Ah: the campus interview. Two to three days of constant meetings in an unfamiliar environment. From plane-ride-in to plane-ride-out, a stressful experience when it goes well. And when it doesn't? Hmm . . .

Overall it went well, I believe; but it was not without its troubles. On Wednesday night, a storm system was passing through Chicago. As if foreboding my troubles, we sat for about twenty minutes in Tampa before we even took off. Next to me was a young executive—a nice chap—who had taken logic in college. We chatted a bit about what I do, and he flipped through my textbook reminiscing about the logic class he took twenty-some years back in San Antonio. I had a window seat, and the extra leg room of the exit row. Things couldn't be better.

A little over an hour into the flight, the captain informed us that due to the miserable weather, that they were limiting the number of planes into O'Hare; we would remain in a holding pattern, circling over Louisville. Indeed, we circled for so long that the plane needed to stop in Indianapolis to re-fuel. On the ground, I called the department chair (who was picking me up from the airport) to explain to him that the flight will be delayed and would call him back when I landed.

Three hours later, still sitting on the tarmac in Indy. People were milling about. An impromptu 'cocktail party' began in the back, where the flight attendants were acting as bartenders. I called United to find out about my connecting flight, which I figured might also be delayed for similar reasons—it was canceled outright.

Canceled? What of my interview? I called expedia.com, with whom I booked my flight. A lady in New Delhi informed me that the airline had already 'taken over' my record (her words), so there was nothing she could do. Okay, call United again. I'm put on hold. Another lady in India conforms my flight was canceled, and that she could re-book my flight for Friday. Of course, I was slated to return to Tampa before that flight came even in. I deny assuring her that there must be another puddle-jumper leaving between Chicago and the Quad-Cities, and I'm put on hold. Second option: I could board a plane at 9:30 AM the next day, and after two stops I would land in Moline, IL at 11 that night. But fuck if I'm going to sit in a plane for 14 hours to travel the distance of a three hour car ride! I ask for a refund, and she needs to talk to a supervisor (read: refill her coffee cup). I'm put on hold. She arrives back and said that since the flight was canceled due to weather, her supervisor says I am not entitled to a refund. I ask to speak to said supervisor. I'm put on hold. India lady tells me that the supervisor (that she allegedly just talked to) is busy, but now she magically is able to offer me a refund. I'm put on hold. She finally returns to the line to tell me that the computers are down and I need to call back later. I promptly get a drink and put on a nicotine patch.

Finally we get going and I arrive in Chicago at nine o'clock or so, four hours past my expected arrival time. The plan was to just rent a car, and I could be there by 1 AM or so, to get a few hours sleep before my big day of meetings. To add to all this, I find out—from perhaps the most obnoxious United “customer service” representative that could possibly be—that my bags are going on to Moline without me the next morning. So, I figure just drive the three hours and find my bag in the morning before my scheduled meetings. However much to my excitement, everybody has the same plan as I, and there is no car to be had. Calling half a dozen rental car places I find that there are no cars available for that night, the best they can do is 5 AM. Meanwhile, I had to get a place on the standby list (that is, I'm not even sure if I'm going to be on the plane) for the next flight to Moline in the morning. So, I'm stuck in Chicago for the night.

I called around to the people whom I know in Chicago, and Nikki and Thane open their couch to the wayward traveller. I ended up just hopping a cab a few stops in from O'Hare—damned if I'm going to go all the way south to the loop to get west to Andersonville. Arriving, exhausted, I catch up with them for a little while before passing the fuck out. And I make sure to schedule a cab to pick me up and bring me to the airport at 5:30 AM—still unsure if I'm even going to make it to Moline. Actual sleep time: 4 hours.

As luck would have it, I do manage to get a spot on the plane, and things are looking up. Arriving in Moline, I head for the baggage carousel in the postage stamp that is the Moline airport, and find that my bag (contrary to what the obnoxious United rep said) was not on the first flight in the morning, unlike me. So, here I am wearing the same clothes I wore to board the plane—the same clothes I slept in, mind you—with meetings with faculty and administrators already to have begun a few hours prior. I stop at the airport gift shop to get a toothbrush, comb and deodorant (they only have Secret: Ph-balanced for a woman!) At this point, I figure that there's really just no chance of scoring the position.

When I arrive at the hotel, I shit, shower and shave. I rub deodorant on my shirt to cover the latent aroma of sweat. I borrow a pair of black socks from the very understanding Department Chair to stand as a barrier between my foot and my swampy, uncomfortable dress shoes. I quickly iron my pants (thanks to the iron in the room) and head off to dazzle Deans and Professors.

My bag did finally arrive around 5 PM that day, after all my meetings were done. United Airlines was nice enough to deliver it to Davenport, after having deprived me of it all day. I think that's the last time I fly with them without a gun at my temple.

The trip did pick up when I arrived. The faculty were understanding of my predicament and were all very friendly, witty and genuinely very nice people. Especially the Department Chair, a bearded chap who enjoys Merleau-Ponty and banjo music, who has a very dry and somewhat cheese-ridden wit which I quite enjoyed. Their newest hire was a promising young woman, the only person on the faculty near my age, who was just about to defend her dissertation on Plato. I had a very good chats with both the Theology faculty member on the search committee, and enjoyed my brief chat with the progressive priest who was adorned in the very traditional tie-dyed purple shirt. The only downside (and I believe the thing that may cost me the job) is that the class I was assigned to teach didn't go as well as I hoped—I naturally assumed that somethings were covered that had not been, and I was forced to backtrack and explain. Consequently it came off somewhat scattered, I fear.

On reflection, I believe I came across my usual poised and articulate self, and overall I hope it showed my ability to deal with crisis situations (if not also my determination to make it there). I wasn't even all that nervous long after I arrived, relatively speaking, since the faculty genuinely put me at ease. So I think I have a decent shot of getting the offer, wrinkled pants and all.

And if I do, I think I will really enjoy working with these people.

I had FAMU losing to Kansas in the first round, not Niagra. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I filled that one out. I usually can't muster the attention to see #65 play #64.

And, since I usually only pay attention to College Basketball in late February, here's my poorly-researched Sweet 16 picks:

East:

UNC vs. Texas: And Texas will win.
Washington State vs. Georgetown: Go Big East!

South:

Ohio State vs. Tennessee: Nobody's gonna eliminate OSU for a while.
Louisville vs. Memphis: Former C-USA rivalry renewed.

West:

Pitt vs. UCLA: Or: at least I'd watch that game.
Kansas vs. Va Tech: I'd like to see Kansas-Wisconsin again with it all on the line.

Midwest:

Florida vs. Old Dominion: My Cinderella pick. There's always one school you've never heard of in the 16, and it can very well be good 'ol ODU(?)
Notre Dame vs. Wisconsin: ND to upset #3 Oregon (!) and Wisconsin to play Florida--

If I get any right, I'll consider picking the next round.


UPDATE (3/20):

Round 1: 24-8
Round 2: 9-7

So much for Old Dominion. Not a single 12 seed upset a 5 seed--

Tuesday last, I got an unexpectant surprise. An email was received from the philosophy department of a small liberal arts school in Iowa (yes--Iowa) requesting a phone interview. That brings my application to interview ratio to 1:6, very high given my present cirsumstance and the norms of the profession. Of course, I spent most of the past few days beating myself for not having taken advantage of, and not overcoming the disadvantages of, the obvious benefits and drawbacks of the medium; and of course, I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to get the job. However, given the details of the job I'm pretty sure I have a chance at making it to the 'second-round,' the elusive "on-campus" or "flyout" interview. This is a good thing.

It's not quite over yet, everyone.

UPDATE (3/15): I got the campus interview. In my best Sally Field: "They like me . . ."

"Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation. To begin with it is a play of illusions and phantasms: pirates, the frontier, future world, etc. This imaginary world is supposed to be what makes the operation successful. But, what draws the crowds is undoubtedly much more the social microcosm, the miniaturized and religious revelling in real America, in its delights and drawbacks. You park outside, queue up inside, and are totally abandoned at the exit. In this imaginary world the only phantasmagoria is in the inherent warmth and affection of the crowd, and in that aufficiently excessive number of gadgets used there to specifically maintain the multitudinous affect. The contrast with the absolute solitude of the parking lot - a veritable concentration camp - is total. Or rather: inside, a whole range of gadgets magnetize the crowd into direct flows; outside, solitude is directed onto a single gadget: the automobile. By an extraordinary coincidence (one that undoubtedly belongs to the peculiar enchantment of this universe), this deep-frozen infantile world happens to have been conceived and realized by a man who is himself now cryogenized; Walt Disney, who awaits his resurrection at minus 180 degrees centigrade.

"The objective profile of the United States, then, may be traced throughout Disneyland, even down to the morphology of individuals and the crowd. All its values are exalted here, in miniature and comic-strip form. Embalmed and pactfied. Whence the possibility of an ideological analysis of Disneyland (L. Marin does it well in Utopies, jeux d'espaces): digest of the American way of life, panegyric to American values, idealized transposition of a contradictory reality. To be sure. But this conceals something else, and that "ideological" blanket exactly serves to cover over a third-order simulation: Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the "real" country, all of "real" America, which is Disneyland (just as prisons are there to conceal the fact that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, which is carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.

"The Disneyland imaginary is neither true nor false: it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real. Whence the debility, the infantile degeneration of this imaginary. It ~s meant to be an infantile world, in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the "real" world, and to conceal the fact that real childishness is everywhere, particularly among those adults who go there to act the child in order to foster illusions of their real childishness.

"Moreover, Disneyland is not the only one. Enchanted Village, Magic Mountain, Marine World: Los Angeles is encircled by these "imaginary stations" which feed reality, reality-energy, to a town whose mystery is precisely that it is nothing more than a network of endless, unreal circulation: a town of fabulous proportions, but without space or dimensions. As much as electrical and nuclear power stations, as much as film studios, this town, which is nothing more than an immense script and a perpetual motion picture, needs this old imaginary made up of childhood signals and faked phantasms for its sympathetic nervous system."

RIP, Jean Baudrillard. (He, like the Gulf War, did not exist.)