Paola's update- June 16, 2007

Paola went on her interview with N___ a couple of weeks ago. We were both excited for her to go on the interview, and she was especially nervous. When I met her at home later that day, I found out how things went. She did not feel that she did well at the interview because at one point, during the sample lesson, she froze up and blanked out. This sort of thing happens when people are very nervous, and so it happened to her. She said that she finally worked through it, due to an understanding interviewer (though Paola would not describe her as understanding, I certainly would, since she was actually allowed to coninue with the interview). Based on what Paola told me, I supposed that she would not get offered the job (With my own experience in education, I know that I would not hire her after that interview).

We were both dissappointed by the course of events. I reassured Paola that it was ok if she did not get the job, and that we could reapply at a later date. I supposed that it was due to a lack of preperation on Paola's part. She assumed that the interview would go fairly easy, and she only really worked on the public speaking portion of the interview, which, as it turned out, she did not have to do. Since she froze up during the sample lesson, it might be concluded that she was not well enough prepared for that portion of the interview. Paola felt comfortable enough after the one practice that we had with a sample lesson. She said that she felt overly confident since her online research had led her to believe that N___ hires everyone who applies, unless she is an idiot (I paraphrased a website forum that Paola told me about). Paola felt that she was smarter than an idiot, so she would not have to work too hard to prepare. This made me that much more upset about Paola's apparent lacksidaisicle approach to preparing for something that she wanted. She was also dissappointed. I suppose that people have to learn the hard way.

So as the last couple of weeks have progressed, I thought about what I might do in the fall, or even in the summer, seeing as how I do not have a job lined up. I was starting to get an unsettling feeling, and even wondering if I made the right decision in resigning from my current job. That said, I felt that I had already resigned, and as such, I could not, or would not go back to ask for a job that I knew that I hated. So what was I to do, then? This, plus the realization that I was not going to get to work in Japan as I wanted to, put me in a rather melancholy mood for a couple of days. Even still, there was still some inkling in the back of my mind that said, "Even though the possibility of going to Japan looks bleak, there is still a slight possibility until they actually send Paola a rejection letter."

The main course of action that I was hoping to pursue involved music. I have been working on an opera of grand scale that I hope to produce myself. Since I might be completely free of obligations after June, I was thinking of focussing solely on that. It wouldn't bring in any money, but it is something that I feel I have to do. But a problem with that is that I am pretty sure that I wouldn't focus solely on that, despite my best intentions. There are always distractions, and I have other projects that I think about doing as well.

I was expecting the rejection letter last Monday. I figured that it took them a week to get back to me to tell me that they wanted me, so it would take them less time to realize that they didn't want Paola, plus the time that a letter travels in the mail (as opposed to email, which is how I got my notice). But on Monday, there was no letter in the mail. Tuesday came and went without a letter. On Wednesday, Paola called me before leaving work that N___ called her. They wanted to confirm her letter of recommendation, but could not get in touch with the person who wrote it, having left that office some time ago; they wanted Paola to get some updated contact information for her old supervisor so that they could get in touch with him. What this meant to me was that her application made it past the interview stage, and they were now checking her references. Afterall, why would they want to check her references at all if after the interview if they did not want to accept her?

That is where we stand now. It seems that they are going to review her references, and confirm that the good things that were said were actually said by whom Paola said said them, then they will (hopefully) give her a background check, which, Paola claims, will not turn up any bad stuff, and finally they will offer her the job. Technically, we still have not recieved a notice that she has made it through the preliminary stages, but things are looking a lot better now than they did a couple of weeks ago. My own melancholy has subsided, which was helped by the notice that the computer people are done fixing my computer, and they have sent it back to me after having it for over a week, which has kept me from a lot of my work (I have written three compositions over the last week with pencil and paper, but I still don't know how they sound without my computer). So no matter what happens, I am feeling better now.