Adventures in the Colonial 'burg: July 2010

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Focus

I have work to do. And really, I want to do it. But right now, it's extremely hard to focus. For one, there's the impending move. Things are irritating with that, also. I'm someone who likes everything planned perfectly, and sadly since I'm the one doing the planning, everything becomes messed up, overly complicated, or just changed on an hourly basis.

The other problem I have is that I can't focus when I have things that are just waiting to go wrong. This is why I hate flying. The actual flight is fine, but I fret over everything before and after. Like, I'll be caught in traffic that'll make me miss my flight (this has never happened, and is practically impossible when flying out of the local airports as there is no such thing as traffic here), my name will all-of-a-sudden appear on the no-fly list, I'll be detained at security because of the fact that I looked snarky, or of course the standard, I'm at the gate and the flight is severely delayed so much that I miss a connection or whatever.

Then of course there's the stuff that goes wrong on the other end of a flight. In fact, I'm not truly relaxed until I get to my hotel and check in (because there's a lot that goes wrong there, too, you know). Sadly, there's a small part of me that always hopes for something to go wrong, and that way I can complain and maybe get free stuff.

Anyway, that's all on my mind, so work is falling by the wayside. Alas. Oh, and fair warning, this blog will actually disappear upon moving. I'll probably continue posting but on a new site, for all three of you that read this. The problem is that the address for this site is too specific to this location, and I should have made a more generic name. Making "burg" stand for something else just seemed too complicated (and honestly, lame)...

Monday, July 26, 2010

Orientate this

I just got an email from my soon-to-be-employer, about an upcoming new faculty orientation. This is apparently an all-day event, beginning at 8:45 in the morning (groan), and culminating with an afternoon reception at 4:30pm that will last lord only knows how long.

The morning session,will have a panel where, the email informs me:

"You will have the opportunity to learn about [this university] and its distinctive pursuit of excellence in teaching, research and service and to join a conversation that is a rich part of our formation as teachers and scholars."

Then,

"Following lunch, there will be a brief presentation on teaching and learning resources, a pictorial history of [this university]."

I know the university has been around for a while, but I don't think the pictorial history will take place until

"The day closes with a reception at 4:30 p.m. at [SSS] Hall hosted by So-and-so."

Ah, the glorious wastes of time are being scheduled for me!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Realtor from hell

So of the (admittedly far too few) places we saw while in the Bronx, one place stood out not for the unit itself (which was unimpressive), but for the person who showed it to us.

Her name was Cathy, and given my restrictions (max of 20 minute commute to work, by walking, train, or bus, and a dog), she had one place available. She told me it was in a great neighborhood that would even allow me to walk to work and there were tons of restaurants within walking distance.

Well, first of all, that was a flat out lie. It would have been a 45-minute walk to work, and barely 30 minutes to take a bus. Plus, the neighborhood was exceedingly residential, and nothing was close. But all of this is secondary to the point of this tale, and that is of our being kidnapped by this woman.

So she's not the best salesperson. After saying it was a short walk to the apartment, she met us at the subway station with her car to drive us. And saying this was a car is being pretty generous, as it was about to fall apart. Also, she couldn't have the a/c on because she was worried she would run out of gas.

She showed us the apartment, and in addition to the rent, security deposit and broker's fee (both equal to one month's rent), there was a $175 application fee and some other fee as yet to be determined by the landlord, if I wanted it. Besides the fact that the place was a hole in a crappy "I need a car to live there" neighborhood, that was a good way to end the discussion.

So we headed back to the car, and she asked if we were thirsty. Stupidly we said yes, and she then brought us to this diner which made me think we were in Wyoming, given the clientele. The two of us ordered sodas, and she ordered a big-salad-a-la-Elaine-on-Seinfeld, and we sat there while she ate, trapped. We sat there and she proceeded to hate on every other neighborhood in the city (except where we were, and Riverdale, the rich white neighborhood that doesn't allow public transit anywhere near it). The worst part was that we were trapped and couldn't go anywhere, because we didn't even know where the stupid train was from the diner! The poor woman was clearly lonely (she basically said as much), but I don't think that would have been a problem if she weren't such a raving bitch.

Just a sample: When we were describing Maggie's neighborhood in Brooklyn and how it's nice because it's walking distance to tons of restaurants, it's really cute, and close to several different subways, she responded with a sneer and, "Well, that's okay, if that's what you want." That is, in fact, precisely what I want!

Needless to say I didn't even bother calling her to tell her I didn't want the apartment.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

We won't be homeless

After a grueling week of traveling to both western New York and New York City, we found places to move into when we leave the 'burg.

Corbett will be living in a 19th-century mansion that has been converted into apartments. The place is ridiculously gorgeous, and has a brand new kitchen. It's sort of the kind of place that I'm not sure that I belong, but alas, it's all his, and I'll get to spend plenty of time in his mansion. Luckily that took only a day in a half to find and we could head down to the city.

I was fretting my search, as I had only two appointments made to look (no one would call me back), while Corbett had somewhere on the order of 10. The first day we were there, we spent most of the day checking out the neighborhood near campus, and it felt as though the day was wasted. Our first appointment was at 3pm and thankfully the second apartment we saw I liked a bunch. It was like my old apartment in New York, but twice as big. We went to the appointment we had in the evening* just to see something else, and it was so horrible, the choice was basically made. So the next morning I got the apt I liked.

Compared to Corbett's mansion, it's a hole, but compared to apartments in NYC, it's spectacular. And, it's only a 10-minute walk to work. The neighborhood is awesome, and well, I get to live in the Bronx, which will be fun!
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* That is a story I will have to save for another date, but keep a lookout for it.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Yeah, they still want me

So you may remember that just a year ago I had an interview at a small liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere. The interview I had there went, I thought, very well, but alas I did not get the job. I was somewhat bitter about it for a while, and while Laurie and Rick were here, the topic of the school came up. Not thirty minutes after we were talking about the school, I received an email from them.

Apparently one of their faculty members is not returning in the fall and they offered me a visiting professor position for the upcoming year. He also said that while this was not a tenure-track position, they would have a search next year and he implied that I would have a good shot at it. Luckily I got to tell them that I had a job at a school in a real city (of course I didn't say it that way).

What a great feeling this was because of several things. First, I got to reject them this time. Secondly, it means that I wasn't imagining things last year and the interview did go really well, well enough that sixteen months after the fact, they thought of me as an excellent choice to be able to hire me on the spot.

After I told him no, I also mentioned I thought of the school because we're driving right through the tiny town next week, and he said I should stop by for lunch. Of course he was just being polite, and there is no way I would, but in the end, a very uplifting moment.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Every Little Step

We watched Every Little Step last night, which is a documentary about the tryouts for the recent revival of A Chorus Line on Broadway.* It was actually very interesting, as it was essentially an entire season of a reality competition in an hour and a half (perhaps the appropriate length of time for one of those seasons), but also actually real.

What was hilarious was one of the people trying out. He was trying out for the "Mike" character, which is the guy who sings "I can do that" in the show, with regards to his sister's dance classes when we was a child. The auditioner was a certain man named Tyce Diorio, better known in some (rather small) circles as a choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance. He choreographs very good contemporary routines and exceedingly terrible Broadway routines for the show. He is also extremely irritating.

Watching him in this documentary I realized two things. First, he is an amazing dancer. Secondly, I hate him even more.

First of all, he kept acting like he was just doing this audition for himself and that he didn't care if he got it. This overly confident attitude is annoying, especially when one could easily be confident and not an ass. He has that cocky persona that tries to pretend like everything that happens to him is exactly what he wants. And it drives me nuts.

Luckily I knew he didn't get the part and when he was told he had that air of "I don't really care about this anyway." At least now I can think about his miserable failure for that show and chuckle next time I see him on SYTYCD.
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* Just take a minute for that to sink in.