At midnight began the second phase. The grant you an appointment, recruiters gave you your room number, converted into office where the meeting would materialize. The half dozen lifts was saturated by hundreds of teachers frantically up and down (stairs were athletes, but only talk about them exhausts me). It was interesting to see how, at first, the smiles were suspended as if one knew well what this would end the interview, then again, fascia and practiced ad nauseam, as the sign that things began to acquire their proper context.
was funny to see the candidates straightening his tie and ordered the skirt, fitting the neck, touching up make-up late in a review against the umpteenth compact mirror, checking that the shoes were well polished, inspecting her hair again the luster of the car door and, in general, concentrating on the task of intelligence seems all the good that their resumes and letters of recommendation said (by now had discovered that this "image is everything", he says some propaganda of soda, summarizes the philosophy of those who developed the art of advertising was a science it is, and I am not surprised, and I guess the recruiters either, "read" resumes "that confuse the extract and the job market with a work of fiction, why is it that many showed an excessive concern for her outfit or that I was becoming paranoid?).
My first appointment was arranged for 0:30, so I did not run. Had enough time to observe how others hurried pace as I moved slowly towards my destination. I got to the corresponding floor, knocked on the door and I was a man in his fifties, friendly and cordial, was the representative of a school in a Middle Eastern country.
Everything looked good start, but the situation soon became daunting.
The recruiter, who read my papers in front of me (I guess they did not have time to do it before), I asked: "Do you have the title of professor?", Which I realized I had not checked my data with necessary calm. I explained what was pristinely cleared up on my resume, I have no title of professor but for twenty years he taught, I am Bachelor of Laws, I studied a Masters and a Ph.D. in Literature, which also studied a degree course in education and, as was indicated in my papers, had not made those blessed thesis which had many transcripts but only a title.
In those moments, I thought of my father and all of the reasons why "if you want to know killer flies, but with title", he, a man whose knowledge I have rarely found in others, a curious man who never left study and who was always learning something and in which the brain stores more wisdom than almost all other human beings I've known, never obtained a title, never made of cardboard that read "yes, he knows what we certify here" and saw many, with fewer lights, less knowledge, with less features, benefits obtained by the mere fact of having the blessed board. "A degree does not guarantee anything," he repeated, "but schooled in the world today is indispensable." I think both tormented me with what to "be a degree" that never got, of course, I have a BA in law for which you have passed all required courses of the race, but could have four more. I would have to ask when hiring a psychiatrist, but I guess that paternal insistence was born in me a kind of aversion to theory, every study I have undertaken I have done, however, make the argument generates some urticaria paralyzing me and unwieldy, and though I have taught "Methodology research in college and although I have been advisor to several monographs-all-approved International Baccalaureate, I never wanted (or could) go on a. The day I give titles to write books, I sign up with a couple ...
was thinking about my father and ignored advice when the interviewer's question again tore my chaste ears: "Do you have title of professor or something similar? ". I gave to repeat what had already explained, I quit again show copies of my certificates that more than eleven years of college, and said laconically:" no. "I am very sorry he is of praise "for your excellent summary and your wonderful references", but he said that the country was the school where he presided over was indispensable for the title of professor that I granted the visa, "a taste" and "good evening. "
I must confess that his honesty was like a punch to the chest, but since I lost my composure and the show must go on, I smiled, told him to just take out my Title warn him and walked toward the exit as full as I entered. He kindly accompanied me in the door and said goodbye to me at the same time giving him a warm welcome to another candidate waiting in the corridor. Greeted him with the same smile, the same sympathy, the same gesture probably repeated a thousand times in as many fairs and interviews. I left.
already in the lift, the weight of the fourteen-storey building fell on me. One moonless night and overcast sky could not be black. The desolation, the hungry beast of our defeats, showed his teeth.
I did not lose his poise, because, as you know, it is not feasible lose in the midst of battle and Benedetti is right when he says "it is forbidden mourn over the books / because it looks good smudging." However, I wondered, as I almost always wonder if all this was worth it, if the effort is justified, if all the bet in this game had a meaning, if not better turn back, making bags, back where I came and end refuge in the house of my parents.
Ah, the questions, since when I do them, since when I have no answers or the answer is not unique, which is the same thing? I do not know, but what I have clear is that there is nothing more appropriate for a million abstract questions that few concrete answers. The facts tend to make our way and intellectual musings do not stop being a wonderful exercise that helps the brain to oxidize and turn away from the terrible possibility of becoming automatons-fascinating subject, especially now with so much young living in autism, voluntary and perpetual, between the computer, cell phone, ipod and TV. So the questions of performance, thoughts and reflections brought forced responses. Answer simple, simple, pedestrian, but essential at the time.
lucid and, I realized that my parents died in June and in October two years different too long ago that the house was theirs to Miraflores, where I spent my last college, he bought my sister in Lima my teaching position had been filled by someone else two years ago in Mexico I have not permanent employment and part-time work is very comfortable but very unprofitable in a city as expensive as the Federal District, I'm already too old to get discouraged and untimely to call for help, I understood I understood my circumstances and Ortega y Gasset ( who never read in depth but whose sentence completely out of context, I have always pursued), I understood especially Cortés, Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of the Aztecs who at thirty-four years she decided to go all out and burned their ships so there was no option of going back, for the temptation of return falls upon the impossibility of a return without regard to the cowardice-if-not reached a rope bridge, footpath or road and had to be "value and forward", and when a man discovers that never again can be a child. Thus, thinking of Cortez stopped the elevator and found myself on the first floor where forced smiling faces of a hundred thousand teachers made me understand that the game was not over and that much remained to destination.
I walked to our "Headquarters." Jessica, Mark and I had taken over "our" table and there promised to get together after each interview. In addition, the group had joined Gail, my former colleague in Lima, and Maki, a friendly Japanese who lived in Mexico and, like me, looking for work as a teacher of English, although she had a priority to teach children six years, something quite remote from my expectations.
I told everyone what happened. I listened to the joint care of these friendships born in the midst of a forced and stressful situation where, somehow, we all played the foreseeable future.
Jessica, serene and beautiful, said, "you do not have title of professor is not conclusive, is only slightly more complicated" and Marc, cynical, loyal, said I was not going to have trouble getting a job, " how much as you speak and managed with increased security and the self-esteem? "," only you, Marc, "I replied," exact ", retorted the gringo," but I teach physics, not literature, so I'm not competition for you ". We all laughed heartily. My mood changed completely and I was, like someone decided to fight (with the decision of who knows what all their old ships burn in the bank) to my next meeting.
was two in the afternoon, and the school was in China.
0 comments:
Post a Comment