Waiting Game

Well this coming week should see an end to a couple of waiting games. Wednesday I'll find out if any internal candidates applied for the open position at the Guild. If not, the ball will start rolling for me to get a permanent job. But if there's a qualified internal, then my assignment will wrap up and it will be on to the next.

Univ. of Michigan sent me an email on July 4 (not a good sign in of itself) informing me that more officials are on vacation so no decision will be rendered until later this week or the week of the 14th. That's fine.

If I do get the job at the Guild, one of the first things I'm going to do is buy a radio for my cubicle. Friday I had to endure listening to my co worker MA talk all day with another employee about cute nieces and adorable babies. Nearly every anecdote ended with an "Awwwww!". That radio of mine is going to be tuned into NPR, classical and jazz stations to serve as an intellectual anecdote to the plethora of cloying cute conversation I'm going to have to endure.

Rignt now I'm reading Race by Studs Terke. Published in 1992, Race served as a "sequel" of sorts to his mid 60's book Division Street-America. Once again, Terkel interview primarily white and Black residents of Chicago and asked about their opinions and stories about race, progress, class. I read the book about 10 years ago and given the rise of the Obama candidacy, I thought it would be good to revisit Race and Terkel as Terkel has roots and great sympathy in community organizing in Chicago, which is where Obama started his career.