to take it as a minor, and 3 want to take it as a major, out of a possible 15 in each case.  So it's looking like it'll just be a minor, wouldn't you say?, which, now that I don't have the scheduling issue, is a minor (ha, funny joke) bummer for me, as it's a pay differential of a thousand pounds.


Then had an hour to kill, in which time I went and had dinner at Starbucks in Borders while reading a chapter or so of The Last Camel Died at Noon, because what I do when I eat at Starbucks by myself is read Elizabeth Peters (off their shelves).  Memo to self:  no more steak and cheese panini at Starbucks, if they're going to do that to your stomach in the middle of rehearsal.  Ack!  I suspect the cheese was too oily?  Because it's not that I haven't eaten meat recently (although I haven't eaten much -- but there wasn't much in the sandwich, either), or even rich food -- again, not much, but not none, and I haven't had any trouble.

Oh!  And then, when I got home from rehearsal (after refusing admittance to college to a woman who is not a member but insisted she knows someone I've never heard of, and wanted to use the library, and didn't like when I told her that college isn't open to unescorted visitors and besides the library is locked, so unless her friend came to get her and brought her key, she was out of luck; Her:  You are not in charge here!  Me:  Actually, I am -- I'm the student president.), there was totally an e-mail in my box from the guy who interviewed me this afternoon at the Press.

Dear Fox,

Just to say how much I enjoyed meeting you today and that I'll be in touch later in the week.

I hope you enjoy Libben & Jarema's collection.  If you've a moment to spare I’d be interested to know how useful for graduate level work you think it might be.

All best wishes,
[etc.]

RAR!  He has pre-empted my thank-you note!  RAR!

placeholder

Remind me to tell you (on the Size Matters filter, which I feel no qualms about mentioning because anyone who cares to is welcome to opt in) about the time I literally sat for a couple of hours and watched paint dry.

Now, I must go to lunch and then what I'm sure will be an excruciating couple of meetings.

power nap

The meetings weren't excruciating, but they were sure the hell long.  (I didn't just get out -- have been up here for about 40 minutes, I guess.)  Some followup to do based on them, plus the post about watching paint dry, plus finishing my syntax essay and doing something thesis-related so I can contact my supervisor, but first, I'm going to lie down for an hour, I think.  Two and a half productive hours of meetings takes a lot out of a person.

one down, again

So, didn't get the OUP job.  But the note saying so made so much sense ("The candidates were all talented and all delightful people.  In the end the factor which told was breadth of network among linguists and here the more experienced PhD students had the advantage over those still at MPhil stage.") and was so pleasant that although naturally I'm disappointed, I'm finding it hard to be especially annoyed.

And something else will come up.  Always does.  Onward.

oh my god, that's it

I was so afraid I'd argued myself into an indefensible place by using the word 'complement' too restrictively, but I haven't, because the things I was afraid might be complements that I wasn't describing that way are actually adjuncts.  Thank god.

(I expect that made sense to about two of you, but hey, that's how many examiners are going to read the paper, as well, so that's really all I need.)