day 2: conference update 2

I had my second interview with a school in Charleston. I enjoyed this person better than the ones in the morning. It’s as if our energy levels, communication styles and temperments complemented each other well. The cadence of questions and answer was good. The level of personal interaction felt right: caring and professional.

I’ve checked my box umpteen times, which doesn’t make green and blue slips appear. I think I’m going to drop off my resume at the Charlotte schools’ tables and then head out. I have no idea how to facilitate people hiring me… obviously.

But, NYC and E have made the trip more than worthwhile.

impromptu

I’m in the New York Public Library’s periodicals room sitting at a table long and old. The ornate woodwork, the marble doorways, the tall windows, the brass lamps, the potted plants, the piles of journals and the studious people feel right. This library is an oasis, providing a much needed reprieve and refueling.

After my “interview”* with a school that doesn’t have an opening at nine, I tried to find a seat in the holding pool, which makes me feel like a lobster piled in with my fellow lobsters in a grocery store meet department. I couldn’t find a seat so I looked around for wall space. All wall space was occupied. And, I need a nap before I can deal with the faux jolliness of the situation. So, I decided to go to the library and Grand Central Station. Grand Central station feels so open and big; it’s hard to believe you’re inside.

I need a nap. And, I’m tired of looking and interviewing for jobs. A life of crime becomes more appealing as I deal with the long line of doorkeepers. But, I must get back to the lobster pool for another interview at 12:30. Then I’m going for a cheeseburger. My dangled carrot of choice today is: MoMA– 4-8pm is free.

*The interview was okay; I left nonplussed. I thought the Academic head was too pretentious even for a boarding school.

Conference update

excursion: Times Square for 30 minutes.

lunch: the academic dean of my high school. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and am no closer to finding a job. Awesome.

state: i hate this conference but like the people.

afternoon plans: ditch hated conference and explore Greenwich Village.

insight: classics and church history degrees are death. go with communications, psychology and business.

1st Two Hours of the Conference

Prelude: I slept so hard that I overslept. And, I fell on my butt crossing a street because I stepped on ice. Being from North Carolina, I forget about ice. It was more embarrassing than anything. Like my moms says, it’s a good thing my name’s not Grace.

Process: I registered and then checked my cubby hole. I went through the list of schools, decided which ones I’m interested in and filled out 26 3×5 green sheets, stating my interest in the school. About 5 Charlotte schools, 5 DC schools, 5 NYC schools… then there’s Seattle, Portland, the Bay area and Austin.Then I slipped the sheets into the schools’ note collectors.

Observations: I have a lot of competition. This is a niche-type situation. Here’s my evidence: there’s about a 1:1 Apple/PC ratio among the teaching candidates. I like it. My fellow candidates are friendly and helpful. Where’s the hoi polloi. Wearing my black pants suit with flats is most appropriate. There’s a broad age range.

Next: Troll the school tables in order to chat. Then lunch at Times Square if interviews don’t get in the way.

NYC: day one

Music:
I blog on a huge sofa in Upper Westside, listening to a jam session: the theme song from “The Three Muskateers”, “The Greatest Love of All”, Indigo Girls tunes, Led Zeppelin and some praise songs. They’re having a lot of fun. It’s a personal concert just for me! They even pulled out a recorder and played “Hot Cross Buns”… and a gong because one of her roommates is a music teacher and was cleaning her room. When I see musicians together, I wish that I my voice wasn’t an egregious crime against humanity. But the bright side is that opposites attract: I have a lot of musical friends.

Museums:
This afternoon, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art via a walk through Central Park. It was pay-what-you-will day. I got my buck’s worth. One day I will live in this museum; all I’d need is a sleeping bag. I’d even forego showers and bathe with paper towels. I’d go around barefoot with a flashlight. I saw lots of Rothko, Picasso, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Calder, El Greco, Degas, Warhol. When I see the real stuff, I’m amazed by the size. Then I saw a bunch of stuff I’ve studied; they have a better collection than Athens. It’s up there with the British Museum. And, I saw the musical instruments, armour and the medieval collections. I loved the the ornate bed for the infant Jesus, judging from the size he was a premie. Really, I need to live there for at least a year to drink it all in.

Food:
I had lunch at Saigon Garden and dinner at Gray’s Papaya Famous Hot Doggery.

People: delightful. In Harlem, one lady in a full-length fur coat let me in the Subway with her card so that I wouldn’t have to pay the 4 bucks.

Weather: crisp.

Forecast: 100% chance of me falling in love with this place.

chasing stubborn monkeys

“Juxtaposition” is the word of the day; forget m-w’s “emulate”. I woke up early after staying up late. I read some history and tried to translate them into coherent blurbs of relevant facts, interpreted data.

I took pictures of my friend’s wounds from his quadruple bypass. It was fascinating: I didn’t get squeamish at all. He wanted to remember the pain he’s in. These pics are to motivate his recovery and lifestyle changes. They’re his personal holocaust museum.

The incision on his chest was smaller than I was expecting. And, I wonder why they chose the right leg to take the arteries; it must have something to do with circulation. And how do they connect and reconnect the arteries to each other? Are they just kind of gummy and stick together naturally or do they glue or sauter them?

Next, I got my favorite photo of Mt. Fuji printed in a 4×6 and chose a frame for it. This complete stranger agreed with my frame selection without my prompting her. I knew her taste was impeccable by her praise of the fabulous photo I took.

After staring at a heart patient’s wounds for a long time this morning, I ate a cheeseburger for lunch, knowing my genetic propensity toward cholesterol. It’s so much easier to spot other people’s inanity than deal with mine.

I read a child’s version of Dracula with a third grader. It was gruesome, and she loved it. The neck wounds in Dracula made me think of the photos I took earlier in the day. It’s fun to hear her improve.

Even while contemplating the ethics and ethnicity involved through the process, I got a manicure. I looked at the overwhelming array of nail polish that is toxic for the earth. I listened to my manicurist’s broken English and stared at her high-heeled mules, thinking about perpetuating class inequities. I watched overweight women in sweats getting acrylics, disturbed by our sense of beauty and self-idolatry. Every aspect of the ordeal made me cringe. Yet, there I was, caring about all the hands that I’m going to shake and wanting to look polished for my interviews.

After gorging myself on homemade chicken & dumplings, spinach & artichoke dip and lemonade, my small group read aloud Genesis 1 and John 1 & 2. Then we discussed. It was a discussion with high nutritional content. I felt awe for Jesus: the mind-boggling splendor and tension of the prologue juxtaposed with Jesus performing the deed of turning water into wine at a wedding. The carress and collision of the macro and micro… the profound and quotidian… Jesus’s majesty and sense of humor… the complexity and simplicity. I guess the response is praise and obedience. How will I live in the creation story and the opening of John? Is it with curiosity, chutzpah and an endless supply of thank yous?

The bizarre piddle of today does not feel like it’s sitting beside tomorrow where I’ll be in NYC chatting, interviewing, bustling, getting lost and feasting on cheese. And, that I have my day-long interview with the local school in a week. My future feels like a formless, chaotic void. I need to pray to find out what I feel and want out of this process. Right now, I feel that my options will dictate my taste: beggars can’t be choosers. Wyoming or Idaho? Eegatz.

Who needs sleep

Tonight, I can’t sleep. So, I attempt to be productive and constructive with the time. According to my sister, “productive” and “constructive” are adjectives to live by. I’m reading up on Macedonian, Lebanese and Albanian history and blogging. And, I remembered Billy Collins’s excellent poem titled “Insomnia.” I love the tricycle and threadbare carpet image; who can’t identify with this silliness? And, the other literary masterpiece that’s slow dancing all liquored-up on my mind’s dancefloor is the Bare Naked Ladies’s “Who Needs Sleep.” God bless Canadians.

And, just for kicks another one of my favorite Billy Collins’s poems: “Introduction to Poetry”.

pink ribbons

At the bank this morning, I teased the teller about all the pink she was wearing. She was wearing a blouse with three different pinks and she had three enamel pink breast-cancer awareness ribbons on the lapel of her blazer. I thought it was funny; it didn’t occur to me that there was something beyond eccentricity at play. She looked up at me and said, “It’s for breast-cancer.” I glanced around to see if anyone else were wearing pink: nobody. It was an odd moment; I decided against any more smart-alecky comments and just stood there.

Then, she looked at me again and said, “My daughter died of breast cancer March 1st four years ago.”

I said, “I’m sorry.”

“She had two small kids. They found it while she was pregnant with her second one.”

“How old was she?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Wow, that’s young.”

“And, there’s no breast cancer in our family history.”

“It’s scary when you think about all the people behind the statistics.”

“It’s an epidemic.”

“I guess it is. This is a hard time of year for you?”

“Yes. A child shouldn’t die first. It’s not natural.”

“My mom says that’s the worst conceivable thing she can imagine.”

“It’s hard, but you get through. Family, friends, church. We got to have her for 32 years. It was God’s will.”

Then I mumbled some kind of theological weirdness. I probably said that death is the most unnatural thing I can think of for an eternal being. I have a really hard time when people say it’s God’s will for a 32 year-old to die of cancer. Statements like that make God sound like a real asshole. It’s near the same feeling I get reading the gospels: why didn’t Jesus do some wholesale healing? He could have at least healed everybody in Galilee. God’s economy and sense of efficiency is far different than mine. How do we reconcile his power and his goodness with my teller’s pink? It makes me think of the Wendell Berry poem where he goes from grace as gravity to gravity as grace. My thinking goes awry when I start thinking of God in total androcentric terms. God’s swimming with that woman in the pink mourning.

Potpourri Day

We’re not talking the apple cinammon or winter-spice scented shavings to accent country-home decor. Think the Jeopardy! category.

I spent seven hours at the hospital today. Observations: you might get stared at if you bring a Bojangle’s bag into the Cardio unit. In the bathroom in the Cardio Triage, there are scales to weigh yourself, which one might be tempted to do. In the waiting room, there’s a basket of snacks and candy that churches donate. On my candy bar, there was a Bible verse printed out on a mailing label. I really wish I remembered which verse. Billy and Marcia are a lot fun even in dire circumstances. When Ed and Gail came to visit on their way to work, hijinks and hilarity ensued.

Today’s tutoring didn’t feel like I was pouring sand through a sieve. It made me feel as if I’m making a contribution to things good. This came after several key battles of the wills this week: they usually begin with “I don’t want to” and end with crocodile tears. I can sit-out third graders; it’s far more effective than wheedling, bargaining and cajoling. In general, it takes less than a minute. They crack and I pretend like nothing happened. This process reminds me of my life; I just consider my standoffs and issues are more complex and justified.

I attended the first week on the conversations on identity at church. My brain got busy making connections; it was fun: how power constructs and autonomy fit into identity and idolatry. I had a great, tiny discussion group. Bruce discussed the Israelites in the desert making a golden calf. His three points were idolatry 1) is stupid, 2) insults God and 3) does violence to a soul. Much like my 3rd graders, I’m amazed at how much I have in common with the Israelites; it requires no imagination for me to enter those narratives.

I bought my plane ticket: February 27-March 1. Therefore, I’m spending Leap Day (is that what it’s called?) in NYC. Groovy.

Surprise

My life got busy. On February 28 and 29th, I need to attend a conference in NYC in order to schmooze, mingle and interview with Independent School folk. Last night, it occured to me that February 28th and 29th were next week. I thought, “Hmm, this is not good” in more colorful language. But, my friend didn’t flinch when I asked her; she even claimed to be excited to see me. Since she’s known me for 14 years, she’s had lots of practice at these surprise moments. E calls me the Type B sister. (E’s my favorite Duke grad in the entire space-time continuum.)

I wanted to ride the train, but flights are far cheaper. I wanted to ride the train so I could stop in DC and visit with some other friends on the way back. Alas.

Talking with my students in Japan, I realized how many places I haven’t been to in the US. I’ve never been to NYC; I’ve only been through it to Boston and the Vineyard– so maybe I’ll just stay a little extra in the cold Big Apple and explore.

Furthermore, I listed my preference as February 26 for my all-day interview with the school, and listed the following Tuesday as a backup date. They chose my backup. The lesson learned: don’t list backups unless your really mean it. Hold them to their dates. This is another contributing factor to my dashed DC plans.

This Wednesday, I’m hanging out in the hospital with Marcia while a surgeon operates on Billy. I’m coming an hour into the ordeal with coffee and breakfast; that’s a euphemistic way to say I’m sleeping in. Prayers are welcome; it’ll either be angioplasty or open heart.