is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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Interviewitis [sick].

Academic job interviews are so exhausting. I guess there is no better way to do it (and, believe me, there are worse ways, like how in the fields of philosophy and all the modern languages, you have to have your first interview in a HOTEL ROOM at a CONFERENCE that is held during the worst possible time of year, between Christmas and the New Year. And yes, I may end up doing that again this year. I assume I'll hear in the next couple of weeks whether any Philosophy departments want to offer to me that date with fate.) Anyway, no better way to do the campus visit thing. After all, the candidates need to spend enough time in a place to see whether they'd like to be there, and the interviewing department needs to suss out the candidate to make sure s/he's not a creep or an idiot or a terrible teacher and/or colleague, etc. And that takes time. But MAN, 12-hour job interviews. I feel like I should be given some huge gifts right now by someone. So I bought a dress on eBay.

The interview went well, except for the fact that by 10am (breakfast was at 8:30am) I was feeling dizzy and like I might be getting sick, and by 11am my throat felt like I had dragged it over a field of broken glass, and my head was steaming hot and I was trying very very hard to focus intently on what the Chair of the Department was saying to me, and ask the right questions at the right times when he would pause to see if I had questions. Oy. That was a terrible feeling. A feeling which would continue throughout the day as I struggled to make sure I was being attentive while also being unendingly distracted by my feverish dizzy state of being.

In any case, I think I did fairly well, and that they liked me, and that maybe I'll get an offer? (That will of course depend on their needs as a department and their assessment of me versus the other candidates they have coming to campus, and I think they invited five or six, so my chances are lower than usual, as most searches only invite three candidates to campus.)

I won't hear anything for 2 to 4 weeks.

On the campus there is a coffee shop called The Freudian Sip. That's almost as good/bad as San Francisco State's Snackademic.

The teaching demonstration went well, too. Many of the faculty were there, and they liked my lecture, and I was able to get some students to participate and laugh and such, despite the fact that I was feverish and dizzy, and my mouth felt oh so very dry, so I kept drinking water. Man. Luck was not mine, healthwise, on that day. And then there was the campus walking tour at the end of the day when I was at the end of my rope and my shoes were tearing up my feet. I'm actually laughing as I type this, so desperate it all felt at the time.

However, I very much like the people who would be my colleagues if I were to get the job. It would be a big change, a very different kind of a teaching situation, and that has pros and cons attached to it, but it would probably be a good move for me. In any case, I won't start counting chickens before I've saved nine spilled milks in an unmade bed.

Just in case, I sent out three more job applications today. That makes ten gazillion and three.

I was talking to Gus on the phone on my way home from the airport (he and I were supposed to go see the midnight movie showing of Dead Man that night, at my suggestion, and I was letting him know that that was probably not going to happen given my state of sickness and tiredness, but we instead were talking about the job market), and he said, "well, it's nice to be wanted." And I said, "yes, it's nice to be wanted in a preliminary way." We laughed, wryly.

And now it is time for more sweet sweet sleeping.

12:41 a.m. - December 04, 2006

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