hallelujah!

i just sent out lengthy-job-application-numero-4 in less than one week. the last one for a while as i haven't seen any postings i'm interested in/qualified for in some time now. the post office has seen the last of me for SOME TIME, thank god.

[insert GIANT SIGH OF RELIEF here.]

whew. those were fucking exhausting, from so many perspectives. here are a few:

1. many required multiple pages of writing on lovely topics such as, "tell us about diversity, and teaching in diverse classrooms," and "how do you actively engage students in learning?" and "tell us how you've collaborated with colleagues--limit response to 750 words." JESUS. if i had to write the word "pedagogical" one more time, my brain might have exploded on my laptop.

2. my color printer has been broken/in a closet on a high shelf for a year, so printing my cool hybrid CV-resume has been an exercise in patience and has possibly exhausted various generosities of friends. my apologies. the sheer amount of printing all those forms and letters and CVs and transcripts and pages has been kicking my ass, good god. i'm hating all printers at the moment. and loving them, of course.

3. FILLING OUT A PDF/MS WORD APPLICATION "FORM" SUCKS. mainly because they ask you for the name and address of something like, oh, say, a UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT, and then the space the digital form gives you to type it in only allocates maybe, hmm ... 15 characters. this is a conundrum. abbreviate? hand-write it in? (you can't change the font size). aaaaarrrrggghh.

4. trying to fit your life story and why you love teaching and why they should hire you and why you're brilliant and love diversity and technology and speak more than one language and have millions of curriculum ideas and why you love students and english and/or speech into a one-page "cover" or "application" letter is pretty much an exercise in insanity. i cut and cut and cut and cut. until it sounded stupid. and then i sent it out.

5. did i mention one day i went to five offices on my campus here trying to track down copies of my undergraduate transcripts from new mexico state university?? only to find after three phone calls to new mexico that they can fax me unofficial copies for free in less than 24 hours??? there is a man, i don't know his name, in the registrar's office at NMSU, that i want to kiss on the mouth. bless you, sir. i could hear you smiling helpfully over the phone and you were fast and kind last week when i would've killed a puppy to get copies of those transcripts.

and that's it. now i just have to grade the 150 student papers i have before monday and everything will be right with the universe again. [sleep? why no, who needs this? you know what they say (in a pirate voice, duh): "thare'll be time enough fer sleepin' when yer dead."]