The Mean One

I have a proper on-site interview coming up, with the site paying for my trip and all.  Exactly which day is not certain yet, but it's narrowed down to two.  So that's good.  I considered the train as a way to bring Limelet and his Daddy too, but because the US has starved its train lines into skeletons that would be completely impractical. 

 

According to Google maps, the drive to the site would be 10 hours (straight through, which I wouldn't do, but anyway).  Meanwhile, taking the train would mean driving to a near-ish town in our state, taking a train to a major city in the opposite direction from my actual trip, having a layover of several hours, then taking an overnight train to a large city in the other state, then having another layover of six hours, then another train to a sort of near-ish town, then a drive to the town where the site is.  The train trip would take nearly two days. 

 

I am trying to imagine four days (round-trip) on and off a train with a toddler, with my job interview sandwiched in between.  Right.

 

We had our last supervision sessions with our supervisees recently.  My supervisee told me that when she found she had been assigned to me, she thought, "Oh, great, I got the mean one!"  Apparently the organized way I presented their training seminar, complete with handouts and other kind of OC things, led them to believe I'd be really strict.  Well, that's good.  It's better to start out mean and get nice than vice versa.

 

Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny, since I sometimes feel like I'm kind of a pushover.

Political Prediction Time

I'm going to take a little leap here.  Well, actually, it doesn't seem like a leap to me.  It seems depressingly obvious.  Here's my prediction for next prez.

 

The Man has played the social system again.  Women vs. Blacks.  Sexism vs. racism.  Hierarchy of oppression, bell hooks be damned.

 

So regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, people are going to vote "personality not party", and McCain is going to win because many who typically vote Democrat will be buying into the racism and sexism and thinking their feeling really is about the candidates.

 

Yeah, people are sick of Republican government at this point, but they think McCain is different, so this will be a different Republican administration.  Forgetting that McCain the individual comes with a whole bunch of other Republicans who will be advancing the usual Republican ideals and goals.

 

Depressing.

If This Syndrome Didn't Exist

Someone would have had to have invented it. Someone with an exploding head.

Darn.

Got a rejection email from a site that I'd begun to not only think of as "mine" but had started to look forward to.  At least I was one of their four finalists (for two positions), but that still doesn't get me a job.  So far that's three out of the eight sites I applied to that have rejected me (or listed the position as filled).  One of those eight was...sort of last-ditch for me, and one is, shall we say, penultimate-ditch. 

 

So that means that I had six earnest applications out there, so three out of six---bust. 

 

Oh yeah, another site gave me a phone interview, but I dithered for a long time about whether to even apply to that one. Therefore my application got in right before the deadline, and they had already gotten onto site interviews with some applicants so I'm basically second-tier with them already.  I'm not holding out much hope for that one.  

 

So maybe two out of six left.

 

And one of those two sites lost two of my three reference letters (or, okay, so I suspect, since I mailed them at the same time and where the heck would they go?), and then they sent me letters telling me that applications that were complete by the deadline would be given "full consideration" and mine was not complete--meaning, "you didn't get all your stuff to us, so you're second-tier."  Poo. 

 

Turns out one of my colleagues here applied there too, and she did get an interview with them.  I guess they didn't lose her letters, and she's at least as competent as me.  I guess a lesson here is that each site to which I send apps, I should actually call them to make sure they got everything.  (And that they still have it.)

Good

Just had my first interview, it was by phone but was good nonetheless.  Now that I have half a dozen apps out there and some others are showing interest, I am already worried about how to navigate accepting versus doign more interviews.  Who knew I'd be so popular?!

Heh. Foolio.

I wish this existed.
Actually, I wish it existed for my VHS tapes at a non-exorbitant price.

Speaking of April Fool, don't forget to get your dose of ludicrosity.

Okay, wait---this one's better!

UPDATE: Well, having not known about the homophobic history of the Rickroll, I can say I am disappointed. I love things that are a) about '80s music and b) silly and have no apparent reason at all. I thought that the surprising aspect of the video was that Rick was visually a skinny White guy who was singing in a voice and style that people usually associated with medium-sized Black guys.

So here's the replacement.

However, I think the poster missed the most important viral aspect of the Rickroll, which had to do with how insanely catchy that song is, which makes you need to infect others with it. So it should actually be this song or this song instead.