posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
orichalcum at 04:06pm on 21/08/2007 under geek television
orichalcum at 04:06pm on 21/08/2007 under geek televisionWe have the apartment! We have a lease and keys and a freight elevator time and everything! Eowyn will have to be on her best behavior and ride in the freight elevator, but we were planning for that already. I'm a little weirded out by the minor detail that we still have no mailing address for our actual landlord and our only contact has been with his interpreter/assistant, who met with A. in his Mercedes jeep to hand over the keys, but, well, that's sort of one of the weirdnesses of big city apartment renting. It's not even clear we'll need a storage unit, though that's something that may need to get worked out.
Meanwhile, I got the best of all possible rejections from the local one-year job I'd applied for at the Jesuit school here in Chicago. And no, I'm not putting a brave face on this, or not much. It was a personal letter, saying basically that they'd found someone who was actually an expert in ancient Judaism, as the job description called for (which I can fake, but only by moving my hands very quickly in a Western Civy sort of way.) However, they're really interested in my work on outcasts in ancient societies (less in the sex and prostitutes, I suspect, but they _are_ a Catholic school) and wanted to let me know that they're trying to get a tenure-track position this year, whose job description may not be focused around religious history, and would I like to keep my application active?
Given that I'd basically come to the 90% conclusion that, even if I had been offered the job, it made more sense to refuse a temporary, one-year heavy teaching load job outside my immediate field in a department I've heard numerous horror stories about, this is basically a great outcome for everything except my ego. I'll have much more time to focus on my publications and our nigh-toddler.
Speaking of whom, I think he might be on the leading edge of a language explosion! He definitely knows "kakker" for "cracker" now and when I was Gtalking A. earlier and he kept trying to grab the keyboard, I explained, "We're talking to Daddy right now." He looked straight at the computer screen and said, "Hi..." Also, just for fun, we tried out the alphabet game at www.starfall.com and by the second repetition, whenever the letter A flashed on screen, he would say "Aaah." He also echoed "aah-gay-der" when the picture of the river amphibian came up. He's still much more prone to echo words that we say than to initiate them on his own, but I think he definitely knows now that certain sounds have specific meanings, and that he can get enthusiastic praise by echoing us. It may be at the level of Alex the parrot still, but it's definitely a big change.
Meanwhile, I got the best of all possible rejections from the local one-year job I'd applied for at the Jesuit school here in Chicago. And no, I'm not putting a brave face on this, or not much. It was a personal letter, saying basically that they'd found someone who was actually an expert in ancient Judaism, as the job description called for (which I can fake, but only by moving my hands very quickly in a Western Civy sort of way.) However, they're really interested in my work on outcasts in ancient societies (less in the sex and prostitutes, I suspect, but they _are_ a Catholic school) and wanted to let me know that they're trying to get a tenure-track position this year, whose job description may not be focused around religious history, and would I like to keep my application active?
Given that I'd basically come to the 90% conclusion that, even if I had been offered the job, it made more sense to refuse a temporary, one-year heavy teaching load job outside my immediate field in a department I've heard numerous horror stories about, this is basically a great outcome for everything except my ego. I'll have much more time to focus on my publications and our nigh-toddler.
Speaking of whom, I think he might be on the leading edge of a language explosion! He definitely knows "kakker" for "cracker" now and when I was Gtalking A. earlier and he kept trying to grab the keyboard, I explained, "We're talking to Daddy right now." He looked straight at the computer screen and said, "Hi..." Also, just for fun, we tried out the alphabet game at www.starfall.com and by the second repetition, whenever the letter A flashed on screen, he would say "Aaah." He also echoed "aah-gay-der" when the picture of the river amphibian came up. He's still much more prone to echo words that we say than to initiate them on his own, but I think he definitely knows now that certain sounds have specific meanings, and that he can get enthusiastic praise by echoing us. It may be at the level of Alex the parrot still, but it's definitely a big change.
amused
There are 6 comments on this entry. (Reply.)