ze job market

do you know what phd means? permanant head damage! yep, says it all ;)

ok so i went to new york for a job interview and it was ok. flying in and out on the same day was not such a great idea, especially considering that i had spent half of the previous night at the emergency animal hospital and that i was leaving a half-dead cat alone for 22 hours. other than that, the interview with the search committee went very well, i thought, and i enjoyed it. the only problem i had was to know how to answer to the question, "so why should we hire you?" or "if we hired you, what would you bring to our department?" or something like that. i have a hard time remembering the details of that day... but that's one question i need to work on. i don't know how to SELL myself!!!

then i had an interview with the vice-president of the university. scary. she was nice, but any woman at that level is an extreme overachiever and that intimidates me. so i didn't do too well i guess, especially when she kept asking questions about their school, what i knew about it, what i thought about it, what about this, and what about that. i need to make a list of "cool stuff about your university" to use next time.

also, she asked me about my salary at purdue and the salary i'd like if they hired me. ??!! the job description said "up to $64.000" so that's what i told her, huhuh... but then i said i'd be happy with something between $45 and $55.000. this is new york after all. i wasn't ready for that question! so now, for the canadian job which i REALLY want, i'm checking online and with canadian friends and i found a comparison of high and low salaries of assistant professors at different universities in canada, so next time i'll be ready.

that canadian school i'm going to on thursday is one cool school! it's very new and very quickly expanding, private, and in many ways similar to purdue. i'd be doing the same thing i'm doing at purdue (esl for undergrads) but also be in charge of the writing center, which is the part that i'm not so sure about. fortunately, i know a bit about purdue's famous writing center so i am not completely unfamiliar with the concept. i'm preparing a research presentation--kind of fun, since it's the very very very first time i'll present ANYTHING about my new research! it's not like i can cut and paste from previous presentations or something. this one is brand new... and i'm finding out about some of the results as we speak. so it's going to be an "in progress" presentation to say the least! i'm scared but also super excited about that one.