I need you to need me

[austin_dern]

I had to go to the barber today even though my regular barber wasn't in, because my hair and my sideburns and beard were getting ratty, and I have a job interview Tuesday. It's the sort done for academia: one of the many, many, many colleges to which I applied called -- while I was at work, so my parents got the message -- saying they want me to come in Tuesday and give a 25 minute talk on my research, a 25 minute talk to show I can teach, and be present for 15 minutes for questions and answers as may arise, and then meet with the dean of the college. I believe this is for a tenure-track mathematics position at a university in New Jersey, and already I begin to suspect they're somewhat tightly scheduled. It's going to be a bit of a challenge to find something of my research that I can present in 25 minutes, although I'm sure I can do it, and I have sections of the textbook that would be fair 25-minute presentations.

This did mean I had to ask for Tuesday off work, but since I only come in three days a week anyway that doesn't involve any real challenge. I'm not sure if they could even tell if I were in work, since they haven't yet figured out just what I should do. While I've done enough documentation reading to never want to read another document again, I've also had time to modify a program for my current research, including, embarrassingly, finding that I had a typo in a variable which meant my work had been -- well, it was doing something legitimate, just not as efficiently as it should have. I'd hate to give up Fortran 77 for its many nice features including seamless complex variables work, but stronger typing would be nice. And it's more useful than how I ended up spending really too much time the first day, staring halfheartedly at the computer while, occasionally, the red light on the telephone would light up. In the distance I would hear someone pick up a receiver and speaking into it; the light would then go off.

Trivia: Mitsubishi created its own bank in 1880. Source: A History of Credit and Power in the Western World, Scott B MacDonald, Albert L Gastmann. (In looking up the day for items worth trivialiation I saw this mention on Wikipedia: on 2 June 1763 in Pontiac's Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort. I didn't know that happened outside dumb movies.)

Currently Reading: Last And First Men, Olaf Stapledon.

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Almost anything that happens in a dumb movie has really been tried somewhere, sometime.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Granted, but, successfully? That's the sort of thing that makes the audience throw stuff at the screen.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Do you know how many people you're up against? In my field, you generally have to pass a semifinalist interview (generally 30 minutes or so of answering questions either over the phone or at a table during a conference) and then they call three finalists to do campus interviews/"job talks." It will almost always be three. So by the time you actually get invited to campus, you have a pretty good shot.

Good luck!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I don't know a thing about this. They were very direct in telling me what their specifications were and by the time they got around to asking if I had any further questions I didn't have anything organized. I'll be calling again Monday since I think after all I will bring in a computer to present things -- I'd rather do chalkboard presentation, but since most of my results are numerical it's really better to show Quicktime movies and the like -- and then I can fail to ask them again.

Thank you.