Wordage

From an application to join my Yahoo Freecycle group:

 

"I have lots of used items and love to recycle."

 

(Guess how I read that.)

Everything

We planned once again to have me do my dissertation revisions one day over the weekend, but what I forgot to take into account was the fact that my office building is locked on Sundays. Especially Sundays of holiday weekends. So instead TheLimey worked on his work stuff, as he is getting to the sending-out-resumes point now, too.

I took care of a ton of house stuff that has been driving me insane. Well, it wouldn't have been considered a ton in pre-baby days, but now a half-hour of housework is an improbable dream. I did some of it when Limelet was sleeping soundly, when I should also have been sleeping. But never fear, he only sleeps so long before he stirs and needs my presence to remain asleep, so it's self-limiting.

I cleaned the bathroom, and the kitchen floor, and washed Limelet's laundry and nappies, as well as my laundry. I made couscous and froze it in cubes (for Limelet's lunches), I made his pea-and-rice dish and ditto, and I bagged and tagged some previously frozen foods. I made lemon and yogurt ice pops for the grownups (dairy, y'know). I washed dishes, I threw out some things from the fridge.

Monday we were going to play, and maybe have a playdate with a colleague's toddler, but TheLimey became horribly, horribly ill (did I mention the degree of horribleness?) with some kind of GI thing. It seemed likely not food poisoning this time for various reasons, but he was completely out of commission.

Luckily he is feeling more human today, because I have a video-conferencing interview at 10:30. I don't know what we would have done had he been that sick today. We just don't have any back-up or wiggle room. There's no way he could have taken care of Limelet. All he could do all day was to hold still and try not to throw up more.

So, it's a good thing he's somewhat better today.

I'm feeling pretty optimistic about this interview this morning, but I don't want to jinx it. Or become prematurely attached to a successful outcome and thus reduce my motivation to succeed, which is the same thing. I am trying to project an image of "Deanna Troi meets Ivy League professor" for this particular site. except my hair's not that curly.

My new snack find: Larabars. It's hard for a bar food to wow me, but these do. Especially the lemon.

*** Update:

Did I mention that Skype rocks? The site with which I interviewed was going to use AOL, but my computer here at work couldn't use it. Plus, I mean, it's AOL. I suggested we try Skype video chat, and it worked great. So hear that, HR people? You can Skype a job interview for free instead of spending $1000 to fly your candidate all over the country, flagrantly spewing emissions and whatnot.

The tele-interview went great. I am pressing my thumbs, crossing them, and all such. It sounds like they are interested and view me as compatible with their goals. At any rate they will make a decision in the next couple of days, which is good, because I grow impatient of the application process, and stressed out, too.

Zoiks!

Given my coulrophobia*, this is my nightmare!


*Yes, I know how to treat phobias. This one's really not that high on my to-do list. I'd say it's pretty ego-syntonic.

Both Dumb and Geeky...

...in exactly the pie-chart proportions that appeal to my sense of humor: Graphjam is my new obsession.

Oops...

Note to self: to-do list has a different email address than blog entries.  Don't mix them up!

Evaluation for Dr. G.

 

write up DBT presentation

 

Schedule DBT presentation

 

Write up case presentation

 

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.