robglazebrook.com

Man, I only got three updates in for the month of May. Not so hot. I can claim I was busy for the first half or so, but I don’t know what my excuse for the second half was. I’ll shoot for a little better this month.

Although this is an entirely novel concept, in order to convince myself to write more often, I thought I would write about things for a change, instead of my usual writings on nothing. Now, these somethings are not likely to be political or religious or even vaguely interesting, but… wait, why was I writing them again?

Sans adieu,

Things I like about my commute to work:

• My new car is pretty and comfortable.
• I get to listen to CDs really loud and sing along for almost two hours every day.
• I feel a great sense of camaraderie whilst driving in traffic.
• It gives me a chance to drink 16 additional ounces of coffee before facing the real world.
• It gives me an excuse to wear sunglasses.
• Working on my tan on the left side of my body.
• Four words: Cute girls at stoplights.
• Sentence fragment.
• It means I get to easily keep all of my ISU friends.

Things I dislike about the commute:

• Because of the commute, work takes up 11 hours of my day.
• I’ve already put over 2,000 miles on my pretty new car.
• Four words: Rush hour through construction.
• I spend half the drive stuck in the fast lane behind someone going under the speed limit.
• My sleep schedule would be more sane if I didn’t have to get up so early to leave the house.
• It makes it more difficult to make Des Moines friends.

It looks like I forgot to update regarding my creatively componenting endeavors. Of course, one family dinner, two text messages, three phone calls, and a dozen emails later, I doubt there are many left who haven’t heard.

In the words of my major professor: “I’m sorry, but you passed. You have to go out into the real world now.”

Which is still kinda a scary thought. Grad school is tough, sure, but it’s a familiar sort of tough. I know the patterns, and I am more accustomed than I’d like to admit to the workload. I still have a lot of homework due before I graduate. In fact, I have a big draft due on Thursday and I honestly have no idea how it will get done. But you know what? It will get done. How do I know? Because it has to. That’s the magic of grad school: things get done not because they’re easy (or sometimes, even possible), but because they have to. I’ve always found an odd sort of comfort in that idea.

Of course, that also means there are a lot of things which are not truly necessary which end up falling by the wayside. Like exercise, for example. I’m pretty sure I’ve gained around 25 pounds in the last two years. I enjoy playing racquetball, and I enjoyed working out in the mornings. But when it came time to decide between having a good time on the racquetball court or finishing a paper worth a quarter of my grade, the paper invariably won. My racquetball time shrank as a result, and my stomach grew to fill that void.

Of course, I’m hoping I’ll have a bit more free time this summer, and I’m planning on taking advantage. I’ve decided to buy a year pass to the Lied Rec on campus so I can continue playing racquetball and so forth with my friends. Hopefully I’ll be smart enough to make it worth the money.

I’m off to defend my creative component before my committee. And by before my committee, I mean before my committee tears me a new one, places my ignorance on display, and gives me a week’s worth of editing to complete over the weekend. :) Okay, I don’t know for a fact it’ll be that bad, but I think there’s a saying somewhere that goes along the lines of “anticipate the worst and you’ll never be disappointed” which I like because it’s sorta got a double meaning going on there. I’m normally a glass-half-full type of guy*, so I read it to mean that if you expect the worst, it’ll probably be better in reality, and nobody’s disappointed by improvement.

Anyway, regardless of whether it goes well or poorly, I’ll probably be out drinking (in celebration/mourning) this evening, so I don’t know when or if I’ll get a chance to report how it went. You just might have to wait in suspense until Saturday. Or call me, I guess. Assuming I remember to turn my phone back on. It’ll be on silent for a good portion of the day, because after my defense I have an important meeting with my current boss to determine when I’m done.

So my second interview with YetUnnamed, Inc yesterday went really well, by my reckoning (and I reckon we’ll use my reckoning). I met with my boss and the two other people I’d be working closely with (the other web production persons). They all asked me a lot of questions, and I took a really long time to eventually provide answers that were in some way peripherally related to the questions asked. About halfway through I realized that I’d somehow slipped into storytelling mode, which mean every answer had a narrative. For whatever reason, it was parable day in RobbyLand or something.

After the Q&A, my Future Potential Boss gave me the TOU&R of the premises. I got to see lots of offices, some featuring expensive computers and others expensive cameras and still others expensive power tools. Do you see the pattern? That’s right… things requiring electricity. A blackout could bring productivity in this place to a grinding (or a cessation of grinding) halt.

During the tour I got to smell lots of fragrant aromas and see lots of pretty… visages? Whatever. It was a good tour. At the end of it, FPB guy pulled out all the stops and contrived to have the CEO’s father stop in for a visit. And then he ~really~ went all out and had the President of the United States drive by as a gesture of goodwill (or is that a threatening gesture? I suppose it depends on one’s country of origin). I snapped Photo Above as he sped by. Well, as his driver did, anyway. I’m pretty sure the Prez Proper was just sitting in the back, sipping on some Hennessey and tapping his boot heels to a mix tape heavy on the Beastie Boys. That’s why being the President rocks.

Towards the end of the tour, FPB guy mentioned that they had had a bet going as to what I’d end up wearing to the interview, and that I lost out when I cut my hair short. Makes me wonder if the tie was a bit superfluous. ;)

—

And then, today, FPB guy called back to offer me the position! And I accepted! Exclamation! Which I guess means I can drop the whole mystery bit: starting on May Somethingth, I will be a Web Production professional for August Home Publishing. Which promotes FPB guy to FB guy (until I have permission to call FB by FN (First Name)). I’m very happy right now. :) Though I’m having a little trouble concentrating on that whole “prepare for the oral defense” thing, what with all the good news adrenaline I’ve got pumping right now.

And now that I know I’ll have a job, I think one of my first orders of business will be to start looking for a new(er) car. I’m going to be driving around two hours every weekday: I’m going to want something luxurious. Something flashy. You know… something with cruise control and an air conditioner. I don’t want to show up to work every day this summer stanky and sorefooted. As such, I’ve spent a bit of time online looking at local dealerships, and found one or two I’d like to test drive. Of course, by the time I actually have the time and finances to get a new car, they will have been sold. I don’t know why I torture myself so.

JOB!

Well, I’m off for my second interview with Company Which Shall Remain Nameless for a Bit Longer, Until I Know One Way or Another (or CWSRNBLUIKOWA, for short). For the record, I’ve caved in to the advice of others and am thus wearing a tie. I have to warn you-all though: if Potential Future Boss says anything even remotely like, “well, we were going to hire you, but then we saw that you came to the second interview in a tie and were like, ‘whateva, this guy obviously doesn’t know what he’s doing’” then I’m going to be royally upset. I mean it, now.

Once this second interview is over, I need to switch back into Creative Component mode for the rest of the week, as I’ll be defending on Friday morning. All in all, this is shaping up to be a very stressful, exciting, and important week.

Noam Chomsky is speaking on campus this evening, and I’m thinking about going. I can’t decide if that would be a better or worse way to celebrate or mourn whatever happens today than, say, having a couple beers with a couple friends and watching a couple episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. We might have to call it a draw.