Remember how, a few posts ago, I said I had a glorious abundance of time on my hands? June has completely removed that. If you know me at all, you know that I oversubscribe myself to many activities, and this inevitably creates clashes. This month, my daily schedule was occupied by working, in effect, two half-time jobs. I spent my morning-into-early-afternoon period at the front desk of the philosophy library, and several hours of the rest of the day marking exams written by teenagers.
Man alive, slogging through essay after essay on one of the same two literary passages... How many times can I possibly read about what the symbolism of children as leaves could mean? Or how the short sentences convey a hectic pace of life? The students are rarely wrong, just varying degrees of sophisticated with what the do with the things they notice. But it is good practice, and relatively good pay.
Speaking of good practice, I was totally flabbergasted to be invited to interview for an academic job this week. For one thing, they had already sent me a rejection email. For another, the timing could not have been worse with all of the end-of-year festivities going on in Cambridge. Somewhere between a lot of late nights and library shifts, I had to edit a chapter down to the size of a writing sample, throw together a job talk, and try to anticipate the questions I would be asked. I didn't really accomplish the last one, meaning that my fuzzy, sleep-deprived brain didn't really get into gear enough to handle the Q&A session well. However, the next day's official interview went smoothly, and I will now be much better prepared for the next time. (No, I didn't get the job.)
I'm working hard not to replay all of my mistakes in my head, because really the thing to take away from this is OMG I GOT AN INTERVIEW RIGHT OUT OF GRAD SCHOOL! Even if it took someone dropping out of the original shortlist, that is a good sign.
That adventure past, I face a week of brutal amounts of marking in order to catch up, but after that I'm headed home for a summer visit and a conference! Whee!
