ateolf | interview day

so yeah, yesterday was the big day and stuff...um...it went alright mostly, i think...i think i nailed my five minute teaching sample as best i could...it felt a bit incongruent with the rest of the people in my group, because they mostly worked on younger grade levels, so it's hard for me to compare in that respect anyway...and i felt bad because i corrected one lady's lesson...the lesson was on prime numbers and it was a group activity where we circled prime numbers and she was going over which ones were prime and she said 9 is prime and i blurted out that it wasn't (3x3) and then felt kind of bad for it...i'm sure it's fine, but i didn't think and just reacted...anyway...i think i did well on the writing sample...next was the group discussion and i think i did okay...there were a few times i thought of something to say but then someone else spoke and i didn't get to say 'em and then towards the end when the awkward pauses crept in they were gone...but i said a few things, i wasn't out of the picture or anything...right after that we had another quick writing bit to answer one question in three minues related to the discussion, i did okay on that...i was starting to write down one last thought when the time ended and i was mid-sentence so i just scratched it out as i'd only written the introductory clause...but i think what i did get was at least okay...then there was a pleasant surprise...we had lunch and then interviews...i was signed up to do my interview last in my group and had two hours before i had to be back for it, so i called up Mary Beth and we had some indian buffet! then the interview...i think i was doing pretty well, but towards the end i hit a question i just bombed...i didn't have shit for an answers...long awkward thinking pause, and the girl interviewing me said it was okay and i had time to think, but the longer i tried to think about it the more blank my brain went (feeding back on itself about how i couldn't think of anything...) i eventually spouted out some vagaries and it was pretty bad...the question was a scenario: some kid's acting up in your classroom and you send him to the principal's office, he's sent back five minutes later and the principal accompanies him telling you that if you can't discipline your own students he'll find someone else who can...what do you do? now i'd better come up with something in case it comes up again in any followup interviews...it will look bad if i haven't thought about it since...but aside from that big failure, i think i did alright...a few of my answers probably weren't spectacular, but none reached that level of nullness in response...

anyway, then followed a nice long saturday of doin' some stuff with my wife...we went to this antiquarian booksale that was being held at a retirement home (i don't know if they were going for a theme there...) i didn't get anything, they had some interesting stuff that was all super-expensive (first edition of V. for $900...i'm not all that into the collecting aspect anyway...though there was this one Faulkner book i'd never heard of, perhaps a poetry collection? i dunno, it was small, but it was something that had been limited edition to 400 and was autographed...it was over a thousand dollars...if i was super rich i'd've bought that one...) after that we just went driving around back and forth doing some random stuff...went to Lastchance but didn't get nothin'...hadn't been there in forever (i was hoping that they'd still have that Merzbow box set they'd had forever but i was always too poor to pick up, not that it was that expensive, but it's no longer there...i snoozed and i lost...) at a point we went to Games Plus, hadn't been in there in like at least ten years...i bought a few NES games that looked fun and crappy enough to actually be cheap: Terminator 2: Judgement Day (it has like the best NES soundtrack ever at least...), Dudes with Attitude, Hudson Hawk (also, oddly, has really good music...), Krusty's Fun House, and Iron Sword: Wizards & Warriors II (i have the first one and loved it as a kid...) later to Burke's and i bought some used books: Modern Latin American Fiction: a Survey (and it lists a bunch of good and potentially good writers on the cover and i was expecting a collection of their works but instead it's a collection of criticism and writings regarding them...oh well, that's could be good too and it was only $1), Exit Ghost by Philip Roth, By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño, Flags in the Dust by William Faulkner, The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme, Amsterdam by Ian McEwan, and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne...so having a nice long saturday off for once was nice (thanks again, Shawna!) but today back to work, at least it's a short "week"...