Interview

Okay, so at this point you all have guessed that I didn't get the job. You guessed correct.
I thought the interview went well despite the fact that it was obvious I knew nothing about teaching.
I was very glad I showed up 20 minutes early and had to wait because I was so nervous I couldn't concentrate. I spent those 20 minutes doing deep breathing exercises I'd learned in yoga. By Gods they helped.
When I sat down for the actual interview I looked calm on the outside until they offered me a glass of water. When I took it, my hand shook so bad I almost sloshed water all over my portfolio. So I just set the cup down.
That was a bit of an embarrassing way to start but I was very proud of myself because my voice never cracked and my posture was alert and attentive the whole time.
The interview consisted of a panel of four, two men and two women. They are required by law to ask every applicant the same series of questions so that no one is unintentionally(or intentionally) discriminated against.
A lot of the questions were class room scenarios and I stumbled through them with my "I'd do it by the book" and "whatever your policies are" answers. I felt my answers to the question of how to keep students interested in an elective art class were seen as refreshing but it was when I got to ask questions that I really shone.
Up until that point there was one woman whom I think really liked me, a man who did not, Bob who was doing a good job of pretending that we didn't know each other and a woman that I couldn't read at all.
I had a lot of questions regarding the process of applying for the credential needed to teach. The one man was clear in stating his concern that I didn't already have it but I ran over scenario after scenario of successful teachers who had completed their credentials while teaching and with little more experience than me. He had to agree with me. Haha
It was at that point the woman I couldn't read made her opinion known. She let loose a flurry of information about credentials and where I needed to go and who I should talk to and if they weren't there then talk to so and so and write this down and bring this and go there, go there today and and... I did go there after the interview and it was extremely helpful.
But back to the interview...
When I showed my portfolio it was Bobs turn to help my side out. They were all going through it and Bob would say things like "oh and this one was shown at such and such event" and "didn't this one win blah blah award?" so as to give my work more credit. Then they really got a taste of my enthusiastic dorkdom when Bob asked about a how I toned one photo and I launched into a mini lecture about bleach and re-development toners and mixing your own from scratch. I could see from the way their eyes sort of glazed over that only Bob understood what I was going on about. And so we geeked out together for a little while until the other man brought us back into the world by asking what kind of camera I shot with.
I had a few varieties in my portfolio and he seemed impressed until I got to the Holga. I was trying to explain to him the apeel of a $12 plastic camera when I had a nice enough $3000 one when Bob jumped back in to save me again. He went on about the aesthetic and how there was this huge underground following of Holga's and others like it. Made me sound very cutting edge.

Anywho, I was glad enough to have gotten through the door.
Made to actually use and follow through with some of those things I learned in school.
Also when I learned who they hired it took the sting out a bit. Dirk Travis actually qualifies, I think, as my very first photography teacher. Bob was out the first month after having been in a terrible accident. Dirk has babysat Bobs classes on more than one occasion and he's certainly capable.

I'm glad. And I'm still free to live my self appointed "artistic lifestyle."

lovely


someday we'll have hot water again... someday.