Grades went in Thursday morning; gifts got wrapped Thursday night. After Sunday — happy holidays! — it’s a one-day break before I’m off to MLA and The Serch.
And the MLA Job Information Center is in the Ballroom of the DC Omni Shoreham, which is a room I haven’t seen since my senior prom was held there, years and years ago.
Yeah. Tell me about it.
Gone Serching
Best of luck serching, Mike. Knock ’em dead.
Break a leg–in the theatrical sense 🙂
Thanks for the encouragement. It seemed to go quite well for the most part, although there was a certain professor on one committee who was quite conspicuously sleeping — slouched on the couch with head back, eyes closed, mouth open — during part of my interview. Which, naturally, leads me to a question: under what portion of one’s CV does one put the line, “Mortal Embodiment of the Lyre of Orpheus”?
I’ve never been to MLA–those of us interested only in the lowly community colleges don’t interview there 😉 But I’ve always thought how bizarre it is that they interview people in hotel rooms (I mean, I know it’s out of necessity, but still). I’m sure it wasn’t you who put him to sleep, but his surroundings!
Hey, maybe it was me. Maybe it was the hotel room. Maybe I talk like Charlie Brown’s teacher, and maybe my research and teaching are inherently soporific.
And maybe a prominent member of a search committee just demonstrated to me why I’d have very little interest in his school’s program, and maybe that person has also demonstrated to me why I might read his literary scholarship as coming from someone who can’t be bothered to stay awake during MLA interviews.
re: not the penultimate but the final paragraph: There ya go, Mike. I totally agree.