Schedule time for case presentation

And Now, for Something Completely Different

If you didn't know about the World Beard Championships, you should.

Back

Not much computer time, so I haven't posted and this will be short.  The interview went well, as far as I know, though since then I have been second-guessing myself a lot.  But either they like me or they don't, at this point.  I liked the town a lot, and the are in general. so I think that we will like being in that state (regardless of town).  Three of my four planes were prop planes. A little swoopy, but I kind of like that.  It's like a roller coaster. It was hard being away from Limelet--also TheLimey but in a different way--for that long and I was really glad to get back.

I'm Off

I'm flying out out to my on-site interview in a couple of hours. I'm discovering that job search out-of-state is kind of a hassle, but I am glad to have an on-site interview. The hassle will be worth it if I get it. Of course, the other candidates are probably all thinking the same thing. It will also be my first time away from Limelet overnight, which will be weird for all of us. Wish me luck on the prop-plane leg of my journey. Oh yeah, and the interview itself.

Okay...We Are Officially in The Future Now.

I can't wait to regrow my own body parts, but I'm not looking forward to the part where something gets cut off.

But the thing I really want to do is grow some new teeth.*

*But not like this.

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.

Was Your Day Better Than This?

Last night Limelet was awake from 3:30 to 4:30, which all things considered is really not the worst night ever, but still I had a really hard time getting myself up in the morning for work and an even harder time getting out of the house.  He's really cranky and clingy when he's tired (got it from me, most likely.)

I had a client right at 8, and made it to the Center just at 8 myself, minus makeup as usual.  So there I was in my somewhat dark office, trying eat some string cheese (breakfast) and add a dash of makeup before the client arrived.

 

"Your client has arrived.  Your client has arrived," announced my desktop computer, as I hastily applied lipstick and darkened my eyebrows.  As I stood up to go to the lobby to get her, I checked my application in my powder mirror by the light of my coffee table lamp. 

 

It was then that I realized that instead of my usual subtle brown eyebrow pencil, I had grabbed a blue eyeliner pencil.  My eyebrows were a lovely bright blue.

 

Just as I assumed a horror-stricken expression, a colleague knocked on my door asking questions about some project we're working on.  I shielded my eyebrows with my hands while impressing on her that I was in a hurry.  This probably looked really odd, which you can tell if you try doing it yourself.

 

I think I managed to get most of it off before seeing the client, but who knows.  Maybe she just thought it was a new therapy trend, or (more likely) that it was a weird "old people" trend for the over-40 set.

Happy St. Pat's

Happy St. Pat's
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

You know it wasn't really snakes that were driven out of Ireland, but indigenous religions, right?

Slate pretty much explains it all here.

Just FYI: I'm not a big fan of human sacrifice, whatever the denomination.

Savings, Schmavings

I'm a little late for my yearly rant about Stupid Daylight Savings. It's much worse now having a kid. So, anyway, consider it ranted upon.

Now, for my alternative (I finally have one): we set the clocks back one hour 24 times each year, giving us all an extra hour to sleep in every few weeks or so, and coming 'round to the original time once per year. I realize it means that we'll be getting up when it's getting dark (or is dark) out for part of the year. But I think that the gain in restedness we'll all have will make up for it.

No more of this getting up an hour earlier during the springtime. This year it was just when we were all feeling vastly relieved because it was finally getting light when we got up. Then, BLAM! Now we have to get up in the dark again while still feeling tired.

Which more or less blows my alternative suggestion out of the water, but I don't care.

In A Circuitous Way

Pi Pie
Originally uploaded by megpi

Happy Pi Day.

glazed pi
Originally uploaded by VROG in Bristol

There are a lot of these. Why don't we have one?!

Public Figure (?)

I'm realizing that people see me and recognize me in public, so I better make sure I walk my talk.

 

A young woman came into my office today with a big hunk of fabric today asking me how to wrap her baby in it.  She'd previously been to one of my babywearing talks, but I guess the thing that led her to try it out for herself was seeing me at the grocery store wearing a contented Limelet in one of my wraps.  (Her baby had been teething and doesn't want to be put down, which in my experience makes it hard to even go to the bathroom.)

 

And TheLimey told me that a woman from the library playgroup recognized--well, not me, but Limelet, and assumed (correctly) who I was.  Again at the grocery store.

 

So if those two people saw me, then I'm sure others have as well: I just heard about those two. 

 

Gosh, does this mean that I have to try to look good, or at least less bad, before going to the grocery store?  'Cause it's not likely to happen.

My Theme Song

The original song is pretty catchy already, but these lyrics speak to me.
I think my favorite part is the Seth Green segment.

Retired English Psychologist Apparently Quite Clever

48-year-old London psychologist developing movie-recommending algorithm for Netflix contest on his elderly home Dell computer has been edging out tech teams at high-caliber schools and so forth.
I'm rooting for him to win the million dollars!

Austen

I don't know. She seems to0 charming and sweet to be me.

Take the Quiz here!

Fantasy Cheese Tea

TheLimey and I actually had a conversation the other night...was it last week?  No, maybe the week before.  I mean a normal, honest-to-goodness conversation that included laughter and...content and...stuff.  We even had a glass of wine while conversing!  Limelet went to sleep relatively early and even stayed asleep with no intervention long enough (half an hour) for this to take place.

 

One thing we talked about was how fantasy changes as one gets older.  We used to fantasize (and I won't say whose was which) about winning the lottery, being able to fly, being incredibly attractive, having a really cool car, or dating celebrities (--no, wait a minute...I don't think that either of us has ever been terribly into celebrities.  Scratch that.  Unless you count my primary-school crush on James T. Kirk...anyway--).

 

TheLimey revealed his innermost fantasy life, and yes--it was something nearly impossible to achieve.  He fantasizes about having the chance to sit on the sofa and have a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea.

 

Me? Well, I've discovered that I am almost always too exhausted to even fantasize about cheese anymore.  Kind of like when you're too sick to watch TV, if you've ever experienced that.  I guess I fantasize about getting to sleep in until 7:00 or even 7:30. 

 

Or getting to bed earlier, so here goes.