Tagged with interview …

May 25 2012
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library, vancouver

first (and not last) jobhunt disappointment

A while back I applied for a Children’s Librarian job far from Vancouver in a much rougher place than here. Last week people from the library called and scheduled a phone interview, which meant I started to get a bit excited. On Wednesday I had the interview and I felt like it went really well. I never had to talk out of my depth, I was excited about the possibilities coming up at the library. In my head I was figuring out how the logistics of moving to this far-off place would work and how little Vancouver time I might have left. I was thinking about cool programs I could be running for the kids up there, and what a great job that would be.

I should know better than to want anything ever. I have a way better track record at getting things I don’t really care about.

So yeah, I didn’t get this job. Which is good because it means I’m not leaving Vancouver anytime soon. The crappiness of it is that I applied out there thinking it would be a less competitive situation. Jobs here in the lower mainland put me at the throats of practically all my librarian friends (note that we’re all very nice about the job competition so far and all the throats are more conceptual background thoughts than anything literal) and even more qualified people. Here, I’ll only be able to get the job that I’m absolutely perfect for, I feel.

But them’s the breaks and I’ll keep applying for things. One of my friends just highlighted a job in Kelowna that would be pretty good for me, and I’ve got applications in at a few libraries around here that it’s possible I’ll hear some word on soon.

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Apr 18 2012
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comics, games, library, sports, vancouver

all these events – i feel so social and poor

Post-school life is starting to come together (though I kind of need a job). I mean, I have classes coming up again in May, but now that all my friends have graduated it kind of feels like I have too. I’ve also gotten to play a new game and go to a conference and be part of Jamie’s four-night trivia blitz.

For a research project I’m working on I got to interview a former National Librarian of Canada last week, and she was adamant that going to conferences without having a job to do is pointless. I think that makes sense. This Saturday I’m going to be doing some liveblogging for the North Shore Writers Festival, which should be fun. I’m going to be a convenor for the BC Library Conference in the middle of May and I’m volunteering at VanCAF. I mean, I had fun wandering around at Emerald City, but I do like having something to do.

Also, when Sean comes to town in June the Vancouver Canadians will be playing. It works out that we’ll be able to go to a baseball game in the afternoon and then the Bombers-Lions CFL season opener in the evening.

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Jan 19 2012
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library, school, vancouver

two bits without a segue

I did not get the job at the Art, Architecture and Planning library at UBC. Selah. I did get a very nice phone call from the librarian who interviewed me (along with two other staffmembers) saying that I did a fine job in the interview and he was sure my experience would be great for somewhere in the future, but they were going with a candidate who had a lot of experience with local art. Which isn’t something I could have made myself be, so yeah. It’s the kind of situation where their priorities were just things I couldn’t fill. I hear that happens sometimes.

The shitty thing is that was probably the last formal GAA position I could possibly have gotten at UBC. I don’t think they do those just for the summer months, and come September I won’t be a student any longer. So that means I won’t have any academic library experience on my resume when I’m off looking for work. I’ve been trying to diversify through this degree, not focus, but we’ll see how much that helps, or if I’ll just be every employer’s second choice when the real jobhunting comes around.

When I was coming home from school yesterday (on the bus because I don’t feel like biking through slush and snow with my fenderless bike) the second bus I got onto wafted with the aroma of weed. It was incredibly strong for a place where no one was smoking. I sat down and another guy got on and as he walked towards the back he just started grinning. “Now this is a Vancouver bus!” he said to no one in particular. A conversation began between a bunch of the people in the back about the guy who had just gotten off the bus, who had been the source of the smells. It was all very friendly and good-natured, about the blessings of being in Canada. Eventually the guy who’d been grinning and who’d started the talking wound it up with “All right. Enough of that. Everyone can go back to their iPhones now.”

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Jan 16 2012
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books, library, school, vancouver

the difference a phone call makes

My weekend was spent working on an annotated bibliography, a topic briefing, and reading. There was reading involved in the first two parts as well, but well, yeah. Yesterday I took a break from my indoorsyness and went for a walk down to the water to watch the seaplanes land and take off again. I enjoy how Canadian that feels, with the mountains and the water and the trees, right here in the city.

My weekend was also kind of crappy with my lack of being called about the most recent student librarian gig I’d applied for. On the posting it said the interviews were going to be today, so when I didn’t hear anything by 5pm on Friday I figured that was yet another job missed somehow. I dwelt on what I could possibly have done to make my application better, brooded on the possibilities of ever finding a job when I graduate without recent library experience, and generally buried my head in books.

And then this morning I got a call saying I’ve got an interview tomorrow. So that’s all right then. I still might not get the job, but I’ve got a chance. A little bit of income, and the experience in a university library setting, would be so very excellent.

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Feb 07 2011
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australia, photography, school, travel, vancouver

i am a bad cyborg

Holly gets here tomorrow. If things are going according to schedule her plane has already taken off from Shanghai and she’s on her way. I managed to clean up my room to a relatively decent degree. I mean, yes, all her stuff will have to be piled on the floor, but it’s not like she’s got that much stuff anyway.

I also got the thing that’s due on Thursday finished off this morning which means I’ve only got two classes while she’s here and only minor homework. The last five weeks of being really boring and working ahead have paid off. (Cue me getting deathly ill and unable to do anything for the entire visit, but being very fine the day after she leaves. This is me pre-empting you universe. I don’t want any of those shenanigans.)

Also, I’ve got a co-op job interview on Wednesday. The job is in Australia. I don’t have super high hopes for getting it, but it seems like the kind of thing I’d be pretty good at. And it would be in Australia. Just for 8 months, but still.

So yes. While Holly’s here I might put more pictures up on the ol’ Flickr account. Also, hopefully she’ll get some blogging in. But I might not be visible on the internet the next couple of weeks because of non-digital life. Selah.

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Jan 12 2011
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library, school, teaching

job interview thursday

So my interview tomorrow is my first real job interview in years. I mean, I had interviews for my different positions in the library, but after the initial one to become a page, they didn’t really mean anything. I went in to meet people and the possibility of me getting the job rested solely on my seniority. So I was very relaxed for those. It’s probably good to have those practice runs under the ol’ belt.

My last interview that counted was for going to Egypt. I didn’t get that job, but I’d thought the interview went really well. Ha. I mean, I’m not complaining that I’m not just coming back from three more years of teaching English now. I’m glad I’m doing library school now (and will be gladder when it isn’t keeping me 9893km from Holly).

But since the last two interviews I did went well but I was passed over I’m not worried about this one tomorrow. I’ll wear my tie and talk about social media things. I won’t be self-deprecating but I won’t be an asshole. And then I’ll wait to find out if I’m employed. It’ll be good experience if I get it (and money for rent). If I don’t get it, it’s fine. I have lots of other things I can fill my time with.

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May 07 2008
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teaching, travel, whining, winnipeg, writing, 中国

the best of my generation abandon their dreams

The other day I had a short interview with a company about going off to teach in Japan. Just a preliminary thing before they finalize my application. And it actually freaked me out. Not on the phone, on the phone I was all laughs and amiability. But afterwards all the lying I had just done made me want to vomit. The woman asked if I’d be comfortable teaching kids and I said yes. Little kids. As young as three. I remember Mel and Margaret having to teach little Chinese kids and Caroline talking about the Korean kids and the hellishness of it. And I remember thanking all that was good in the world I didn’t have to do that. And she asked about my energy levels in the class, how I’d feel being all bouncing around silly and shit. “Oh that sounds fun!” Would I be okay with being clean shaven and wearing a suit? “You bet!” Because swearing off ties 5.5 years ago doesn’t mean anything.

Why do I have to lie? Because I know if I tell the truth no one will pay me to go anywhere. And I’ll be stuck here in this place I don’t like. But it’s not like I actively hate anything I do here. Maybe I shouldn’t sell myself off like this. Maybe I should remember how much I didn’t like teaching. Maybe I should go to Japan on my own terms, in a way I don’t have to lie and hate myself for doing all that. Do this the hard way. Like the writing.

I worry though that if I do that I’m falling into the “once in a lifetime” trap. That then going off somewhere on the other side of the world becomes something strange and exciting instead of just part of my life. But if part of my life involves that much deception and self loathing, ech. I don’t want to feel trapped here, that Winnipeg is all I’ll ever know. I need to be different places. Being in China this last time made me feel content, and I’ve been wanting to push on to work in Japan because of that contentment. But I was in China as a travelling layabout. A person without work or schedule. That’s not what teaching would be, no matter how many weeks of vacation I got.

I don’t know. I’m not withdrawing my application but I don’t know if I can go lie my face off as a fake-smiling teacher just to be somewhere else. I already feel like I’m hiding all the time. We’ll see what happens.

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Apr 21 2008
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comics, writing

dimensions (or why I should read more grant morrison)

From io9: This Is Grant Morrison On Drugs

But the idea was: Superman, Batman, they’re much more real than we are — created long before any of us were alive. Superman is still vital and young and communicating to people. When we’re dead and gone and dust, there will probably still be a Superman. And the world that they inhabit is a two-dimensional world. You can pick up different comics from his whole span of existence, but it’s all still there. I began to imagine: what if there were things above us, on a hyper-cube level, if there were people who could look down on us like we look down on Superman, and see the entirety of our lives? The same way we can see the entirety of lives in the second dimension? The experience of The Invisibles in Kathmandu was kind of an actualization of that reality — that there are things up there that can see the entirety of Earth time and Earth space like that. It’s an ongoing fascination for me.

The bit of my story I wrote today is vaguely connected to this idea. I have to keep my eyes on the references I’m using in this first draft so that my later stuff will sparkle and not feel like a vague loser-ish wannabe Grant Morrison. Groundwork baby.

Yesterday at work I read a comic book western that I just couldn’t stand. Jonah Hex. It comes from having read the first trade of Azzarello’s Loveless earlier in the week, but I couldn’t believe how cardboard the toughguy speeches were and how hackneyed everything about it was. “I could write this ten times better” I thought. Which would still be nowhere near an Azzarello script but at least I wouldn’t cringe so much.

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Dec 19 2007
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teaching

the outermost layer

I had my interview with MCC today about going to Cairo. It went twice as long as we’d sort of scheduled but that was fine. There were lots of questions about stuff. We sidetracked off into new media for a while which was fun. And about my blog specifically, not that the HR people read it and had objections but about what I’d be doing with it. They’ve had issues in MCC Egypt with writing by the workers provoking situations, so now anything going out “representing MCC” has to go through the Country Reps. If they take me, it looks like a certain organizational name will be redacted from these pages, so I can continue to cuss and link to questionable content.

I was stumped on the question “What do you think might be your biggest disappointment with the Cairo assignment?” How does a person answer that? She saw I was floundering and moved to “Well, what’s your biggest disappointment from China?” and I talked a little bit about the trained monkeys phenomenon, but also about how that wasn’t as big a deal for me as it was for people who were actually teachers.

Anyway, I did my best. They got to meet me, see what I’m like and stuff. If I go, I won’t be allowed to have a beard. Or a shaved head. Because of the greater levels of meaning those things carry in Cairene society. Apparently no one there likes ambiguity in any form. You’re supposed to look like what you’re supposed to look like. And bearded guys are clerics.

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