I’m starting to feel…

I'm starting to feel like I can breathe again. Somehow, it all got very hectic very quickly -- but it's easing up again. I've finished almost all the letters that need to go out today, tailored to each specific job's requirements (DePaul, Roosevelt, U of I at Champaign, Marquette, and U of C) -- just one left, that I have to write up a teaching philosophy page to accompany. Do I know what my teaching philosophy is? Well, sort of -- it has to do with transparency, and collaborative work, and lots and lots of writing, and not getting too caught up in minor details early in the process. Do I want to write all that up into one-page of coherence? Absolutely not. But sadly, that decision is not up to me. Lake Forest College wants to know, and they must be appeased.

That's the task for this morning, along with dealing with a little bit of financial and other paperwork. Around lunchtime, I'll head downtown to spend the afternoon working at Borders. Hoping to finish off a revision or two, or else get back to working on the Silence collection. Anjali may meet me for coffee. Then this evening, meeting some friends for Thai food and a showing of Kill Bill -- my reward for getting these dang job letters done.

Next week I'll do the next batch (San Jose State, UC Davis, Wheaton, U Wisconsin, Dominican U, Columbia College, Parkland College (note: I'm not sure I'll be applying to all of these yet -- need to recheck the job calls and recheck how far away some of them are)) and finish them off. And then make up a list of all the other schools in the area that I should send blind letters to (i.e., "I don't know if you're actually going to have a job opening, but in case you do, can you please keep me in mind?) And then we just wait and see whether anyone wants to interview me. It would be much easier to write these letters if I knew that at least one of them would, in fact, want to interview me eventually. It's a lot like sending out story subs, actually.

Why did I pick a career where I spend so much of my life waiting to see if people reject me (which they mostly do?) It's like going on a zillion blind dates with people who are much more attractive than you are and clearly out of your league. You just know that halfway through the date they're going to get an urgent phone call and sadly, have to disappear, leaving you with a plate of uneaten food in front of you.