Oh lordy. I took a spur-of-the-moment trip to PEI this weekend to attend an education job fair, hence my sudden silence. (This, by the way, is the end of trip summary entry. There's more specific stuff that was written on the road in Thursday's entry.)
I got a ride offer on Tuesday, meaning that I spent the rest of that day, all day Wednesday and Thursday morning frantically updating my CV and cover letter. Also, there was a major presentation due on Wednesday in my sexuality class, and I found out the night before that a) we were presenting the next day, and b) the third member of the group would not be presenting with us. I spent hours - hours! - writing 2/3 of the presentation and reverse engineering the bibliography so it would look research-based. Funny thing about that - after spending 2 hours getting appropriate sources, I ended up building the new info into the presentation, meaning that by the end it wasn't a fake job after all.
So that panicked presentation lasted into Wednesday evening, which left me a solid 6 hours to revise my employment package. At 11 pm I discovered that my printer could not be fixed, and that it would consequently dump streaks & bubbles of unsightly ink on my printouts. This meant that I had to engage with the print shop downtown for my 13 packages - although for twelve bucks I think it was worth it. Certainly took a load off my mind, and they were damn beautiful packages as well. Can't ask for more than that.
Anyway. We left for PEI in the late afternoon, the car full of girls and résumés and attractive-yet-sensible slacks. It was kind of a funny travelling situation, as I barely knew anyone (that terminal introvert thing) and I knew that it would be a weekend that was alternately boring and stressful for all. Instead of dwelling on this uncomfortableness I decided to crack wise, so I declared that we were Four (Single) Student Teachers On The Loose, and that we were Up To No Good. Also, as the Thursday entry details, I decided early on that this was my road trip, my Hard Core Logo if you will. (Hence, of course, the dumb pseudonyms for my travelling companions.) This seemed to help.
And we did bond, even if we aren't best friends 4-ever & ever. I found out that quiet little Pipefitter is not only a practicing pagan, but also is well acquainted with KMFDM, Shadowrun & Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (something with is NEVER EVER spoken of on the Good Ship Education. You can see why this is a bigger taboo than drug stories.) I spent a great deal of time talking to Joe about life, religion, marriage and trauma (as she is looking forward to a big looming trauma bomb in the near future). Billy I didn't bond with as much, but we did share a bed without incident (I always wanted to sleep with Billy Talent...I just never thought it would involve so much...well...sleeping.)
As for the job fair itself, it was a pretty surreal experience. On the first day we walked from booth to booth gathering information and talking to representatives about interviews. Once again I find that I have educated myself right out of the job market; various boards I was interested in were giving interviews for Math, Science, Tech Ed, Music and French but not English and Social Studies. If I were Catholic I might've landed something with Toronto Catholic School Board, but there's the small problem of not being Catholic to contend with. Also, I could've interviewed with various remote boards in BC, Alberta, NWT, Nunavut, Labrador & Quebec...but I'm having enough difficulty getting through the winter with limited fresh veggies let alone no fresh stuff at all.
So what I did all weekend was gather information on boards, go to presentations and shmooze. I got packages from every board in and around Toronto as well as details about their hiring process (right now Halton looks good although I don't know if I could handle the Oakville thing). I talked to various presenters at the booths and tried to impress them with my quiet charm and Snow White good-looks. I found my high school vice principal at the Peel Board booth; he didn't recognize me, but I managed to rhyme off a list of the trouble makers I had known in school until we found one that rung a bell. In retrospect I think it was dumb to mention my friendship with Edgar Allan seeing that he was an immense pain in everyone's ass until he finally dropped out...but once again my mouth got ahead of my brain and it all drooled out of me.
By the end of 2 hours I was utterly exhausted with smiling and nodding. I was tired of making interested noises to recruiters and I was tired of announcing my specialties like an apology. I felt a little spun, actually, which in turn made me think of Marilyn Manson. In a way it kind of sums up the day, or at least the part of it in which I was numb and reeling and selling myself.
I'm the new, I'm the new, new model
I've got nothing inside
Better in the head and in bed at the office
I can suck and I smile...- new model
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That night we sat in the hotel room and cajoled Pipefitter into telling our fortunes. I had an extremely good spread concerning practicum which more or less made the whole weekend roadtrip worthwhile: the cards are of the opinion that collegiality and practice will pay off in success. This is Good News.
* * *
On the second day I killed time in my overalls while the other three went to interviews (Joe's Tech Ed; Pipe's Music and Billy's willing to go up north). It wasn't at all bad, actually - I found a comic book shop that sold me Avignon and High Cost of Living, so I had plenty of gothy goodness to keep my mind company in the hotel lobby. I also spent a fair bit of time talking to other shipmates about their interviewing experiences as they came & went through the building. People kept asking if I were bored, but all I could think of was that if I were at home I'd have a mountain of work ahead of me. At least in PEI I don't have to feel guilty about not washing dishes.
We left that night, travelling home in a happy cloud of french fry fumes and Ship gossip. Joe has the Big Shiny Tunes CD, a compilation that was released in 1994 or something and is an almost perfect snapshot of the music I listened to at the time. I was kind of sad when I realized that this CD marked the last time I was in touch with popular music. Bah.
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1 year ago today: before dieing she troubled me
