An attempt at transparency

The comment, and a fair one at that, has been made that this blog is an exercise in caginess, eschewing the use of the given name of its author, providing nebulous information as to her/his/its professional and personal aspirations, while going into considerable detail about a certain dog, baking techniques and the Iberian Peninsula.

This is all true, and, for the most part, I'm going to keep it that way.

Still, part of the stated goal of this blog, and perhaps also part of its usefulness to its author, was as a porthole into the secretive and drawn-out processes behind "the market," "the job search," "the MLA," or whatever you want to call it. So, with that in mind, and since it is, after all, the month of resolutions, I hereby resolve to be slightly more transparent about my attempt to rocket from graduate student to -- yikes -- professor.

At this stage of the game, with the blur of MLA interviews behind me, we're at halftime, the seventh-inning stretch, waiting for the puck to drop, you get me. So far, I've heard back from two schools who have invited me for what they like to call a "campus visit," but what is, in actuality, 36 to 48 hours of non-stop and sometimes agonizing interviews (which may also be referred to as "meetings," "coffees," "dinners" or "walks from one side of campus to the other"), with faculty, students, deans, secretarial staff and townies.¹ Even when you think you're not being interviewed, you're being interviewed. Last year's "flybacks" (what we like to call them) gave me a pretty well-rounded view of the process, and I've catalogued any mistakes or transgressions I made then in order to avoid them this time. Note to self: Do not ask senior professor at small college in the middle of nowhere what people do around here, anyway. Just agree that you've also got hermit-like tendencies and leave it at that.

So, here's what I can confirm:
#1 I will be a mere 78 miles away from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on Groundhog's Day.²

#2 The jury is still out as to whether it's pronounced Am'erst or AmHerst, but I'm interviewing there, too.

Hopefully, these updates will be welcome, although if they're not, you're going to have to tell me, because Tracksy threw me off their system and I can no longer peruse the visitors to my blog, so I don't know who you are anymore.

¹ Totally untrue. There is very little interaction with townies.
² In State College, where Penn State is.