You Get What You Need

Applying for these jobs is getting depressing. I'm starting to internalize the rejection letters, and believe that I'm never going to actually get a job. I keep filling out the forms and rewriting the cover letters, but I have to say, my heart isn't in it. This isn't really a typical feeling for me, grinding away hopelessly. I have gone through this before, like when I was trying to finish my senior year of high school in the grips of a deep depression, but it's been a long time since then.

I know what the cure is: admitting that things might not go how I'd like, but I can still be happy with how it all turns out. As immortalized by the Rolling Stones, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need."

I guess I'm just worried about not being able to hold up my half of things with Amanda, of spending all this time getting an education and then not being able to use it, or finding out I'm not cut out for it, or something equally depressing. And I don't want to have to face my family, or Amanda's, and try to explain how this can take years even for qualified people, and that it's not that I'm lazy or incompetent. The waiting sucks.

The Perennial Problem

Right now, I am supposed to be writing letters to send to institutions of higher learning, begging them to consider interviewing me for a professor job. And while I have a lot of motivation for completing that task, it isn't inherently or immediately rewarding. Even crunching numbers and troubleshooting SPSS syntax has a certain sense of accomplishment and progress, but these letters and packets are more a matter of checklist-checking, and I have little attention for that kind of activity.

Moreover, my proclivity for becoming distracted is enhanced by the fact that the source of so many of the things I'm interested in (playing guitar, messing around with my recording gear, hitting the Stumble button, playing video games) are also centered around my computer. So at any given moment while working, I am actually touching the object that is most likely to distract me from the task at hand. This is made even worse by the fact that parts of the job application process require opening a web browser window, which makes it all to easy to open an extra tab, just to check on my blog, which results in me writing a blog post instead of actually emailing the person I came here to email in the first place.

The whole job application process is daunting. I've been reading Jeff Green's Blog, and just today was thinking about how easily he seemed to have found another job. Even if he started looking the instant that they shut down GFW magazine, he didn't spend very long on the job market. It was the same with my dad, when his company went under, he was only out of a job for a couple of months, and even during that time had numerous job offers to choose among.

I suppose this is because they had spent their careers (Jeff isn't that much younger than my dad was when he changed jobs) building their reputations, making contacts who understood that they would be assets in any context, and all the while those contacts were becoming people with the power to help Jeff and my dad out when the time came. However, right now, I am at that most difficult of periods. I have no reputation. I have only the basic skills of my profession, and a passion for my area and for teaching. No long list of accomplishments; not even a long one as graduating PhDs go. Moreover, communicating my confidence, passion, and intelligence is so difficult in a letter, particularly while maintaining a formal tone. My inherent attitude is jovial, friendly, funny, and personal, not formal at all. Even with a joke thrown into my letter, I still think it is too stodgy and plain, but I really don't see a way to change it. I hope that it will get me at least in the door, so that I can start building my career as a scholar, instead of waiting for it to start.

Myspace

I made a Myspace page for my music. I wish I had better recordings of it to put up there, but I've settled for one that I think turned out alright, and I'm working on a few more to get up there soon. It's hard to make myself stop writing and switch to just recording. I'm afraid of forgetting where I was going with the song ideas I had. But I'm not getting any recording done this way, so I think it's time to just settle on a set of songs and not do anything until they're recorded in a decent fashion.

As a part of the Myspace page setup, I had a chance to learn a little about using GiMP, and made the cool photo that is now my profile picture. I really enjoyed it; one new skill for the list:

Guitar Playing
Martial Arts
Juggling
Computer Programming
Social Science (statistics and theoretical analysis)
Cooking
Welding
Lifting Heavy Things
Dealing with Difficult People
Writing
Musical Composition
Knots (working on this one)

That list is shorter than it should be.

The Turing Test

Do you think that the Newegg customer service chat passes it? I was pretty sold until "Eggcellent." NOBODY real would actually take the time to type that after the customer had already said goodbye. On the other hand, maybe just that part was automated and the rest was really Viola. The appropriate delays during her looking up information seemed to really represent a human. But, on the other hand, when I just left the chat window sitting there, she waited 3 minutes before asking if I needed anything else. I presume she handles more than one person at a time, but this still seems like a long time not to try to get me off the line. Either way, it's a little frightening that I have to debate about whether this entity was a robot or not.

Hello my name is Viola. How may I help you today?

3:52:37 PM Jacob

Hi. Just a sec.

3:53:02 PM Jacob

Okay, so I bought using paypal, and forgot that the default address for paypal is my old address, where I no longer live.

3:53:17 PM Jacob

So that is where my stuff got shipped to...

3:53:57 PM Viola

Do you refer to order # ########?

3:54:18 PM Jacob

Yes.

3:56:42 PM Viola

It shows on the USPS website that the address is undeliverable. You may call them at 800-ASK-USPS to see if the address can be corrected.

3:57:07 PM Viola

If the address cannot be corrected, your order would be returned to us.

3:57:17 PM Jacob

Ok, then what?

3:57:42 PM Viola

A full refund will be issued for a returned order.

3:57:52 PM Jacob

Ok.

3:57:59 PM Jacob

I'll call that number.

4:00:12 PM Viola

Thank you for your cooperation.

4:00:22 PM Viola

Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

4:00:51 PM Jacob

I don't think so, they said at that number it would be returned to sender, so I will just reorder.

4:01:09 PM Jacob

So that is all. Thanks.

4:01:22 PM Viola

Thank you for contacting us. I hope you have an Eggcellent day!

4:01:22 PM System

The session has ended!

Perfect Strangers

Okay, so this is a trip down memory lane for me. I totally forgot that this show existed, until I was following links around the Tubesphere and hit on a full episode. It's a really stupid concept, but in a way ingenious: rather than have a sitcom and add in a crazy distant cousin when the show tanks, START with the crazy cousin. But where the writing really is pretty lame, the show is really carried by the great performances of the actors. And I'm sure it had a formative influence on my weird sense of humor. I recommend this episode:



Give it some time, it gets funnier a little bit later. The Karate instructor manages to be really funny and memorable with just a few lines.