5/30/08 1:28 PM
On the plane. I did my last minute thing this morning, but alas I planned very well for the timing of my last minute panic and finished getting everything together with a few minutes to spare. I am getting better in my old age.
I love having this Mac book with all its easy-to-use built-in-for-dummies features. A year or two ago I was preaching a different sort of anti-MAC sentiments, but alas I have been crushed under the power of the superior quality and availability of the Mac laptop. I will even be buying full sized version when I have to reinvest in a home computer, although I am not seeing the need to unless I get involved again with my graphics software. I also finally caved after a yearlong battle with my beast-machine PC and seven crashes and reformats. It is a superior quality PC, but I am sick of tending to the workhorse’s wounds and upgraded so I could have a workhorse that actually worked. And hard.
Last night I ended up using both of the machines side by side. The PC for my graphics, as it houses my full version of Adobe CS2 as well as my Mac which just has all of my up-to-date software. I would like the have CS2 on this, but it is too small and puny to handle the load – but as an everyday computing needs being met device, it works at a spectacular level.
I need to ask Amanda about creating a mailing list and sign-up for here.
I really should be reading my pamphlet but the plane ride is making me a bit a nauseous so I might just watch some nip/tuck (terrible, but addictive show by-the-way) I have a two-hour lay-over at the Washington-Dullies Airport so I will probably just read it there.
I am nervous about this interview. I know, I know, I’ll be fine – but nerves are there for a reason right? I am very interested to find out how the next coupld days will turn out, I really have nothing planned at all after 3pm tomorrow night till 5pm Monday.
We will see…
5/30/08 3:43 PM
Airports suck. I am not leaving until 5:50. Shoot me. You would wonder why the seats in these places aren’t more comfortable.
I just took a giant bite of a mushroom burger only to find out that mushroom burger didn’t mean “burger made of mushroom” it meant “burger with mushrooms on top”
I am the best vegan EVER.
5/31/08 7:06 AM
Ok so this is not the best room ever. I arrived here at about 9pm last night and was COMPLETELY sketched out. I think this has to do with the excess of coffee on the last flight and virtually no hydration. Unfortunately I couldn’t get something to eat because the only take-out was domino’s and Chinese. The lady at the counter didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to go wandering around this area alone. (EEEK) So I went online and found a pretty decent-er hotel, hotel le cirque, it is in a better neighborhood and has some OK reviews from hotels.com and yelp.com. I am really in need of coffee and breakfast before this interview. I also need to arrange travel to the hotel after the interview, which should end around 3.
Ok so no one stay at the Midtown Hotel in New Orleans, sketchy to the max factor!
I am all dressed and ready to go. Here is hoping. I have NO IDEA what to expect.
6/1/08 5:51 PM
I am tired and sore and in no mood to write. So I won’t, but I am still here.
6/2/08 11:17 AM
So, no update in two days? What kind of blogger am I? I am a Pat Yurick blogger, I do things my way and if you can’t handle it. Well… Please handle it… (I had a very big urge right there to be like Spider Jerusalem and tell you all to do something nasty if your couldn’t handle it. As much as I adore Spider behaving in a cool way has never been my suit.)
I’ll start where I left off.
The sketchy hotel, the midtown hotel. Not dirty but in a not-so-friendly part of town. (The hotel clerk told me not to go outside after dark!) So this was my first impression of NOLA and it really freaked me out. When you are alone the mental shadow game can reek some havoc on your senses.
Saturday morning I left Midtown for good. Ironed my clothes and called a cab to take me to the interview. The clerk downstairs actually did this for me. When I asked him if there was anywhere I could get a cup of coffee he told me there was a burger king around the corner. When I said is there anything like a starbucks or a dunkin donuts he laughed and said “This is not that kind of area”. Wow did I feel like a spoiled honky from NH hanging out in the ghetto.
So off to my interview I went. I had the cabbie stop at a gas station. I was STARVING. No dinner Friday night and no coffee upon waking up caused my caffeine addictive back-monkey to scratch like no-ones business. I got a bag of peanuts, chex-mix, coffee, water, something else and was on my way. I got the the school a little early and ate on the front steps as everyone else who was interviewing arrived. One person stopped and said hello. Her name was Kim.
The interview process was OK. I won’t give the step-by-step but I will say that the best part was that I met a bunch of people who were very very cool. There was this guy from Yonkers named George and I ended up finding out that Kim taught Art in Massachusetts. I met some other really cool people exchanged numbers in between sections of the interview event.
I realized something during a group discussion that I had not realized before, or at least hadn’t been acutely pointed out to me, I have leadership urges but I am afraid to act them out. We sat in a group and were given a problem to solve having to do with a common student body. This group consisted of twelve individuals, applicants, teachers, and the people interviewing us read the problem and gave us the objectives. We had twenty minutes to answer two questions and everyone had to contribute.
Immediately I had the urge to say things, as I saw everyone did. But do to my fear of rejection, just a little gut feeling, I held back. Not a lot, but I wanted to see who would emerge as a leader because I didn’t want to. This is what I like to call my student syndrome. After being a student for so long I have been conditioned to look to others for permission to act as a leader. I did this again. As the discussion went on we all decided that the problem class in question, the fictional one presented to us, needed direction and clear organized management where everyone contributed, which was also what we were directed to do as a group.
We didn’t do it. I saw this immediately. I was afraid of being torn down of being disagreed with, of being told I was wrong, and because of this the group suffered. Later I told Lahnna (GF) that a team is like a boat and the leader is the rudder that provides direction. The boat is useless without the rudder and the rudder is useless without the boat. I needed to be the rudder and I failed at that. In failing I learned something very valuable though which was that I want to be the rudder and to do that I am going to have to change my reactions to this fear I have. I am going to have to start giving myself permission to be a leader and I am going to have to practice this in a way that allows me to do it without fear. Of course the way to do this is to become a leader that is ok with being rejected and denying this as a personal problem and sees the big picture.
So the rest of the interview went pretty good. I didn’t receive a lot of feedback from the interviewers so I honestly don’t know what they thought. They asked me a lot of questions regarding personal challenges I feel I will face. I actually think that the decision will come down to them deciding whether or not they want to give a first year teacher a chance. I am without experience and a solid teaching curriculum simply because I haven’t had a chance to teach one. Placing someone like me into a high needs school is a big risk.
I agreed to meet Kim around 2:30 at the Bourbon House on Bourbon. She had a friend who worked there. George and I shared a cab across town to St. Charles ave, he was staying on a hotel on the same street. We decided to meet up after we got settled in and changed. I headed over to my new hotel, Hotel Le Cirque at the lee circle.
(view outside of my hotel window)
2:30 came around and George hadn’t called. I called Kim and told her I was waiting for him to call and then we would be on our way. She told me to cross the circle and walk sevn or so blocks and we would hit Canal street and take a left and then hit Bourbon. George called I told him to come down and we would walk from my hotel, because from those directions it seemed as if Bourbon street was closer to me than him.
I was wrong. George and I walked about 2.5 miles in the wrong direction. It was really ok though because George was really a cool guy. We talked about literature, teaching, and television. I really started to like George. When we realized we had gone the wrong way we jumped on a streetcar and made our way to bourbon. On the way we talked about U.S. history and religion. Turns out we were both Catholic and Irish. It was a good time.
We reached Kim and had a couple drinks. The rest of the day was filled with drinking in the streets talking about random things, artwork, the Mississippi river, the search for vegan food and lots of laughing. Kim was a really cool girl to get to know and within a couple of hours I felt like I was hanging out with friends I had known for years. I even got called the “professor” a couple of times. I smiling as I think about it.
I got back to my hotel at about 9:30 tired and a little drunk. Watched some “Wire: Season 4” and passed out.
Sunday was a day of wandering. I made my firstly the the New Orleans museum of contemporary art. I was very inspired. The heat caused me to become drenched in sweat very quickly.
I am tired of typing, I’ll finish the story momentarily ☺
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