It's late, and I'm tired out of my mind, but there's just something so neat about free wireless in a hotel room, so I wanted to take advantage of it and blog. It's been a long day, but lukily only one flight, and here I am in Atlanta at a hotel that seems to lie directly under the flight path of every aircraft landing at Hartsfield. Plus, the people across the hall have decided it is time to paaaar-tay. Lucky jet-lagged me.
Today (what is today? Today English time: Nov 13) is my little brother's twentieth birthday. I feel old.
I have no idea how I'm going to manage to stay awake enough for eleven interviews in two days. What's the opposite of Xanax?
Tomorrow I will get up early (feeling refreshed....?), perhaps work out in the hotel's fitness center before breakfast (erm... did I emphasize the perhaps enough there? I'm trying to be idealistic here), and then I'll take the hotel shuttle back to the airport to rent a car from Alamo and begin my drive to Birmingham, Alabama. Hopefully, I'll get to meet up with Rachel there tomorrow evening after she gets off work! Interviews Tuesday and Wednesday, and then a late night flight out of Atlanta to New Orleans, where Lori will meet me. (Can I admit to nerves and the slight desire to fast forward until Wednesday night?!)
One thing at a time. Thing number one: bed.
Night night!
to see the world the way I see it now
(Most Recent Entry)
introduction to poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
-- Billy Collins
Every tear you cry
Every doubt you have
All of these things will pass away
All of your big mistakes
Your little old heart would break
Wishing that i could take them back
Write down the things you don't want
Burn them in a glass
Write down the things you dream of
Make a paper plane that flies to Heaven
-- Jann Arden
Friday, November 03, 2006
ode to exercise
An old schoolfriend contacted me through MySpace this week (don't you just love MySpace?!). While thumbing through her (annoyingly stunning) photographs I remembered that she was really into sports in school -- the sports captain of our "house", I seem to remember -- and that doesn't seem to have changed. She's in to skiing, skydiving... you name it. So this set me on a train of thought: something about wishing I was more active. In her message to me, she said something about not being surprised that I'd done an MA; I was always the 'academic'. That is so true. In school I was the one who hated sports and used every inventive excuse possible to avoid the process of changing into sports clothes in the cold school "cellar" that smelled of sweat and shoes. I was never very good at sports (with the possible exceptions of indoor hockey and badminton. Which is not to say I was necessarily good at those sports; I was just less sucky.) I would have exchanged three history classes with the formidable Mrs Layman for one P.E. lesson. Sport was my enemy.
But I think I may have come to realise that sport is one of those things that school can seriously mess up for you. Like food, for instance. I hated school lunches. This was, of course, exacerbated by a terrifying experience when I was about six or seven where, because I hated most of the foods served at lunch (most notably lasagna, pizza, rice pudding, and quiche), my malicious teacher decided I would not be allowed to eat anything. Standing in line for chips one lunchtime, breathing a huge sigh of relief that today would not be one of the days I was stuck in a corner all afternoon with a plate of pizza and a bowl of cold rice-pudding and not allowed to join the class until I ate it (which I never could bring myself to do), the aforementioned teacher came striding along, removed my plate from my little hands, and told me that I was not to eat the things I liked at lunch if I wouldn't eat the things I didn't like. Of course, this made me cry. Rather pathetically. But after a few days I realized it might not be so bad; while the other children munched through sticky, gooey, foul-smelling lasagna, I was able to sit in the corner sucking my thumb. There was no more crying into a bowl of rice pudding. Of course, after a few weeks I started to lose a bit of weight and get rather sickly, which caused my mother a little concern and promptly elicited a confession and an angry visit to the headmistress.
This story is a roundabout way of noting how school can ruin good things for you. Like lasagna. Like pizza. Both wonderful foods. (I still can't stomach rice pudding). Like exercise.
This morning, pumping away on the treadmill, I turned on my iPod. This was a first for me (the iPod, not the treadmill), and I almost killed the little white machine by catching the headphones cord with my hand during a particularly intense running-session. I saved the day by a rather impressively timed catch-reflex and only stumbled a little bit and banged a shin. Exercise is good. Honest.
So I want to learn to ski. And to dance. Perhaps even to sky-dive (I may try the other two first). Perhaps even one day I'll be able to make it all the way around the ice-rink without looking like a complete moron.
I should close with an ode to the treadmill and the rowing machine, wonderful apparatuses that make me feel good about sitting on my butt all day trying to figure out what to do with my life. And watching Gilmore Girls. I'm not getting much exercise watching Gilmore Girls...
La di dah.
But I think I may have come to realise that sport is one of those things that school can seriously mess up for you. Like food, for instance. I hated school lunches. This was, of course, exacerbated by a terrifying experience when I was about six or seven where, because I hated most of the foods served at lunch (most notably lasagna, pizza, rice pudding, and quiche), my malicious teacher decided I would not be allowed to eat anything. Standing in line for chips one lunchtime, breathing a huge sigh of relief that today would not be one of the days I was stuck in a corner all afternoon with a plate of pizza and a bowl of cold rice-pudding and not allowed to join the class until I ate it (which I never could bring myself to do), the aforementioned teacher came striding along, removed my plate from my little hands, and told me that I was not to eat the things I liked at lunch if I wouldn't eat the things I didn't like. Of course, this made me cry. Rather pathetically. But after a few days I realized it might not be so bad; while the other children munched through sticky, gooey, foul-smelling lasagna, I was able to sit in the corner sucking my thumb. There was no more crying into a bowl of rice pudding. Of course, after a few weeks I started to lose a bit of weight and get rather sickly, which caused my mother a little concern and promptly elicited a confession and an angry visit to the headmistress.
This story is a roundabout way of noting how school can ruin good things for you. Like lasagna. Like pizza. Both wonderful foods. (I still can't stomach rice pudding). Like exercise.
This morning, pumping away on the treadmill, I turned on my iPod. This was a first for me (the iPod, not the treadmill), and I almost killed the little white machine by catching the headphones cord with my hand during a particularly intense running-session. I saved the day by a rather impressively timed catch-reflex and only stumbled a little bit and banged a shin. Exercise is good. Honest.
So I want to learn to ski. And to dance. Perhaps even to sky-dive (I may try the other two first). Perhaps even one day I'll be able to make it all the way around the ice-rink without looking like a complete moron.
I should close with an ode to the treadmill and the rowing machine, wonderful apparatuses that make me feel good about sitting on my butt all day trying to figure out what to do with my life. And watching Gilmore Girls. I'm not getting much exercise watching Gilmore Girls...
La di dah.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
after interview thoughts
Interview complete, I have returned home gratefully to a warm and cozy house to sit on a comfortable sofa with a cat and a cup of tea. This is the life!
The interview went quite well, actually. I was impressed with the company, and although from the outside the building is nothing special, the offices inside seem to be quite nice. I was blown away to discover that, if offered the position, I would have my own office. It would be an amazing opportunity to enter straight into an Assistant Editor position. I was pleased to learn that this isn't just some clever word-play to embellish the "Editorial Assistant" title; I would be doing editorial work rather than administrative duties, which is a bonus.
It's funny how we inevitably conjure up images of dragonic creatures as interviewers before the ominous appointment, only to be faced with real human beings. The two women who interviewed me were extremely friendly (and very young; I have to admit to being surprised.)
I would like to second Dona's complaints about the temperature. It's FREEZING! I'm so completely cold, I can't stand it. I can't wait to hop on a plane (the week after next, and I still haven't got dates for the Southern Progress interviews so I can't book tickets yet!) I can't wait to be in the sunshine again, even if it is getting cooler in Mississippi.
When I returned home there was an envelope from Harvard waiting for me. A graduate brochure. Is this a sign?
The interview went quite well, actually. I was impressed with the company, and although from the outside the building is nothing special, the offices inside seem to be quite nice. I was blown away to discover that, if offered the position, I would have my own office. It would be an amazing opportunity to enter straight into an Assistant Editor position. I was pleased to learn that this isn't just some clever word-play to embellish the "Editorial Assistant" title; I would be doing editorial work rather than administrative duties, which is a bonus.
It's funny how we inevitably conjure up images of dragonic creatures as interviewers before the ominous appointment, only to be faced with real human beings. The two women who interviewed me were extremely friendly (and very young; I have to admit to being surprised.)
I would like to second Dona's complaints about the temperature. It's FREEZING! I'm so completely cold, I can't stand it. I can't wait to hop on a plane (the week after next, and I still haven't got dates for the Southern Progress interviews so I can't book tickets yet!) I can't wait to be in the sunshine again, even if it is getting cooler in Mississippi.
When I returned home there was an envelope from Harvard waiting for me. A graduate brochure. Is this a sign?
interview nerves
Right about now is the time I should be freaking out. I have a job interview with Palgrave Macmillan in an hour and a half. I have no time to be writing this, but for some reason I needed a way to document my nerves.
My grand plan is to go to this interview, (blow them away, of course!), and then come back here and blog. Properly blog. So that all those of you who have been telling me I suck because I've stopped blogging are satisfied :-)
I wish I could get rid of the butterflies...!
My grand plan is to go to this interview, (blow them away, of course!), and then come back here and blog. Properly blog. So that all those of you who have been telling me I suck because I've stopped blogging are satisfied :-)
I wish I could get rid of the butterflies...!