This Is Where I Go Ahead and Spill the Beans

Instead of keeping you guys on pins and needles for a week, I'm going to go ahead and let you know what that first paragraph yesterday was about. Today I interviewed for a new job, and one that I think I would both enjoy and be pretty good at. It's a position in the school where I already teach and where the administration already knows and likes me. The skill set required is one where I'm already largely proficient (or at least primed for rapid acquisition of proficiency) and would remove the student motivation and management aspect of my job that I most dislike. I was actually so excited last night about the possibilities that I couldn't sleep.

I interviewed to be a librarian.

Actually, it's a media specialist position. I'd be spending more time with computers, LCD projectors, and other educational technology than I would with books and the Dewey Decimal System. Still, librarian sounds more boring and I like the contrast between my excitement about the potential job change and the sound of the antiquated job title.

And I wasn't joking about not sleeping. After K trudged off to bed I stayed up until almost midnight thirty playing Mario Kart Wii, and it wasn't because Mario Kart is that addicting. I've been able to put down the controller by 10 p.m. the previous two nights. My excitement started to fade this morning, however, when I awoke to the feeling of someone who had just gotten decidedly too little sleep. My head had that suggestion of a headache and my eyes were dry and scratchy like they usually are when I get too little sleep. My thoughts ran in slow motion and I knew I'd been really stupid the night before. Things started to perk up once I got to school. I got some cereal and tea into my system and by the time the interview came around, I was feeling like a more normally tired version of my self. Considering that my interviewers all knew me very well, and I stressed my strengths and minimized my weaknesses for the position, I think I interviewed well.

I still felt a weight fall over me as soon as I walked out of the office. It felt like I'd just been told that the job had been given to someone else or that I was no longer in the running. Nothing of the kind had been said, though. Everyone was positive during the interview and I was left with comments on the difficulty of their decision (another in-house applicant interviewed as well) and that I may know as early as tomorrow about the decision, but there was something in the expression in her face as she looked down for her next question and a very subtle bit of awkward wording during the occasional comment that left me with the feeling that I was the third of those three very good candidates and not the first.

Now, I know none of that means anything. I'm aware that my base facial expression is apparently fairly serious looking, especially since K has a tendency to ask me if anything is wrong when I walk into a room without smiling. I also realize that I often word things strangely in verbal situations just because my brain moves more quickly than my mouth. If you try to read subtle clues from my wording and facial expressions, you'll probably find meaning that was never there. I usually just say what I'm thinking anyway.

So even though I'm still technically in the running for the position, I walked down the hall on my way to break duty with a neurotic weight on my shoulders. I stood there in the cafeteria watching a guy outside in one of the ag classes who has that obesity that hangs like heavily loaded soft-sided suitcase strapped to the front of his torso. His fat projects boxy and disproportionately from his torso. He's too young for that physique. His posture emphasizes the weight like he's proud of that gut and it signifies his social standing within the herd. Guys like this always seem to draw broken girls to them, girls who grow up neglected and end up needy and neurotic in a special white trash way. This sort of guy barely acknowledges his typically tiny companion, but the fact that he walks next to the girl to her class and occasionally deigns to speak to her is enough to keep her hopelessly devoted.