Only In Your Dreams

Here's a little goodness I stumbled across while nursing my apartment searching sun burn in the soon to be New Town. Proof that if there is a God, they're a fan of the ridiculous.

Don't say I never gave you anything.

RBOThank Goodness the Term is Over

All's quiet out there. It must be the end of the term. Things have wound down here, but I feel like I'm out of things to say at the moment. But the end of the term has largely been a good one. It's nice to have things wrapping up this positively. Some highlights:

• the wind has died down here. it was already cold, but with winds well into the double-digits, every time I went outside it was like being knifed by God
• found a cheap ticket home. I won't be there for Christmas, but at least I'll get there this year (well, technically next year, but you know what I mean)
• my freshmen have ended strongly and favorably. I had some very good conversations with a few of them today, and it'll be nice to take that into the grading of finals.
• sitting on the table is "Paris Je T'aime" and several episodes of "The Wire" - there's motivation to get things done
• the book chapter (I think I mentioned way back working on it) is almost done. If only I had the style guidelines....
• my Spurs are doing well even with Tim Duncan injured (I'll keep my fingers crossed for tonight's game against the Jazz).
  
• it's almost time to curl up with good books for the holidays. One Christmas when I was stuck at school, I had all of my friends in the program pick one book that they felt made an impact on their lives, and I read them all over the break. I'm not that ambitious this time, but I'd love to hear those sort of accidental recommendations.

That's probably enough for now. Good luck in finals and job interviews and whatnot.

Interview Monster Movies and other things

So, I've been struggling with what to write about today. Having a regular blog post, as I think I've noted, has helped to keep me organized. And yet, today I thought how nice it would be to leave the blog hanging and to break out the metaphorical fishing pole. Part of the problem was what to write about. It was between what you're about to read and one on my desire to have a permanent soundtrack that would accompany me in my daily life. For some reason - let's call it near-exhaustion - I've been trying to figure out how and when I'd want "Eye in the Sky" by the Alan Parsons Project to play.

The answer should clearly be "never." And yet I can't get it out of my head. So here we are.

And I've been trying to figure out how to talk about job talks and interviews and all of that. I keep thinking about advice people have given me about interviews and why it is I approach them the way I do. It seems to me that I've got two strategies that I tend to adopt with interviews: the first is to make tangential jokes through the process (not surprising) while at the same time treating the process like Tokyo to my Godzilla. Nothing would make me happier in a job interview than to make an ugly mess of the job description I've just been asked to fill. I want citizens fleeing in terror. And I want the next applicant to be seen as Mothra.

I will be a monster. I will be your savior. I will breathe atomic fire and poorly dubbed dialogue into your department.

I may be delirious.

I'd like to offer strategies - useful things like "make them wait just a bit for you; don't jump at the first offer, even to talk with them" or "be yourself at all costs." But what do you say when "yourself at all costs" equals "make them laugh and trample their tallest buildings"?

Does the thought of job talks make everyone this nuts?