No news

Pablo recently mentioned that it seems I'm spending a lot of pixels discussing politics and events rather than myself lately. There happens to be a rational reason for this. My life is pretty d*mn boring right now. Last weekend, in between marathon sessions of Alpha Centauri, I got correction letters mailed out to all the places I applied to in the month of August, along with a couple of new applications for positions advertised in the last week. I note, however, that I have already received thanks-but-no-thanks letters in response to many of the August applications, so I wonder whether it's worth the trouble of delving further back into the July applications.

One glimmer of interest: I have an upcoming telephone interview with a place I'll call Down East State University. This was one I had given up on a while back, since their original position description referred to a start date of September 1. Perhaps their first choice backed out on them?

Downeast appears to be in one of the few places in the eastern contiguous United States that can compete with northern Michigan for remoteness and frigidity. It's about as far north and east as you can go without treading salt water or becoming Canadian. I searched the Chronicle of Higher Education and found about five articles that mention them, the most entertaining being a description of their athletic program's remarkably rigorous winter fitness exercises, which apparently involve running for two hours at a time in snowshoes.

On the other hand, they do seem to have some strong environmental and ecological study programs, and it looks like it could be an interesting small-town area with remarkable scenery and surroundings. And it pays better than my current gig.

One of the local theaters is showing American Splendor, and it sounds like it might be interesting enough to see. If anyone has seen it and has comments, thoughts, or rotten tomatoes to throw, let me know.