23.1.08

job stuff avalanche, in a good way...

Well, I'll save the why's and wherefore's of the jobhunt for later (but soon, t., promis). All you need to know right now job-wise is yesterday I hit rock bottom in my morale basket as per any new Careeeeeeeeerrrrr might be concerned. Not only did I not feel I would be qualified for almost anything, the stuff I had thought about (namely teaching private school) for which I seemed the most marketable exhausts me even to ponder. (I may warm to it again one of these days so no "I told you so's" if that happens, please.)

So rather than do anything constructive about any of that I chose to stay up til the wee hours playing on Googledocs making a diet and exercise spreadsheet, about which I'm uncommonly excited but still: pooped and no job progress...

Cut to this morning; for whatever reason, exhaustion notwithstanding, when I got in to the office today while I was finishing my lesson plans I decided to do a search for international programs jobs, and lo & behold our own sometime-esteemed institution has an opening for such a post in the College of Ed., required attributes: MA, fluency in one foreign language, experience with project mgmt., experience abroad in study programs. Hmmmm!

I'm a shoe-in on paper, but we'll see. I had no idea if I'd really fit what it calls for in practice but it lit a fire under me somehow. When I got back to the office for my 9-10 break, I emailed Paula, my old conference boss, Deborah, a long-time acquaintance who is now Asst. Dir. of International Programs, and Marie-Thérèse at Michelin, all of whom I had been thinking of Networking but had yet to contact.

Paula is away at a conference but I'm sure I'll hear from her soon. Deborah wrote back, we have an appointment for me to pick her brain on Tuesday, meanwhile she sent a TON of links (one of which an International Programs Director post at Ga. Tech.) and info about where to find postings and she thinks I am perfect for International Programs.

The super longshot, I thought, was Marie-Thérèse. She is in charge of the language school at Michelin, for whom I've done a lot of independent contractor tutoring of BFGoodrich employees here. I was next to positive that they hire no one but true Francophones for their school there but -against type- I emailed her anyway to see. The Michelin folks are almost always keenly interested in their studies (sure, sometimes it's coercion since they have to communicate about tires, not necessarily because they are in love with France or the language, but still) plus it's always been a good experience dealing with Marie-Thérèse.

When I got back from class, in addition to Deborah's two chock-full emails, Marie-Thérèse had left me a voicemail asking to email her when would be a good time to talk tomorrow morning so she could give me a bunch of info "about how to proceed" (my translation, 'cause I do that :). I did so and we have a phone date tomorrow morning. Honestly if they didn't hire anyone but Frenchies, I know her well enough to be sure she would simply have said so, so there must be some teensy chance of something, n'est-ce pas?...

On top of that when she emailed me back confirming our talk time, she added a forward of a job posting for a French lecturer (MA required is all, renewable contract - the job Chris from our dept. used to have if some of you will recall) at Clems*n "just FYI" which I think is really really cool of her. (If the post is still similar to when Chris held it, it rocked - according to him the students were engagement incarnate over there, plus it offers some extra-curricular responsibilities --abroad program work plus French Club advising-- in addition to teaching 1st and 2nd year and the occasional lit. seminar, etc., not at all like the self-important robots in my classes here with no hope of teaching any 2nd year, not to mention my contract's end, looming on the horizon, spring 09.)

All this because of three little emails and 5 minutes of web searching... Who knows what will pan out but I feel a lot better just having started the energy moving. (For good measure I even did some slight editing on the ol' CV! Crazy!)

Color me getting all my materials together and starting to send stuff out for various nibbles in the next week if at all possible, esp. to Clems*n and for the AU COE/IP post (kind of not excited about staying in Aub*rn even for IP work, but on the other hand it would be a good opportunity to see how I fit with IP while not having to make a huge household move to do so).

And so it goes...

1 commentaire:

Applecart T. a dit…

holy francophony, batman!

that's a lot of data and a lotta great prospects. per next post, hmm, haven't they heard about the housing market crisis? wtf? they are sure to run out of cash soon, but it does no one any good to be feeling pre-refugee stress like that; moving sucks, everyone knows, especially when it's not your choice.

i do not get the contracts bs. that is just, well, wow. makes me not want to pay my tuition bill! i'll just pay my advisor and teacher.

maybe then she can get some powerpoints and dump the slides. in zadie smith's "on beauty," which i just finally read after a failed attempt over a year ago, a professor has me ever thinking "pah point" (southern accent) every time i hear/see/think it. the book was not anything as i expected.

ganbate!