It is gray and overcast again, with a smattering of rain, so I did not see the silvery sliver of a waning crescent moon smiling down from the sky when I went on the back porch for number one, though it is indeed there, above the clouds.
Number one being cigarette number one, and not my having a pee, though, more on that directly.
But in my imagination, I saw the silvery sliver of a crescent moon shining through the clouds, thusly:
No, no! Once again, the wrong photo! That would be silly to imagine the crescent moon like that!
I shall try again:
Yes, that is how I imagined it.
So I had a job interview the other day, in Köln.
Philip and I drove there from Aldenhoven, not only for the job interview, but also to pick up Elke's youngest daughter, Olivia, from the train station.
Though Olivia was there safe and sound, the interview did not go well.
You see, it was a stuffy language school, all business oriented, and as I waited for the Director of Studies, I spied a board on the wall with photographs of the Business English teachers, who were all well groomed and wearing collared shirts with ties.
"Oh, no!" I thought.
And, indeed, I was a little too casually dressed for this interview, as the Director quickly pointed out. I wanted to tell her that I had washed my jeans, and got the mud off my boots, and cut my nails, and trimmed my beard, and put on my best pullover, and had a bath for the occasion, but she had already moved on.
I was also told that, if I did have a position with the school, I would probably be teaching classes in Köln, which is not what the gentleman on the phone had said. He'd said I would be teaching in my area, around Düren or Aachen, where armies had clashed, the one trying desperately to reach the Rur River, and from there go on to the Rhine, and the other trying desperately to prevent that from happening.
The Director said she knew nothing of this, and I already had an urge to flee at this point. How could she not know of these armies that had once clashed on the Rur Plain?
Also, as I mentioned in a previous post, I was indeed asked about my goings on over the past two years, and when I said I'd been walking for peace, and cycling, though she seemed to find all this very interesting, it did not seem to impress her from a professional standpoint.
"So, it must be quite a culture shock now, living in a house," she'd said.
"Yes, and having a bath every couple of days, and eating food off of plates, and always having a toilet to use has been especially difficult to get used to," I didn't say.
"And I still prefer to pee outside," I also didn't say.
But all of these little things could have been overcome by a dazzling demonstration of my teaching skills, which I was ready to perform.
Alas, this display never came about because, though I attended Cecil Community College (which is that type of school I have heard referred to as high school with cigarettes) and though I attended Indiana University for a while (through a correspondence degree program)-- though I had immersed myself in a tertiary education at these institutes of higher learning, I had never secured a degree of any sort.
And thus the interview was terminated, though, out of politeness, the DoS asked if I still wanted to give my demo lesson, even if it was a waste of my time. I declined this invitation, and we parted, on good terms.
Though feeling a bit ruffled at having been rejected for the job-- and especially since they had called me on seeing my ad for teaching on the internet, and not I them-- though my pride was slightly wounded, I was also a bit relieved, as teaching as far away as Köln would have been difficult, but more importantly, because I did not want to have to buy, or wear, a collared shirt and a tie. I'd worn these trifles before, as a stockbroker back in the eighties, and I'd always felt like an imposter in them. I wouldn't have minded teaching Business English though, as my experience with such students is that they are motivated to learn, and there is a certain dynamic among these people that I can appreciate in the classroom, even if I generally cannot appreciate it so much out of the classroom. Out of the classroom, regarding business types, it is generally the entrepreneur, and not the corporate business person that I can appreciate. Especially if the entrepreneur has a degree in something like philosophy, or literature, and sells t-shirts on the street, with catchy philosophical quotes on them, quotes he really understands and wants to talk about, and who really loves his independence and his business-- give me that guy to have a beer with rather than the average, yawn, corporate businessman.
I yawn again.
And I sigh.
Nevertheless, and despite the weather, today I am feeling rather sunny and warm.
The house is full, with not only Max and Philip and Olivia here, but also Elke's daughter Yasmin, who is visiting from Köln. And Elke will be back from Switzerland tomorrow.
Sunny and warm.
A full house...
Which reminds me, I must teach them all how to play seven card stud.
I used to teach my older students-- they had to be at least 14 or 15 years old-- how to play this poker game, though it was not on the syllabus, as it taught them card playing vocabulary, and the value of working for their money.
I bet a class of corporate business students would have been the perfect place for a good poker game. Really cut-throat, get to the bottom line poker.
Too bad it didn't work out.
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