I have gone back on the job market, which isn't nearly as dramatic as it sounds here, where it basically means polishing up (read: updating since the last time I used it, over 6 years ago) my CV and trying to find places to submit it. The pickings for me here are a bit thin, though not overly so. So far, I have actually applied and been interviewed for one job and the experience was...odd.
The job was a professional writing specialist position at the campus writing lab at a local Qatari university. A woman at church actually has this same position and asked if anyone were interested, so I submitted my resume through her. It was very nice of her to let us know about the job, so I am grateful she thought to do that. Anywho, after a while I was contacted for an interview, at which point I began to do a bit more digging into the details of the lab and the position itself and what I saw was totally familiar to me, the same kind of work I had done before at the University of Delaware and The Citadel writing centers. Actually, the job was virtually identical to the position at The Citadel, so I felt completely confident going into the interview. I knew what they were going to ask me, I knew how the job worked, I knew more about how things were run at their particular institution after my digging, and I was ready to go. And I was right: the interview went well, I thought, and it was fun to be talking to adults who cared about writing and student instruction like I do.
On the other hand, I might have been a little too confident or maybe perhaps lacking at least a small but healthy dose of nerves. They asked me early on if I had any questions for them about how the lab worked and I asked right away if the reasons they only had half hour appointments with students were pedagogical or practical since in my experience, longer appointments were often more productive than shorter ones. I may have overstepped my bounds a bit by coming out so forcefully in favor of a different practice, but I honestly couldn't imagine doing any real instruction or writing coaching on anything longer than a page in such a short amount of time. All in all, though, I felt like I answered the questions well and I certainly felt like they were pleased with my performance.
However, when we started to talk about the nuts and bolts of the schedule, I could see some problems for me right away. One, the hours were set, 7:30am - 2:30pm, which are actually great hours, except that the kids get home from school at 2:30pm and it would take me at least 45 minutes to drive home, so I would need someone to watch them for an hour every day and two hours on Wednesdays when they get out earlier. Also, the holidays on this university's academic calendar did not line up with the kids' school holidays at all. In the spring, in fact, there was exactly zero overlap: their winter break ended just as the university's January break began and then when that break was over, the kids' February break began and so on and so forth. We really don't want to have to get a nanny for the boys just so I can work, so this schedule difference really made the position untenable for me, which I had decided by the time I got home from the interview.
Turns out, I wasn't offered the job, so it was good I had decided I didn't want it in advance! But it was still nice to be considered and good practice for me to help me get back in the employment game. I've got a few other possibilities out there, so we will see what happens. The husband and I have discussed this, and we are in the same enviable position as before: we don't need for me to work. I don't have to work for us to make ends meet, and I am very aware of how much a privilege that is. If we were back in the States, I would be looking for my dream job (whatever that happens to be now) and not settling for anything less. Here, that means I may not find something I want to do or I may end up doing a lot of volunteer work instead or I may get a new hobby or I may just spend all my time planning fabulous family trips or I may write on this blog a whole lot more...who knows?? My prospects are unknown, perhaps unknowable. I'm not super comfortable with not knowing what is going to happen, but, if nothing else, moving here has, by necessity and not without a lot of protest, made me much more comfortable with new and ever-changing levels of uncertainty!
The job was a professional writing specialist position at the campus writing lab at a local Qatari university. A woman at church actually has this same position and asked if anyone were interested, so I submitted my resume through her. It was very nice of her to let us know about the job, so I am grateful she thought to do that. Anywho, after a while I was contacted for an interview, at which point I began to do a bit more digging into the details of the lab and the position itself and what I saw was totally familiar to me, the same kind of work I had done before at the University of Delaware and The Citadel writing centers. Actually, the job was virtually identical to the position at The Citadel, so I felt completely confident going into the interview. I knew what they were going to ask me, I knew how the job worked, I knew more about how things were run at their particular institution after my digging, and I was ready to go. And I was right: the interview went well, I thought, and it was fun to be talking to adults who cared about writing and student instruction like I do.
On the other hand, I might have been a little too confident or maybe perhaps lacking at least a small but healthy dose of nerves. They asked me early on if I had any questions for them about how the lab worked and I asked right away if the reasons they only had half hour appointments with students were pedagogical or practical since in my experience, longer appointments were often more productive than shorter ones. I may have overstepped my bounds a bit by coming out so forcefully in favor of a different practice, but I honestly couldn't imagine doing any real instruction or writing coaching on anything longer than a page in such a short amount of time. All in all, though, I felt like I answered the questions well and I certainly felt like they were pleased with my performance.
However, when we started to talk about the nuts and bolts of the schedule, I could see some problems for me right away. One, the hours were set, 7:30am - 2:30pm, which are actually great hours, except that the kids get home from school at 2:30pm and it would take me at least 45 minutes to drive home, so I would need someone to watch them for an hour every day and two hours on Wednesdays when they get out earlier. Also, the holidays on this university's academic calendar did not line up with the kids' school holidays at all. In the spring, in fact, there was exactly zero overlap: their winter break ended just as the university's January break began and then when that break was over, the kids' February break began and so on and so forth. We really don't want to have to get a nanny for the boys just so I can work, so this schedule difference really made the position untenable for me, which I had decided by the time I got home from the interview.
Turns out, I wasn't offered the job, so it was good I had decided I didn't want it in advance! But it was still nice to be considered and good practice for me to help me get back in the employment game. I've got a few other possibilities out there, so we will see what happens. The husband and I have discussed this, and we are in the same enviable position as before: we don't need for me to work. I don't have to work for us to make ends meet, and I am very aware of how much a privilege that is. If we were back in the States, I would be looking for my dream job (whatever that happens to be now) and not settling for anything less. Here, that means I may not find something I want to do or I may end up doing a lot of volunteer work instead or I may get a new hobby or I may just spend all my time planning fabulous family trips or I may write on this blog a whole lot more...who knows?? My prospects are unknown, perhaps unknowable. I'm not super comfortable with not knowing what is going to happen, but, if nothing else, moving here has, by necessity and not without a lot of protest, made me much more comfortable with new and ever-changing levels of uncertainty!
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