Realt Dearg Sec wrote: » This thread seems like a good excuse to have a bit of a vent. This Thursday I have an interview for the job I have spent my whole adult life dreaming of. It's for a tenure track job as a professor of Irish literature in a US university. A job like this comes up, on average, once every five years or so, and has about 200 or so applicants. Every single applicant would be a PhD with a good track record of publications and teaching. I had an initial interview at the start of the month (maybe 10 people get this) and, against the odds, I've been asked to make a visit to the campus (maybe 3 people get this). An opportunity like this, in other words, comes up once in a lifetime, if you are lucky. The interview is Thursday. So I've spent the last three days preparing material for a teaching demonstration and for a talk to the department about my scholarship and what makes it significant to the field. Tomorrow (and this is where I'm on topic) though, I have to teach five hours of classes in composition in my current job, and prepare lesson plans for the following day for literature classes. But I also need to cut about another 2000 words from my talk, and prepare answers for every conceivable question I could be asked by a platoon of college deans, professors, lecturers, and graduate students. And every time I feel tired, I have to remind myself that this may be my last chance to get the job of my dreams, that if I don't grasp this chance, everything that follows for the rest of my days will be tinged with the regret that I left this opportunity behind. I'll practice delivering the talk and the teaching demonstration about ten or fifteen times each, if I get a chance to do so. And when I go to bed, exhausted, there's a good chance I'll wake up every half hour or so with a million thoughts in my head about what I should change in the talk, what questions might come up in the interviews (they will last from 8 in the morning until 6 in the evening, with the talk and teaching squeezed in in between), how I might best approach the class, and how hard it will be to pick myself up off the floor if it goes wrong and I don't get the job. I may also have a **** at some stage. You have to treat yourself.
Purpletoes wrote: » Good luck on Thursday, hope you are not feeling too stressed today and the prep is going well!
Realt Dearg Sec wrote: » Thanks! Today's not been too bad, got some reassuring feedback from someone I trust about the talk I'll be giving, and my own teaching is out of the way now so I can focus entirely on what needs to be done. On topic: to-do list tomorrow - Make sure my suit is in proper order Get to the plane on time Pray they don't have any plan to bring me out for dinner or anything and will leave me alone to prepare Prepare answers to about fifty potential questions Boil them down to a few basic bullets I can actually remember Worry and fret Get to my hotel, practice my talk Practice lesson plan Practice talk Practice lesson plan Practice talk (repeat ad nauseam) Massive **** (for nerves and because I'm staying alone in a hotel, I'm pretty sure it's the law) Sleep
Realt Dearg Sec wrote: » No. They told me if the job was only about Irish literature I'd have gotten it, but there was also a "postcolonial" dimension that weighed heavier with some in the department. So I didn't do anything wrong. But between you me and the four walls I know through the grapevine that the guy who got the job was an ivy league bollocks who went to the college for his undergraduate, and knows as much about Irish literature as I know about pig farming. Business as ****ing usual basically, but they might have saved me two months of work and three of getting my hopes up by just telling me to **** off when I first applied. Good learning experience though. It'll stand to me. Thanks to everyone on this thread for listening to me vent in the run up!
Graces7 wrote: » Get warm. When it gets time he will be up, call my neighbour the ferryman who always goes over on Fridays ( pension day) to ask him please to cover the back of my poor drowned car.... (Deluged all night. If the wind was in that direction it will be flooded out.Gave me nightmares) Call the bank to pay Westnet and set up standing order. Envy the cats who have been fed and are curled up on my bed in contented furry circles.. well 2 of them are..mislaid the third but je is field wise Try to organise new window for the car etc but depends on cost . Endure.
Neames wrote: » Drop my kid to a birthday party. Go to the gym. Pick up dry cleaning. Cook dinner.
Graces7 wrote: » Thought for the day..Your tomorrow is my today....
Kintarō Hattori wrote: » Get to spend the day with my almost 10 month old daughter. Mam went back to work on Thursday for the first time so I've been minding her. Saturday was the first full day together with just the two of us and it was brilliant, so hoping Sunday is as good if not better. As brilliant as it is, it is tiring. I have a new found respect for my partner.
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