After long silence

I did, I confess, think about quoting in its entirety the Yeats poem "After Long Silence," but upon reflection I'm not fond of it, and it's not relevant. I might as well have quoted "After great pain, a formal feeling comes," which I also don't like much and which is also irrelevant. And from there it's only one short step to the After the Fire version of "Der Kommissar."

Go ahead, you know you want to. We'll wait.

Well, it's been an eventful month: one campus interview right on the heels of another, with a job offer from the first interview coming as I was waiting to begin the second interview. For a short while there, I felt like I was a very hot commodity indeed ... hotter, in fact, "than hell itself." As Tom was wont to say.

If you bothered to follow the link, you might also want to check this out. I would live in that world if I could--that trumpet, that voice.

The (self-perceived) hotness was mitigated only a little by the subsequent revelation that the second interview will not result in a job offer, that I will not be the subject of a battle royale (with cheese) amongst my current employer and two prospectives. I wasn't the top choice in Georgia, and I couldn't string the other place along long enough to see whether Georgia would work their way down to me (it happens), so I gladly accepted the first offer and will be starting there August 17. I'm sure it would have been my first choice in any case, but it might have been good from a negotiation standpoint.

I'm not putting the details here because I like to keep this space separate from my professional life, at least in the search engines. But folks, if you're having trouble getting yourself mentally ready for an interview, it's always helpful to watch this clip (it includes some not-safe-for-work language). Even if I shared this with you recently, it's worth watching again:



I also like to watch Apocalypse Now before a campus interview. Gets me in the right frame of mind to go up the river and into the heart of darkness.

YMMV!