text:
In which issues concerning the profession of philosophy are
bitched griped about
Monday, January 4, 2010
Assorted Observations From the 2009 Meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association
B. It is more fun to attend the meeting when off the market than when on.
C. When off the market, it is more fun to not attend the meeting than to attend.
D. I spoke to one of the people running the placement service. She told me that 428 people signed up to use the service. She also told me that in a typical year over 600 people sign up to use the service. She told me this was the worst year she could remember.
E. A senior member of my Ph.D.-granting department who first went on the market in the middle 70s told me that he had never seen such a terrible job market. We had a very small number of candidates who managed to get any interviews at all, and several departments much higher than us in the PGR didn't do much better.
F. I didn't stay at the conference hotel. I stayed with a friend a half-hour subway ride away. This was less convenient, but not so much so that it would have been worth $130 a night or whatever. It seems to me that this is the way to go.
G. However, I took the time to ride the elevator up to the 45th floor and back. Totally awesome.
H. I honestly do not see the point of holding interviews at the APA. It's expensive for everyone involved, including interviewing departments, but is expensive in a particularly unfair way to the applicants. Although interviewing in person feels better than the alternatives, I don't see any reason to think it's better in a way that makes up for its obvious drawbacks. I propose phone/skype interviews or bringing more people in for campus visits.
I. I had a nice time talking to my interviewers at the smoker. It was a pretty weird interaction, though. I tried to find a time when they weren't talking to anyone else, and it didn't work at all. There were always at least two other people chatting with them. Plus, I'm nonchalantly walking past their table every 20 minutes or so, not making eye contact, checking to see if they're available. Or else I'm standing with my back to them a few yards away, chatting with a friend who's facing them, asking if they're still occupied every few minutes or so. Highly weird. I ended up joining a larger group than I was comfortable with. It worked out okay, though. I think.
J. I have no idea how my interview went. I've spent the time since trying not to think about it.
K. Some schools who had already rejected me were accepting on-site requests for interviews, so I thought about reapplying. This called to mind a key scene from A Few Good Men: "I apply!" "Rejected." "No, no. I strenuously apply." "Oh, well maybe I should take some time to reconsider."
--Mr. Zero
42 comments:
Regarding G: the rotating fancy pants palace at the top of the 45th floor was the highlight of my trip.
15$ for a martini and a gorgeous rotating view of Manhattan? Totally worth it. Schlepping down to an awkwardly lit second smoker and paying 10$ for a Bud and a ballroom full of exhausted, anxious and (many) unemployed philosophers? Totally not.
If my future didn't depend on it, I would have kept my pretty perch on the 45th, gladly shelling out an extra 5 bucks a drink just to feel like a princess. Instead, I lurked and skulked around certain tables as instructed (see I above) and felt like a troll.
- January 4, 2010 at 9:48 AM
I was advised, years ago, by my dept placement advisor to avoid the APA unless I had interviews. And so I have. This was my first time. I arrived a few hours before my interview, then left promptly thereafter to go home. All in all, not a bad experience, although pricey. But I have ever since wondered if I should have stayed for the smoker. Which would have meant staying overnight. Which would have been a drag for me, since I wanted to go home and do other stuff during my brief foray back in the States.
Maybe it's the bad job market, but I always kind of imagined the APA meeting to be more nightmarish, crowded, noisy, and desperate than I found it to be. Perhaps having diminished expectations worked in my favor.
- January 4, 2010 at 10:00 AM
- Aristophanes Hiccups said...
As to H, it makes sense if candidates have more than one interview scheduled. This way the candidate does not have to go off to multiple destinations (on her dime no less). Most school budgets are strapped so more fly-ins is unlikely and would probably lead to fewer jobs since the entire hiring process is expensive. Skype would be a great idea but schools are slow to come around, notice how few of them use online applications.
- January 4, 2010 at 10:07 AM
I had a couple of interviews at the APA. At the time I felt like they went really well - we were laughing and enjoying ourselves during the interview, I could answer all of the questions and followups, and so forth. And at the Smoker, the conversations were friendly and relaxed and members of the SC at my schools spent quite a bit of time talking up their department and their locations.
And now I'm sitting here trying to read the tea leaves and trying to figure out what are signs and what those signs point to.
I'd probably be better served trying to put it out of mind and working on my dissertation and job talk (ever the optimist!). But instead I'm replaying conversations and friendly banter, looking for any indications that I'll get called for an on-campus in the coming weeks.
(General question: *are* there good signs that you'll be called for an on campus? Is it just useless to try to figure out their intentions based on conversations and moods?)
- January 4, 2010 at 10:23 AM
I've thought about reapplying for positions that rejected me. Just to give them a little more work rejecting me again, for spite. I've also wondered whether maybe they wouldn't recall my application from before.
More interestingly, I've been at this long enough to se a number of jobs that I applied for and got rejected for in previous years reposted when the person they picked over me left for greener pastures. I'm inclined to think "ah, if you'd picked me you wouldn't need to be going through this again" because some of those were jobs I really wanted. But I'm sure trolls would reply that the fact I wouldn't have moved on is a sign that I wasn't the best candidate. Academia has a weird masochistic streak, where some people only want things that are bad for them, or seek those most sure to reject them.
- January 4, 2010 at 10:44 AM
See Carl Elliott's post on "How the APA Stole Christmas."
Written 3 years ago, it pretty much states what many of us think/feel about the meeting. His proposal: Avoid the circus/charade of APA interviews, immediately winnow the candidates down to 5 and bring them to campus. He thinks you can't learn much from a brief in-person interview anyway. I guess the question is how much you can learn from just a job dossier.
SCs need to get with the times and embrace technology. I had two phone interviews last year, one of which landed me my fellowship (which has been quite a good fit all around), and one of which eliminated me from the running (which made sense, b/c I wasn't really qualified for all aspects of that job at that point). Seems to me the phone interviews had the intended effect, they were less stressful, more civilized, and cost very little.
- January 4, 2010 at 11:36 AM
Some form of compressed video/Skype is the only way to go for initial interviews. I was a doubter, but several excellent hires on my campus over the past few years convinced me otherwise. You really can get a sense of the candidate in terms of fit, and it's way less expensive and time-consuming than the APAs.
BTW if you are lucky enough to land a TT job, the smokers are also just a great way to stay in touch with old friends and meet other philosphers. (Take it from someone who dates back to the days where people actually smoked in smokers--though I'm glad those days are gone.) And I share everyone's outrage about the cost of potables--inexcusable.
- January 4, 2010 at 1:04 PM
I want to echo Anon. 10:23's question: *are* there good signs that you will be called for an on-campus interview?
I, similarly, had a couple of interviews at the APA that I felt went swimmingly: I had the sense that I had a good rapport with the committee, and I felt prepared to answer all of their questions. Neither of my schools participated in the Smoker (I notice that SLAC's tend not to do so), so I have nothing to add from this...but all in all, I felt good coming out of the interviews. Still, since there are so many extremely qualified people interviewing, I have no reason to believe that this a unique experience. Does anyone with prior experience interviewing at the APA have insight to share?
- January 4, 2010 at 2:09 PM
I know a number of people who are seriously awkward in phone conversations, coming across at best as incapable of normal conversation and at worst as stupid, but who show none of these symptoms in face-to-face conversations. Such people might not fare too well if departments switched to phone/Skype interviews. And it is perhaps worth noting that the ability to interact well face-to-face will presumably figure more prominently in an academic career than the ability to interact well in phone conversations.
Not that I'm sure that I want to defend the current system -- I just think there might be some costs to switching to phone interviews that are worth bearing in mind.
- January 4, 2010 at 2:15 PM
Regarding interviews "feeling good", I have talked to at least 80 people after APA interviews over the last 6 years or so. My guess is that roughly half think they went great. Another very sizable chunk would say good to OK. I can only remember a few ever saying they blew the interview.
Of course, they may just say this to other candidates to look good, but I think very few interviews go terribly bad from the candidate's perspective.
(Interviews at high pressure research jobs may be completely different.)
- January 4, 2010 at 2:27 PM
As a recently tenured faculty member: I was on the market for 4 years (2002-5), I can tell you this. There is no way to tell if an interview went well. People from the midwest are so nice that you think they are going to offer you the job on the spot. It doesn't mean they are.
Most of the people you interview with know life is hard and getting a job is even harder. For the most part, people will be nice to you, and you will have nothing to go on other than. That seemed to go well.
Sit back and wait for their schools to start. If you haven't heard anything after the first week of their classes starting, you are more than likely not going to campus.
As 3 out of 15 aren't good odds, but at least you had a shot. I know lots of people who never got APA interviews.
- January 4, 2010 at 2:47 PM
Re: signs that you will get an on-campus interview.
Last year I was told at the Smoker that I would be invited to an on-campus interview. I was. That's about the only real sign there is. If you have not heard anything since the interview, it is best to stop speculating about it. If they are going to invite you, they'll let you know. The wait sucks, but there is no magic formula to figure out how much they liked you. Remember, they are sitting around reviewing their notes, discussing all of your strengths and weaknesses, noting how you if you used the snooty pronunciation of "aunt"...
Perhaps it's best to convince yourself that you will not get an on-campus interview. That way you can get on with your work, and if you get that interview, then it's a welcome surprise.
- January 4, 2010 at 2:55 PM
Anon 2:15 -- it's just as likely that there are qualified people who do badly in face-to-face, high pressure job interviews, but would do fine as professors and interlocutors in an academic setting. The bottom line is that no system is perfectly suited to every individual, and there's no way around that. The virtue of a phone/skype/video interview is that it spares the job candidate the considerable expense of traveling to an annual meeting during Christmas week in an expensive city. There are not many jobs that actually require the applicant to incur such an expense, particularly for the convenience of institutions that have a lot more money than an unemployed philosopher. I traveled from Canada, and drove two days because I could not afford to fly. For me and my family, it became a chance to have a brief vacation back in our old hometown, which helped us justify the expense. But between the gas, hotels, bus fare to NYC, and registration at APA, I still spent a pretty penny for a single job interview.
- January 4, 2010 at 3:17 PM
I had a couple awkward phone interviews that I was sure would be the end of it, but both institutions wound up inviting me to campus. While there may be cases where you can know your interview went well or poorly (or where fit or lack thereof was revealed), my sense is that it's really hard for the candidate to know the score.
I second the endorsement of Skype interviews; I had one of those last year, and I found it much less awkward than interviews with the committee huddled around a speaker phone.
Anyhow, waiting sucks, but those of you waiting on word from an APA interview are very fortunate in this awful year!
- January 4, 2010 at 3:31 PM
Re: signs that you will get an on-campus interview.
I was once told at a smoker that I would get an on-campus interview and then DID NOT. After being on search committees myself, I can see how this happens. The moral of the story: there are NO good signs until the official call for an on-campus interview comes in.
- January 4, 2010 at 4:55 PM
Anon 4:55 is on the mark. Many of us spend too much energy looking at the interview from the perspective of philosopher to philosopher and what happens on our campus (SLAC) has a bit to do with philosophy and more to do with administration and $. The Dean really has more to say than anyone and s/he is not at the APA. Publications go out the door for teaching and administrative promise and basic cost factors that the Dean has calculated and are a mystery to the SC rule the day. There is very little chance we can overcome administrative considerations.
- January 4, 2010 at 10:13 PM
Don't forget that most departments/people on search committees go into the APA with their candidates already roughly ranked, based on your pubs, sample, teaching portfolio, etc.
Most departments (at least if they're smart) don't overweigh the APA interview; it's only one factor among many. I think it's more common for the APA interview to be used as a 'rule out' screen for head cases or folks who are totally inarticulate. Secondary uses can be to break ties in close calls or to answer particular questions regarding individual applicants that the paper apps. leave open.
So you can have an outstanding APA interview and still not get an on-campus interview. Let's say you were in the 10-12 group heading into the APA. Four people ahead of you totally bomb their interviews and are ruled out. And your good interview gives you the edge among the folks in your 'grouping.' That still puts you just at #6, with no on-campus interview. You're still ranked well below Candidate X, who was ranked #2-3 going into the APA, with a stronger publication record and an area of research that excites the search committee more than yours does. He had an OK but not great interview, but the committee decides that that doesn't detract from him still being one their top choices.
- January 5, 2010 at 8:36 AM
So, given what m.a. prof said, if you have a competitive cv (strong pubs, interesting research line) and you thought that you interviewed very well, you can feel positive about your chances for getting called for a fly-out.
- January 5, 2010 at 11:08 AM
Anon 11:08 AM: Well, yeah, but even with a competitive cv, you don't know where you stand relative to the other candidates who got an APA interview.
- January 5, 2010 at 2:30 PM
There have been many APA interviews where I thought I did very well, and never heard back from them. On the other hand, the interview I thought I really bombed netted me an on-campus and a job...
- January 5, 2010 at 8:45 PM
I'm anon 10:23, from near the beginning of the thread. Thought I'd update and say that I just got invited to an on campus from one of the schools that I had mentioned in the comment. So sometimes interviews that you think go well do, in fact, go well!
- January 5, 2010 at 9:24 PM
- BunnyHugger said...
I agree very much with H, and with zombie's response to anon 2:15. Yes, some people feel awkward during phone interviews. Some people feel awkward during APA interviews too, what with the whole sitting at a table in a ballroom full of nervous people doing the same thing, and that awkwardness probably says little about their merits as a philosopher. I have had lots of both in-person and phone interviews and they seem to roughly cover the same ground and I doubt there's much learned from one and not the other, except perhaps whether I'm good looking or not.
Some years ago, I was invited to a campus interview (without preliminaries) around the time that most schools were inviting for APA interviews. I expressed my surprise and was told they had decided the APA was a waste of time and they were just inviting out three finalists. I wish more schools thought like that, or at least saw the wisdom of phone interviewing.
- January 5, 2010 at 10:25 PM
Anon 10:23--congratulations!
so, I take it that schools are now starting to call. I imagine that there are signs, good and bad, that are evidence of whether one will get an on-campus. However, they are very, very weak, so not worth thinking about.
How about a thread(s) on on-campus interviewing? Specifically, how about a thread on teaching components of on-campus interviewing. Although I've taught plenty, I have no idea what works in these canned sessions that are populated by faculty and students one has no long-term relationship with (yet). Thoughts? Advice? Help, please!
btw, this is not hypothetical, as I got lucky enough to get an interview. The APA initial interview seemed pretty good--interesting/fun conversation--but I cringe remembering a couple of answers.
good luck to everyone!
- January 6, 2010 at 5:30 AM
Modest proposal: can we make it a habit of adding a comment on the Phylo wiki when a change of status is made? I see too many "accidental" status changes, that I'm not sure if I should be anxiety-ridden or not when a status changes w/o comment. Either way, some confirmation that the post is legit would be cool, so I know whether to take the LSAT.
- January 6, 2010 at 5:57 AM
Given some of the comments about when one should start to worry, I wanted to add my recent experience. I've been given a time-frame from 2 SC members. (long story why, it was unofficial.) The one said they would contact candidates in the end of January, the other said early to mid-February. That's a lot later than I would have expected. Don't start to worry just yet!
- January 6, 2010 at 7:21 AM
Also going along with anon 5:30's request for an on-campus thread.
In addition to how to handle the teaching component of the on-campus, I'm curious about what sorts of questions should we ask the administrators and what should we expect them to ask us.
This is the time to get clear about salary, sabbaticals, research budget, and so forth. Who do we talk about this with? When we talk with the dean? With the search committee? Are there still some no-no questions because they're too presumptuous?
- January 6, 2010 at 7:34 AM
Anon 10:23,
I'm a Junior TT who had two job offers in one year. The program from which I came is negligibly recognized at best.
Regarding the teaching talk I think that at least two aspects are important: 1) clarity and insight in both your grasp of the material and communicating it to the students; 2) Having a certain presence in the classroom: connecting with the students at some level.
I think that '1)' is important because your interviewers will be looking for both your grasp of the material (from their oftentimes limited yet opinionated perspectives) and on how well you communicate with the students. So, dumbing it down will not get you far. I think that the best way to communicate it to the students is to be very clear, rhetorically sound, and motivate the issue sufficiently. It helped me with one of my on-campus interviews that some students mobbed me after class to ask some more follow up questions, but it would have been ineffectual if my interviewers had thought that I was spewing tripe in my lecture.
Regarding '2)', have a clear, strong voice, make eye contact, use examples (not stupid ones to pander to the idiocy of the students, please!), make smooth hand motions (key for proper locution), be relaxed and in control of the situation. Take questions from students but do not be overly dependent on questions (many times they will be shy and won't have many). If you can get a bit of an interesting discussion going will give you many points if it is not perceived as being vacuuous (many profs will rightly think of your role as imparting knowledge and not just polling students intuitions or thoughts). A clear handout is great.
Practice it by giving it at least once to someone who is smart but not a philosopher. Be structured in the progress of your points but you must also extend your points as you catch wind of some insights as you expand on the topic. If you do this, there will be a sense of excitement that people will pick up on.
Also, choice of topic is very important. I once had a teaching talk in which the material that I was teaching (something in the history of philosophy) was something that my interviewers had taught a million times, and they each had their own opinions on it. In this case, you cannot win! It is better to have a little bit of a more obscure topic; you can exploit this to your advantage by educating your interviewers on the topic as well.
Hope this helps!
- January 6, 2010 at 8:53 AM
Re: on-campus teaching...I don't think it hurts to ask if you can send ahead a brief article that the class will be structured around or at least some questions for them to think about.
The students probably won't read an article, but it at least gives you something to work with and is going to be a more realistic teaching experience than just talking to them without any sort of text to work with.
Also, it probably would be helpful to ask what courses the majors are currently taking in the department and what they've been reading and discussing. This'll make it easier to connect with the students as well.
And in terms of when to expect a call for an on-campus visit, I'd say early Feb would be fairly typical. The committee has to meet again after the APA and what can really take time is getting the paperwork through the administration. Our institution has never, to my knowledge, overridden a SC preferences for who to bring to campus, but we do have to wait until it goes all the way up the decision-making ladder to the Provost to actually get official permission and there's no way I'd ever tell someone that they were going to get an invite unless I had official permission to do so.
- January 6, 2010 at 9:26 AM
Don't get too excited about securing an on-campus interview...you might end up at an institution furloughing its faculty. Check out the news over at Leiter on University of Illinois' three campuses. While it's part of a larger state budget crisis, I thought I'd take a look at the publication records of some of the most junior faculty at UIC and lo and behold, most have not published a thing in the past two years. Maybe they need a real furlough (not just a de facto pay cut), some time off from teaching to do a little research and writing.
- January 6, 2010 at 10:12 AM
Thanks! That's really helpful; all plausible and implementable. It helps me wrap my head around a new format.
Thanks also--that's useful information.
- January 6, 2010 at 11:28 AM
I thought I'd take a look at the publication records of some of the most junior faculty at UIC and lo and behold, most have not published a thing in the past two years.
Wow, that is straightforwardly slanderous.
And disgusting.
I agree with the tolerance of anonymity here at the Smoker, but it sure does have its costs.
- January 6, 2010 at 12:01 PM
Anon 10:12:
I wouldn't worry about getting hired than furloughed at an Illinois campus. Today's furlough announcement was accompanied by an announcement of a hard and immediate hiring freeze. Those jobs are almost certainly gone, even if the wikis don't yet reflect that.
(deep sympathy to those who were still in the running for those positions)
- January 6, 2010 at 12:04 PM
"re: on-campus teaching...I don't think it hurts to ask if you can send ahead a brief article that the class will be structured around or at least some questions for them to think about."
It may not hurt to ask, but I think it's a risky strategy. I once distributed an article for an on-campus teaching demonstration. The professor whose class I was teaching assured me that the students would read it. (Maybe they would've but I wouldn't bank on it.) She distributed the article through a secure site, which encrypted it somehow, and none of the students could access the content. They just got a file of gobbledygook. Lucky me, there were no ass-kissers thoughtful enough to report the technical glitch to the professor.
What happened? Nobody read anything. I was fucked, standing up in front of the classroom with about ten faculty evaluators, banking on a back-and-forth seminar discussion. Instead, nobody had anything to say, so I was left to loosely summarize the material and riff off of that.
It was a nightmare.
I didn't get the job, probably partly because of that.
Fortunately, I got a different job later, and one I'm sure I like better, but my experience illustrates the dangers of relying on other parties to do their homework.
When you go for your teaching evaluation, make sure that you have the entire hour under your control. Even if you're very good at impromptu classroom Q&A (which I fancy myself to be), put money on diving directly into a lecture if anything goes haywire.
- January 6, 2010 at 1:24 PM
"I know lots of people who never got APA interviews."
That actually made me feel good, until I realized you're probably talking about accountants rather than philosophers.
I mean, geez, I've gotten APA interviews. Everyone gets some. It's just a matter of being on the market for n years, right?
(And no, I don't mean Geez the language of ancient Ethiopia.)
- January 6, 2010 at 3:18 PM
Re: teaching demos.
I definitely wouldn't send any additional readings (unless this is requested).
Here's some advice:
1. Introduce yourself (!) Make a joke about how nervous you are, or how much you hope the students like you. The introduction and the joke don't really matter - but the short transition does. I've seen candidates launch right into their lecture while the students are still busy settling in and sizing them up. The students miss the first part of the lecture and never catch up - and it shows.
2. DON'T begin by asking if anyone has any questions. I've seen a candidate do this and I cringed. Surprisingly, someone did have a decent question - but it just pulled the discussion away from the material the candidate was supposed to be covering.
3. In the best teaching demo I've seen, the candidate showed basic competence. She organized the material in an interesting way and presented it clearly to the class. The lecture was a bit 'light' for a mid-level course, but nobody cared about that - pitching it that way made it easier for the candidate to get through the material, and we all assumed that the candidate would take the time to go over things in more detail if it were her own course. She engaged the students in the discussion and she responded helpfully to their questions. She came across as confident, but still slightly nervous (with good reason - this was for a good job). (She was eventually offered the job, but declined us for another offer).
4. In the worst teaching demo I've seen, the candidate's lecture was poorly organized - it covered parts of the material, but in a haphazard way that seemed to depend on spur of the moment decisions. She was sometimes dismissive of questions and answers from the students. The lecture wasn't terrible - everyone knows that good lecturers can sometimes be disorganized or gruff. But as a teaching demo it seemed ill-planned.
- January 6, 2010 at 6:00 PM
- Michael Cholbi said...
I posted my advice about the on-campus teaching demonstration at In Socrates' Wake:
I agree with most of what's said here, though I would put less emphasis on content mastery than on connecting with the students.
- January 6, 2010 at 7:01 PM
I suggested *asking* about sending ahead reading and actually doing so because at our institution we truly aren't interested in your lecturing abilities because lecturing isn't the sort of teaching we would be *most* interested in a colleague using.
I agree, students aren't likely to do the reading so don't send the reading *and* count on them doing the reading, that'd be foolish. But having a reading to center your talk on. And argument to go through and make sure they understand, particularly if they are able to connect it to other things they've been working on.
Ideally I'd break an hour into 12 minute or so sections. Start out with a 'mini-lecture', break them into groups to discuss questions based on the mini-lecture for 12 minutes and then come back and discuss as a large group what happened in the small group and then spend 12 minutes closing out the session.
Of course, different departments value different sorts of teaching. The best teaching demos at my institutions have been where the instructor worked with a text.
Of course, this is just one institutions, but, not one that's weirdly avant-garde or cutting edge. Just a small department that tries to provide a good small liberal arts experience for students.
Another ideal would be to find out how other courses in the department are taught and then work with that model.
- January 7, 2010 at 5:25 AM
@ Xenophon -- no, there are some people who never get an APA interview and I know of at least three, and one was from a top 20 program. Total number of real years on the market for these poor folks: 11
- January 7, 2010 at 7:30 AM
"Although interviewing in person feels better than the alternatives, I don't see any reason to think it's better in a way that makes up for its obvious drawbacks. I propose phone/skype interviews or bringing more people in for campus visits."
I was on a screening committee for a TT hire at a CC this past fall, and all I have to say about this is: Bad. Idea. Phone interviews are miserable. Of the phone interviews we did, only one was any good. The rest left us just as clueless about the candidate as we were before, or (in most cases) in serious doubt of their ability to communicate verbally.
Some form of video conferencing may be better/manageable.
And I guess it depends on what the committee is really looking for.
- January 7, 2010 at 7:48 AM
I suggest not only sending a reading, but starting the class with a quiz on it. I especially recommend this if you have an on-campus at the same place I do.
- January 7, 2010 at 9:28 AM
Anonymous 9:28 AM,
I think you left out the crucial third and fourth steps in your suggestion: (1) Assign the reading; (2) quiz them on it; (3) have them sit quietly while you (slowly) grade the quizzes; (4) berate them for how poorly they did on the quiz, harping on the fact that they didn't do the reading.
- January 7, 2010 at 11:16 AM
I can't help but think that the whole job-process endorsed by the APA is a huge joke. As my friends get on the job market their winter holiday choice seems to be either head home for rest to visit the family, or head to parts unknown and hope to get call-back from a piss-poor job interview situation.
On side note. I've watched our department waste resources going through the APA motions, dragging 3 people back to campus for legal reasons, then hire a good-old-boy they had picked before ever making the job announcement.
- January 8, 2010 at 2:10 PM


text:
Nursery rhymes aren't all pudding and pie. Look closely and you'll start to notice the starving dogs, nose-severing blackbirds, women held captive in pumpkin shells, and tails lopped off with carving knives. Those horrific images are just the remnants, though.
Mother Goose rhymes have been fairly sanitized over the years, and earlier versions were chock-full of atrocities. The farther back one looks, the more gruesome the rhymes become. Some even believe that the seemingly harmless "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo" counting rhymes derive from ancient methods of choosing human sacrifices (though the source material is sketchy.)
Domestic violence is one of the more common themes in old nursery rhymes, with wives and daughters bearing the brunt of the abuse, ranging from beating with a stick to flat-out murder. The early Victorians no doubt thought these rhymes were instructive to their daughters, who would learn to be obedient, dutiful wives.
Women weren't the only ones to suffer in verse. Plenty of men are burnt, hacked or otherwise disposed of, as are children of any gender and a bevy of pets and wildlife.
Nursery rhyme reform was the rallying cause of a few upstanding gentlemen of the 1950s, including Geoffrey Handley-Taylor, who surveyed 200 popular rhymes and listed in detail what sorts of unsavoriness they contained (much as parents groups today decry animated films or video game content).
Handley-Taylor's list of unsavory elements in the rhymes he read is a whole page long, and includes these bothersome incidents:
- 8 allusions to murder (unclassified)
- 2 cases of choking to death
- 1 case of cutting a person in half
- 1 case of death by devouring
- 15 allusions to maimed human beings or animals
- 23 cases of physical violence (unclassified)
Here are 15 examples of nursery rhymes that don't make the cut in childrens books today. Keep them handy if you have any children you need to keep awake.
There was a Man so Wise,
He jumpt into
A Bramble Bush,
And scratcht out both his Eyes.
And when he saw
His Eyes were out,
And reason to Complain,
He jumpt into a Quickset Hedge,
And scratcht them in again.
Originally from Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, 1744
Old father Long-Legs
Can't say his prayers:
Take him by the left leg,
And throw him down the stairs.
And when he's at the bottom,
Before he long has lain,
Take him by the right leg,
And throw him up again.
Originally from Nancy Cock's Pretty Song Book for all little Misses and Masters, 1780
There was an old woman,
Her name it was Peg;
Her head was of wood and
She wore a cork leg.
The neighbours all pitch'd
Her into the water,
Her leg was drowned first,
And her head followed after.
From James Halliwell Phillips Nursery Rhymes, 1842
THERE was a lady all skin and bone;
Sure such a lady was never known :
It happen'd upon a certain day,
This lady went to church to pray.
When she came to the church stile,
There she did rest a little while ;
When she came to the churchyard,
There the bells so loud she heard.
When she came to the church door,
She stopt to rest a little more ;
When she came the church within,
The parson pray'd 'gainst pride and sin.
On looking up, on looking down,
She saw a dead man on the ground ;
And from his nose unto his chin,
The worms crawl'd out, the worms crawl'd in.
Then she unto the parson said,
Shall I be so when I am dead :
O yes ! O yes, the parson said,
You will be so when you are dead.
Here the lady screams.*
*The person reciting the rhyme is meant to scream bloody murder at the end of the verse.
Originally from Gammer Gurton's Garland, 1784 (Full text online)
There was a man, he went mad,
He jumped into a paper bag;
The paper bag was too narrow,
He jumped into a wheelbarrow;
The wheelbarrow took on fire,
He jumped into a cow byre;
The cow byre was too nasty;
He jumped into an apple pasty;
The apple pasty was too sweet,
He jumped into Chester-le-Street;
Chester-le-Street was full of stones,
He fell down and broke his bones.
From an early Mother Goose
I charge my daughters every one
To keep good house while I am gone,
You and you and especially you,
Or else I'll beat you black and blue.
From an early Mother Goose
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
From an early Mother Goose
Die, pussy, die,
Shut your little eye:
When you wake,
Find a cake,
Die, pussy, die.
From an early Mother Goose (Actually less threatening than it sounds, this is a rhyme to be recited while stopping a swing.)
Baby, baby, naughty baby,
Hush, you squalling thing, I say.
Peace this moment, peace, or maybe
Bonaparte will pass this way.
Baby, baby, he's a giant,
Tall and black as Rouen steeple,
And he breakfasts, dines, rely on't,
Every day on naughty people.
Baby, baby, if he hears you
As he gallops past the house,
Limb from limb at once he'll tear you,
Just as pussy tears a mouse.
And he'll beat you, beat you, beat you,
And he'll beat you into pap,
And he'll eat you, eat you, eat you,
Every morsel snap, snap, snap.
From an early Mother Goose lullaby
Here come I,
Little David Doubt;
If you don't give me money,
I'll sweep you all out.
Money I want,
And money I crave;
If you don't give me money,
I'll sweep you all to the grave!
From an early Mother Goose's Almanack
John Ball shot them all;
John Scott made the shot,
But John Ball shot them all.
From James Halliwell Phillips Nursery Rhymes, 1842 (Full text of the poem, which continues on in "The House That Jack Built" style)
Little General Monk
Sat upon a trunk
Eating a crust of bread;
There fell a hot coal
And burnt into his clothes a hole,
Now little General Monk is dead.
Keep always from the fire,
If it catch your attire
You too, like General Monk, will be dead.
From Rhymes for the Nursery, 1824
I married a wife on Sunday,
She began to scold on Monday,
Bad was she on Tuesday,
Middling was she on Wednesday,
Worse she was on Thursday,
Dead was she on Friday,
Glad was I on Saturday night,
To bury my wife on Sunday.
From Tom Tit's Song Book, 1790
A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds
And when the weeds begin to grow
It's like a garden full of snow
And when the snow begins to fall
It's like a bird upon the wall
And when the bird away does fly
It's like an eagle in the sky
And when the sky begins to roar
It's like a lion at the door
And when the door begins to crack
It's like a stick across your back
And when your back begins to smart
It's like a penknife in your heart
And when your heart begins to bleed
You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.
Originally from Gammer Gurton's Garland, 1784
A long tail'd pig, or a short tail'd pig,
Or a pig without any tail,
A sow-pig, or a boar-pig,
Or a pig with a curling tail.
Take hold of his tail,
And eat off his head,
And then you will be sure
The pig-hog is dead.
Originally the street cry of the pig-pie man, reproduced in several early nursery rhyme books.
What's the grimmest nursery rhyme or story you recall? Give me your creepiest verse in the comments section.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Dr. Who Inspired Weekly Mini Kit (3 Sizes)
Our MINI kits feature 2 pages of nothing but BOXES! One sheet of FULL boxes and one of the half/quarter/skinny boxes with headers, and trackers!! These are great for TN's, Planners, and Bujo's! Available in three sizes!
- Big Happy Planner
- Classic HP also great for A5 TN inserts!
- EC also great for B6 TN Inserts!
Grab your TN inserts here: https://www.citygirlplanners.com/shop/aff/9/


text:
What about this Epson WorkForce ES-400 Printer?
This Epson WorkForce ES-400 is a duplex document scanner Printer that allows you to print high-quality paper. With printer Epson ES-400 this can help you work primarily for offices and homes very quickly, this exquisite type designs that will enable you to place it in the small a room where you work, here I explain a little review of this type of printer. Which in Opinion I am perfect to use with an optical resolution 600 x 600-dpi, interpolated resolution 1200 x 1200-dpi and scanner speed 35-ppm – black & white – Letter – 300-dpi, even this scanner features a color depth of 48-bit internally with a 24-bit output for enhanced color fidelity.
On the web site, https://epsondriverprinters.net provides several kinds of Download Links, Wireless Setup, Drivers for Epson WorkForce ES-400 Software products. The Driver link that we provide on our website all for EPSON Printer products. Take some Driver that fits your PC. See Also: Epson WorkForce DS-510 Driver Downloads For Windows & Mac OS
Operating System(s) Compatible:
- Windows (10.32-bit), Windows (10.64-bit), Windows (8.1.32-bit), Windows (8.1.64-bit), Windows (8.32-bit), Windows (8.64-bit), Windows (7.32-bit), Windows (7.64-bit), Windows (Vista 32-bit), Windows (Vista 64-bit), Windows (XP 32-bit), Windows (XP 64-bit).
- Mac OS X (v10.11.x), Mac OS X (v10.10.x), Mac OS X (v10.9.x), Mac OS X (v10.8.x), Mac OS X (v10.7.x), Mac OS X (v10.6.x)
Epson WorkForce ES-400 Software Driver Downloads
|Supported Operating Systems
|Link Download
|Epson WorkForce ES-400 for Windows (10/10 x64/8.1/8.1 x64/8/8 x64/7/7 x64/Vista/Vista64/XP)
|Scanner Driver and Epson Scan 2 Utility (v188.8.131.52) for Windows
|Document Capture Pro (v2.00.04) for Windows
|Epson WorkForce ES-400 for Mac (OS X 10.13/10.12/10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7)
|Scanner Driver and Epson Scan 2 Utility (v6.4.61) for Mac
|Document Capture (v1.6.5) for Mac
Why can an Epson WorkForce ES-400 Printer Driver have a problem?
The problem that printer drivers can occur for the following reasons:
- This Epson WorkForce ES-400 motor is misconfigured.
- This Epson WorkForce ES-400 Printer Driver does not match the printer installed or your Windows/Macintosh variation.
- The entry of your printer driver in the Windows computer system registry is not accurate.
- Malware-Trojans have polluted your printer driver data.
How do I fix an Epson WorkForce ES-400 Driver error?
Follow the steps below:
- First, remove your Driver installation from Device Manager and scan for new hardware to install the Driver again.
- In the Device Properties dialog box, click the Driver tab and then click Uninstall. Should follow the instructions.
- Then restart your computer.
- Open Device Manager again, click Action and then click Scan for hardware changes.
- Reinstallation is complete, ready to run.
How to Set up Driver Epson WorkForce ES-400 for Windows:
Follow these steps to set up the downloaded software application and driver:
- Click on the link download that we provide above in this post.
- When the driver Epson WorkForce ES-400 download is complete, and also you prepare to establish the data, click "Open Folder" or "Open File," as well as then click the downloaded documents. The file name ends in .exe.
- You could accept the default area to save the data. Click Next, then wait while the installer removes the documents to obtain prepared for setup.
- NOTE: If you closed the Complete Download screen, search for the folder where you preserved the.exe documents, after that click it.
- When the Install Wizard begins, follow the on-screen directions to set up the software application.
How to Set up Driver Epson WorkForce ES-400 for Mac:
Follow the steps below to enable Epson Connect for your Epson printer on a Mac:
Important: Your product needs to be set up with a network connection before it can be set up with Epson Connect. If you need to set up the connection, see the Start Here sheet for your product for instructions. To view the layer, go to the Epson support main page, select your product, Manuals, and Warranty, then Start Here.
- Download and run the Epson Connect Printer Setup Utility. Click Continue.
- Agree to the Software License Agreement by clicking Continue, and then Agree.
- Click Install, and then click Close.
- Select your product, and then click Next. NOTE: If the window doesn't automatically appear, open a Finder window and select Application > Epson Software, and then double-click Epson Connect Printer Setup.
- Select Printer Registration, and then click Next.
- When you see the Register a printer to Epson Connect message, click OK.
- Scroll down, click the I accept the Terms and Conditions check box, and then click Next. Do one of the following: If you're creating a new account, fill out the Create An Epson Connect Account form, then click Finish. If you're registering a new product with an existing account, click I already have an account, fill out the Add a new printer form, and then click Add. Click Close.
- See our Activate Scan To Cloud and Remote Print instructions to activate the Scan to Cloud and Remote Print services.


text:
Children Receive Bike Building Experience Of A Lifetime
OPTIMA Batteries will be teaming up with Golden State Foods and partnering with ChumpCar race participants to give children the bike building experience of a lifetime. On May 26, 2013, Build-A-Bike will be taking place at the Daytona International Speedway, in Daytona Beach, Florida.
ChumpCar racing teams will be volunteering with children at Boys & Girls Clubs to build their very first bikes.
Recently, OPTIMA partnered with Golden State Foods to create a non-profit partnership, which gave children in need the opportunity to own bicycles.
OPTIMA Batteries Director of Product Development and Marketing Cam Douglass explained, "As a kid, the first vehicle I can remember taking pride in and customizing was my bike. I think a lot of folks in the automotive enthusiast community feel the same way. And they can remember what it was like to add new chrome cranks or pegs, put on decals or install a new seat. It's where we first started to discover our passion for the industry."
When Optima agreed to sponsor the ChumpCar World Series, the Build-A-Bike organization finally got some juice to start operating on a much bigger scale. After four successful events in 2012, Build-A-Bike is now in a position to expand and grow.
Not able to make this weekend's event for your chance at building a bike – Not a problem. The ChumpCar World Series has additional opportunities at various locations, which we've listed below. Make sure to mark your calendars. See you there!
Build-A-Bike Schedule
• Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Florida – May, 26
• Heartland Park, Topeka, Kansas – June, 15-16
• Charlotte Speedway, Concord, North Carolina – June, 22
• Nelson Ledges, Garrettsville, Ohio – July, 13
• Virginia International Raceway, Alton, Virginia – August, 9-11


text: On sale this month for only $4.00 ! Long out of print, hard to find, and expensive on Ebay...The Classic Best-Seller! Get your Judges Guild maps and charts! The first complete world in D&D history. We now have over 80 of our classic products scanned into PDF to stock your campaigns, so remember to visit this site often!


text:
May 14, 2013
Largest graduation to date held at Celeste Center
More than 1,000 Columbus State students earned their associate degrees at the
Spring Semester Commencement, May 10 at the Celeste Center on the Ohio State Fairgrounds. Guests enjoyed hearing the student stories of success and commencement address from Tanny Crane, CEO of Crane Group. The ceremony was livestreamed on the web for those who could not attend. A video of ceremony highlights is here. The ceremony was also featured in Saturday's Columbus Dispatch.
Disability Services advocate makes a difference after only one year
Adrienne Luke has only worked for Columbus State for one year, but already she has made a big impact on her own department and others.
Nominated by her supervisor Tiffany McClain, Luke was given the Staff Employee of the Month Award at the First Wednesday meeting May 8.
Luke is an advocate in Disability Services, who displays a "genuine, consistent spirit of teamwork and cooperation," says McClain. She actively contributes to the college in many ways, according to McClain, serving on the Staff Advisory Council, the Tutoring Advisory Committee, and as an ability advisor for the college's STEM Ability Alliance. She worked on Welcome Back Day, Mental Health Awareness Week and the Cougar Challenge 5K. She helped update the Disability Services brochure and helped update department forms, as well as compiling a list of resources for staff to make available to students with memory deficits.
"As soon as she joined our team, Adrienne demonstrated interest and concern for other team members, and team objectives," says McClain. "She was eager to learn our processes, while respectfully making valuable suggestions on how to improve them. As a result, she became a leader in the development of new procedures which have increased efficiency in our day-to-day operations."
New Systems Portfolio due by November 1
On time and on budget. That's the word from the nine teams writing the new Systems Portfolio, the college's 125-page accreditation report.
The new portfolio - a complete rewrite of the 2009 original - is due to the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) by November 1. It answers approximately 140 questions about Columbus State's Processes, Results and Improvements in nine organizational categories. Also embedded in the questions is evidence to demonstrate that Columbus State meets the five Criteria of Accreditation.
The nine three-person teams - two faculty members/one staff – led by Project Managers Antoinette Perkins, Ingrid Emch and Bruce Massis will wrap up their initial reports by the end of May. Especially important in this update are data-supported outcomes—how we measure what we say we do, and design improvements accordingly.
The nine teams are:
Judith Anderson, Laurie Johns, Adam Moskowitz - Helping Students Learn
Nancy Case, Scott Millsap, Irene Petten - Accomplishing other Distinctive Objectives
David Tom, Ellen Stadler, Marisa Vernon - Understanding Students' and Other Stakeholders' Needs
T.J. Duda, Dianne Fidelibus, Lori McKenzie- Valuing People
Mary Ashley, Patricia Opong, Mike Wright - Leading and Communicating
Ann Palazzo, Erica Swarts, Rhonda Ward - Supporting Organizational Operations
Sue Donohue, Jim Hamberg, Paul Graves - Measuring Effectiveness
Darrin Albaugh, Julia Shew, Brad Trimble - Planning Continuous Improvement
Cheryl Hay, Tracy Koski, Amy Ng - Building Collaborative Relationships
SBDC to host 9th annual Growth Summit
The 9th annual Ohio Growth Summit will be held Thursday, June
6, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Center for Workforce Development, sponsored by the Small Business Development Center at Columbus State.
The Growth Summit provides attendees with the newest and most exciting ways to start and grow a business.
Keynote speaker Amber MacArthur, entrepreneur, professional speaker, best-selling author and television host, who will show participants how to develop an effective company social media presence. Another keynote, Anthony Iannarino, president and chief sales officer of Solutions Staffing, Marketing Director of B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy, and Founder of TheSalesBlog.com, will share how participants can grow and reach their greatest sales potential.
Registration for the Ohio Growth Summit is $100 through May 22. For more information, go online here: http://ohiogrowthsummit.com/
"Quantitative Team" wins Cougar 5K Team Challenge
The Columbus State Wellness Initiative congratulates the Quantitative Team, made of up members from the Math and Finance Departments, who came within 3 minutes and 37 seconds of their predicted total team time in the recent Cougar Challenge 5K. Team members were Jonathan Baker, Judit Bach, Jill Cadotte, Ernest Dancer, Jack Popovich and Scott Thompson. They earned a prize from the Wellness Initiative, by defeating the Qualitative Team, made up of runners from the Writing Center!
Summer Book List now available to faculty
Each semester, the Columbus State Bookstore works with academic departments to compile a complete list of the adopted courses, as well as corresponding textbooks and materials. The Summer Semester Book List is now available on the Bookstore's website. Please review the course requirements and contact the Bookstore for assistance as follows:
Phil Sanders, Textbook Supervisor ext. 5127
Evan Jablonka, Textbook Coordinator ext. 3890
Mary Ellen Gauthier, Textbook Specialist ext. 3637
Reminder: Open Enrollment meetings to be held
The Human Resources Department will host Open Enrollment meetings for full-time benefit- eligible employees. The remaining meetings will be held Wednesday, May 15 at 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. in WD-407.
The Open Enrollment period is for medical, dental, vision, life and flexible spending accounts (FSAs) for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2013. The Open Enrollment period ends on May 31, and all changes to your benefit elections must be received in HR by 4:30 p.m. Any changes made during the Open Enrollment period will be effective on July 1, 2013.
DiPietro's work to be performed May 19
The Greater Columbus Symphony Orchestra will premiere Rocco DiPietro's new orchestra work called "The Dome" for cello and orchestra on Sunday, May 19 at 7:00 p.m. at the Hilliard Presbyterian Church, 3600 Leap Rd. in Hilliard. The principal cellist from the Columbus Symphony, Luis Biava, will be the soloist, and the performance will be conducted by Olev Viro, GCSO music director. The concert is free and open to the public.
Construction students to learn about Rush Creek development
Dean Bortz's Construction Sciences Institute student organization will meet May 17 to learn about the Rush Creek Village Experience. The meeting will initiate an upcoming three-course sequence of special topics on sustainability. CMGT 2994 Special Topics: The Rush Creek Village Experience will start Fall 2013, teaching this unique residence in Columbus, and teach how to bring it into the 21st century while maintaining its place in history. The guest speaker will be Marsha Rees Conrad, AIA, LEED-AP.
Rush Creek Village was built 50 years ago in Worthington by a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright. Rush Creek is considered by the National Park Service to be the largest "organically" designed subdivision in the U.S.
Author visits Basic English class
As part of the outreach for the Ohioana Book Festival, award-winning author Raúl Ramos y Sánchez visited a Basic English 8 class May 6 to speak about his journey and experiences as an author and speaker of English as a Second Language.
The students were particularly interested in his early experiences upon coming to the U.S. from Cuba as a child, as well as in the creative effort that goes into being a novelist. Ramos was named No. 1 among 2011 Top Ten Latino Authors by the website LatinoStories.com.
The Ohioana Book Festival took place May 11 at Fort Hayes Career Center. For more information about Raúl Ramos y Sánchez and his work, see www.raulramos.com.
Help Desk's Stailey named Support Technician of the Year
IT Support Center Technician Rob Stailey recently was named Help Desk Institute's Desktop Support Technician of the Year for the Mid-Ohio Chapter, earning him a trip to Las Vegas to compete for the National Desktop technician award. Headquartered in Colorado Springs, Help Desk Institute is an internationally recognized organization specializing in training and networking technical professionals. This is the second year in a row that a Columbus State technician won the Mid-Ohio Chapter award!
New options for food service suggested by consultants
Columbus State's Food Services has been working closely with the Bookstore to evaluate both the DX Cafe and C-Store operation to determine the most effective way to serve customers.
In an effort to improve service, the DX Cafe will transition to a grab-and-go menu. Gourmet coffee drinks will continue to be served. The convenience store will be phased out and the Bookstore will carry items such as gum, snacks, bottled Pepsi products and other popular convenience store items.
Some options that are currently being evaluated include contracting with a nationally branded food service provider to operate in the space currently occupied by the C-Store and what was previously the Copy Center. The change is based on recent recommendations of food service and bookstore space consultants as well as a recent survey of students, faculty, and staff. Watch for more information on this in the near future.
The adjusted hours of operation for Summer Semester are as follows:
DX Café Hours - Monday – Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Union Hall Cafeteria- Closed during break May 13 – 19 (catering will be available every day)
Summer hours (beginning May 20): Monday – Thursday 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Friday 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Skyward Grille Cart - Open at the DX May 13 – 17 and 20 – 24 from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Summer hours (returning to regular location on Tuesday, May 28): Monday – Thursday 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Nestor Hall and Delaware Cyber Cafe will close for the summer beginning May 10.


text:
NEW YORK (AP) — Ryan Seacrest can tell you lot about the evolution of American Idol over the last twelve seasons, but the host is a bit more reluctant to discuss the evolution of his relationship with actress Julianne Hough.
When asked by The Associated Press if there was a wedding date in his future, Seacrest casually responded: "Are you getting married?"
Seacrest and Hough have been together since the spring of 2010.
After a few playful rounds of "Are you?" banter on the subject, he decided to call it a day.
Seacrest made the comments Friday while promoting "Idol Across America," a relay of the "American Idol" microphone across the country, taking a page from the Olympic torch relay.
As for the prospect of the microphone making it one piece, Seacrest says if not, "I'm sure there's one in a holster standing by if it breaks."


text:
Take a Walk on the Riverside, the Central Eastside's that is, on July 22
You're invited to a summer's eve river walk on July 22. City staff and others interested in improving river habitat, boating and other activities in the Central Reach will tour and discuss key locations along the Central Eastside's riverfront area.
Meet at the PCC Climb Center Auditorium, 1626 SE Waters Ave, at 5 p.m. for an overview before heading down to the river. Staff will pose specific questions and record comments that will inform development of the Central City 2035 Plan, which includes the Southeast Quadrant Plan and River Plan / Central Reach.
We'll be stopping at the following locations along the way:
1. Madison Dock (Fire Station) & Plaza area
2. Holman Dock area
3. OMSI area
4. End of Caruthers Street
5. Willamette Greenway Trail connection
Bring a water bottle; light snacks will be provided. Come support the river!
For more information, contact Debbie Bischoff at firstname.lastname@example.com or 503-823-6946.


text:
Norseman whoa.
insane. unbelievable. beautiful adventure. cold water. crazy swim. tough bike, tougher run. headwinds. euphoric. friends. mountains. long day. sore feet. amazing. epic journey. hardest day ever. 18 hour finish at 3000 feet, white t-shirt (I`ll explain this later). pain. stoked. just woke up and have to drop my international crew at the train station. more later. thanks everyone who sent kind words.


text:
How Online Screening Techniques Affect Your Job Search
Your targeted resume may be screened out if an employer's online screening program decides that you aren't qualified for the position. Online screening software has the first word about who is admitted for a closer look and who isn't.
Online screening is also known as prescreening or pre-employment screening. The purpose of online screening is to verify that you are a good fit for the position and that you haven't lied about your background. Employers use online screening tools (tests, assessment instruments, questionnaires, and so forth) to reduce and sort applicants against criteria and competencies that are important to their organizations.
If you apply online through major job sites or many company Web site career portals, you may be asked to respond yes or no to job-related questions, such as:
Do you have the required college degree?
Do you have experience with (specific job requirement)?
Are you willing to relocate?
Do you have two or more years' experience managing a corporate communications department?
Is your salary requirement between $55,000-$60,000/year?
Answering "no" to any of these kinds of questions disqualifies you for the listed position, an automated decision that helps the recruiters thin the herd of resumes more quickly but that could be a distinct disadvantage to you, the job searcher.
Sample components of online screening
The following examples of online screening illustrate common upfront filtering techniques:
Basic evaluation: The system automatically evaluates the match between a resume's content (job seeker's qualifications) and a job's requirement and ranks the most qualified resumes at the top.
Skills and knowledge testing: The system uses tests that require applicants to prove their knowledge and skills in a specific area of expertise. Online skills and knowledge testing is especially prevalent in information technology jobs where dealing with given computer programs is basic to job performance.
Personality assessment: Attempts to measure work-related personality traits to predict job success is one of the more controversial types of online testing.
Behavioral assessment: The system asks questions aimed at uncovering your past experience applying core competencies the organization requires (such as fostering teamwork, managing change) and position-specific competencies (such as persuasion for sales, attention to detail for accountants).
Managerial assessments: The system presents applicants with typical managerial scenarios and asks them to react. Proponents say that managerial assessments are effective for predicting performance on competencies, such as interpersonal skills, business acumen, and decision making.
Pros and cons of online screening
Here are some advantages and disadvantages of online screening, from the job seeker's perspective:
Advantages: In theory, a perfect online screening is totally job based and fair to all people with equal skills. Your resume would survive the first cut based only on your ability to do well in the job. You also are screened out of consideration for any job you may not be able to do, saving yourself stress and keeping your track record free of false starts.
Disadvantages: The creation of an online process is vulnerable to human misjudgment. Moreover, you have no chance to "make up" missing competencies or skills.


text:
Mountain lion kills deer in subdivision near Granby
GRANBY – A deer that was killed near a house in Innsbruck subdivision late last week has been confirmed as a mountain lion kill by Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials.
The deer was reported as a small buck, the carcass of which was removed by wildlife officials.
This is pretty typical for this time of year, said Scott Murdoch, district wildlife manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The kill took place approximately 40 feet from Tim Schowalter's home on Forest Drive. Schowalter did not report hearing anything the night that he thinks the kill took place.
Schowalter and his wife recently returned from a trip to Africa where they saw a cheetah kill that he described as looking similar to the mountain lion kill.
While seeing a mountain lion kill is not out of the ordinary, Murdoch stressed the importance of knowing the basic principles of living in cat country, such as refraining from feeding deer because the more deer that are around, the more lions they will attract.
Murdoch also mentioned that people should keep their dogs closely monitored as well as children under close supervision because mountain lions tend to attack the weak and vulnerable.
If a person encounters a mountain lion, the best route of action is to appear as big as you can by holding your jacket up or by putting your hiking partner on your shoulders. You want to look as big and formidable as possible and make a lot of noise while slowly backing away from the lion. The one thing you do not want to do is run away from a mountain lion because it will trigger its predator and prey instinct and they are more likely to attack.
People who see or who have concerns about mountain lions can call the Colorado Parks and Wildlife office, 970-724-3000.
Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted.


text:
Professional development
General overview of the SGIS
SGIS Board Members
Honorary members
Member schools
The SGIS Articles of association
Teaching vacancies from SGIS Member Schools
The SGIS Annual General Meeting will take place on March 19th, 2020 at the President Wilson Hotel, Geneva (SGIS MEMBER SCHOOLS ONLY)
Time TBC
Our next Elfs meeting will take place at the British School of Bern
Date: Sat. 2nd November 2019
Workshop Title: When to intervene in an Early Year's Programme
Workshop Presenter: Mrs. Sylvia Leck, Academic Director of " Foundations For...
Friday 8th November 2019
International School Basel is hosting a one-day Job-Alike event for the IB Diploma Design Technology and IB Diploma Computer Science teachers.The event aims to provide an opportunity for experienced and new teachers to get...
Friday, 15 November 2019
International School Basel is pleased to host the annual SGIS Business Managers' Meeting.
Saturday 16 November 2019 10:00 > 16:00 Campus des Nations at the International School of Geneva
More info and link to...
at LAS on 11 March 2020
Leysin American School Educational Research (LASER) invites you and your students to join us for our upcoming "Globe Day" student conference on Wednesday, 11 March 2020, from 10:00 to 14:30.Globe Day 2020 will be our sixth...
April 23-25, 2020
Leysin American School
Hosted by Nic Cosgrove and Paul Magnuson
document.getElementById('cloak29cf6ac8bffeccf6adb1737367480e99').innerHTML =...
WILL TAKE PLACE ON MARCH 20th and 21st 2020
at Institut Florimont, Geneva
Associate members
Other Associations
Honorary Members


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The Old Smiddy was built in 1862 and was used as a blacksmith's shop until the middle of the 1900s.
There is a lot of history surrounding the place itself which enjoys modern features as well as reminders of years gone by. The self catering accommodation is built over Ballagan Burn which flows down into the River Leven, meeting the water of Loch Lomond to eventually join the River Clyde. The building that formerly stood on the site of the present self catering unit was used for firing and then throwing the cart wheels through a trap door into the burn to cool down. There was also a mill further upstream.
The accommodation is all on one level with main door entry into a very well-equipped kitchen which hosts everything required: cooker, washer/drier, dishwasher, fridge, freezer, microwave, coffee maker, etc.. There is free WIFI
There is a very comfortable sitting room with cable TV, a bookcase full of information and magazines. There are two en-suite bedrooms. The double bedroom has fitted mirror wardrobes with ample storage space, clock, radio and remote control frreeview TV. There is an electric blanket on the bed and there is a shower/toilet with shaver point within the bedroom. There is a large, sprung sofa bed which is suitable for one adult or two children to sleep on. The other bedroom is a twin with two single beds (both with electric blankets) and also clock radio and remote control freeview TV. There is also a toilet/shower and shaver point in this room as well.
There is full gas central heating in this cotage and although electricity is included in the price, overuse will result in a payment at the end of the stay.
Until recently the Old Smiddy was used as a very successful Bed and Breakfast and therefore has all the requirements requested by the Tourist Board. Private parking is available and can easily accommodate car and boat if required. There is also a patio for guest use - come and sit beside the ducks !
Located within and forming part of the boundary of Scotland's first National Park, the former blacksmith's cottage offers a very comfortable, well-appointed and modern facility.
The self catering accommodation is separate to the main dwelling and is located approx. 6 minutes walk to Loch Lomond and all it has to offer including sailing, fishing, water ski-ing, etc. Nearby are horse riding facilities and if you are a hill walker, plenty of mountains to climb. Various sporting activities including shooting, canoeing, off-road driving, quad biking, etc., are available and details can be supplied on request.
Balloch is centrally located for Glasgow and the train journey from Balloch will take 40 minutes and cost roughly £5 return. Stirling is 35 minutes drive and Glasgow Airport is 20 minutes from Balloch. There is also a bus service near the door of the Old Smiddy, taking you to Glasgow or up to the east side of Loch Lomond to Balmaha near the foot of Ben Lomond. There is beautiful Scottish countryside all around this area.
|The Old Smiddy Apartment
|£350 Per unit per week
|The Old Smiddy Cottage
|£370 Per unit per week
Note: Prices are a guide only and may change on a daily basis.


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Hi everyone!
If you like to talk to me, you can leave me a message here, I will reply here as soon as I can. In addition you can leave me a short message at my german talk-page if you like. Have fun! -- Florian - Talk 10:02, 11 Feb 2005 (GMT)
Hi Florian, sicher spreche ich auch deutsch. Ich hab mir schon gedacht das es doof war meinen Namen einzutragen und hab Sie, glaub ich all wieder gelöscht. Ich sammele auch Klingonische Rezepte und werde Sie bei gelegenheit mal hier editieren. Komm dann auch mal auf die Deutche Seiten die Du erwähnt hast. Gruß, Antonia
Hi Florian. I have marked Morn and DataMA as bots on the English Memory Alpha as you requested, but I don't have "steward access" on de or nl. As far as I can tell, no one does at the moment, so I'll need to get Jason to look at that when he wakes up. I'll ask him to set this access for Dan and Harry so they will be able to make or unmake bots and admins on all three languages, and they'll then be able to choose if other users need this access too. Angela 05:54, 2 Apr 2005 (EST)
- Thanks a lot! I've noticed that there are no stewards around except for english MA. I thought, you'd have a secret "I'm root" button around for yourself. ;-) -- Florian - Talk 06:00, 2 Apr 2005 (EST)
I've had a look at User:Memory's page, and I wanted to see if I could do the same as him. I've created the pages User:Zsingaya/monobook.js and User:Zsingaya/monobook.css like he said, but I'm not really sure if its made any difference. Can you see if I've done it right, please? Thanks. zsingaya 13:07, 11 Aug 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, thats sorted it, thanks! zsingaya 18:46, 11 Aug 2005 (UTC)
Nevermind me; for some reason I had to restart Firefox for it to show up, despite the fact I cleared the cache via the Options menu. Oh well, thanks for the nifty toolbar! :) Intricated 12:20, 9 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Categorization of Stars and SystemsEdit
Your bot seems to be categorizing star systems into Category:Stars when they should go into Category:Star systems. There's only a couple of systems so far, so it's no big deal, I just thought you might want to know before it gets too bad.--Tim Thomason 10:47, 29 Sep 2005 (UTC)
- My fault, I missed those when compiling the list of star names. There won't be any other errors, though. Florian, thanks for the categorization :) -- Cid Highwind 10:54, 29 Sep 2005 (UTC)
- Hi Tim, hi Cid. I worked on the list Cid created and missed that two "system" articles, sorry. I'm doing some finetuning now anyway, since some of the links on the list are redirects. After that I try to categorize the systems; I assume the category is approved. — Florian - ✍ talk 11:07, 29 Sep 2005 (UTC)
- Correct. :) -- Cid Highwind 11:17, 29 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Re: Element(s)Edit
You were right to fix the piped-Element/temp link. Originally, the element pages were all at "/temp" pages because I was revamping the page "Element," and made it into 4 pages. When I moved the pages into "permanent" status, I thought I fixed all of the links, but I guess I must have missed that one. I removed the link altogether (there's no need for a category link, it's on the bottom), it's supposed to be kind of like a navigational template, but since it's only on 4 pages I just cut-and-pasted instead of making a new template. Thanks for the catch though.--Tim Thomason 23:47, 26 Oct 2005 (UTC)
Re:unprotect Portal talk:Main Edit
Hi, Florian. I've unprotected Portal talk:Main. My sincerest apologies about that, I had completely forgotten I had protected it. I don't know what to say about the Spanish interwiki; I'm useless when it comes to this technical stuff. I suppose it can be removed if the site's not up or whatever. As for that JCCO guy... yeah, that's pretty odd. Maybe he only has the majority of his freetime in March? That would kinda suck. After all, "all work and no play make JCCO a dull boy." Or maybe he does it intentionally, just to see if we notice. Who knows? :D --From Andoria with Love 10:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
page moveEdit
I've moved Clarus system to Clarus, and I see that one of the links is on User:DataMA/temp, a page that I guess your bot uses for god knows what. I've no idea if I really should or shoudn't edit that page, so I'm just informing you here. -- Capricorn (talk) 23:38, January 14, 2013 (UTC)


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What are watts? We explain why you should train with power.
Training with power isn't anything new in cycling. Pro road cyclists have been using power meters to target their training since the 80s. But only during the last few years have power meters really broken through. Now they're used by amateurs and pros in all disciplines from road to triathlon and mountain bike to BMX.
There are more and more tools to measure power and to analyze it. Power can be measured, for example, in the bike's rear hub, crank arms or the spider of the cranks. Then the data is sent wirelessly to the watch or cycling computer using ANT+ connection. The standard connection makes it possible to use Suunto Ambit2 or Ambit2 S with any ANT+ compatible power meter.
But what's the point in training with power? Isn't perceived exertion, heart rate and speed giving us enough feedback on our performance? The main advantage gained with power meter is precision. The power meter reveals exactly how hard you really work and how much power you produce on the pedals. It is also easy to see progress when analyzing the watts.
Speed and heart rate are only indications of the workload. They are affected by temperature, wind, sleep, hydration and other variables. Another drawback of heart rate is its delayed response to the workload, which is something to consider especially when doing intervals.
The base for training with power is FTP, the cyclist's functional threshold power. FTP is the training intensity at which lactate begins to accumulate in the athlete's blood. FTP is roughly the power level a cyclist can hold for an hour.
FTP can be calculated using various tests. The simplest – and probably most brutal – being an all out effort for an hour. Ride as hard as you can for 60 minutes and read the average power – that is your FTP. It provides the basis for different power levels. And let's be honest, it also provides a great excuse for a lung busting session on the bike!


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There's a very good reason I've never identified with the Conservative Right. Many Conservatives support the ACL because we publish facts they use. They simply respect our quality of work. Many conservatives are put off because I don't identify myself as a Conservative or a Christian. They ask me to. I won't. If I did, I'd have a lot more readers, supporters, and a lot more promotions. If I were anything, even a Lesbian Democrat, I'd be a lot better off than being what I am. In order to appeal to my countrymen I must wear a label. But I don't identify myself as anything but anticommunitarian, and the American people have yet to become aware of what that means.
Once I identified the thesis and the antithesis leading to the communitarian synthesis, I became aware of the dialectical roles each "side" plays in promoting the communitarian synthesis. After that I could never participate in any "side" that helps the communitarians. Then we showed with our antithesis how the evidence verifies the transformation of all societies into one big blob. Okay, so I never described it as a "blob," but maybe I should have! People know what that word means.
Today the communitarian synthesis (or blob) is manifesting in the Tea Party. I warned Americans this was going to happen in my Open Letter to Local Tea Party members in 2010. http://nikiraapana.blogspot.com/2010/10/open-letter-to-all-members-of-local-tea.html
Either I have special powers of divination, God told me what to write, or I'm a damn good journalist. Whatever I am, I am the ONLY writer in the world who saw this coming and warned the public about it years before it happened. Now there's a "Tea Party Communitarian"! Oh yeah.
Tea Party Communitarian Can Sen. Mike Lee get libertarian populists to put family first?
By JONATHAN COPPAGE • November 19, 2013
Article re-posted in its entirety from The American Conservative website http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/tea-party-communitarian/:
Mike Lee is an unlikely candidate for conservatism's most promising policy mind. A Tea Party firebrand since he swept into office in 2010, Lee was the driving force behind efforts to defund Obamacare that led to a 16-day government shutdown this October. Yet the past year has also seen him reveal another side to his populist conservatism: a communitarian agenda for policy reform.
At the American Enterprise Institute in September, Lee set out a tax-reform proposal centered around a per child tax credit that would apply to income and payroll taxes alike. At the unveiling, Lee said: "Now, if you are like me—a conservative with a libertarian streak—you might at first raise an eyebrow at all this. My plan, you might say, may share some features of traditional conservative tax reform but it's no flat tax. It's no consumption tax," two policies long favored by conservative for their economic efficiency or ostensible fairness.
"That's right," he continued. "It's better."
With the slightest hint of braggadocio that only a humble Utahn can muster, Lee broke with the economic individualism of the conservative establishment to prioritize instead the family, "the first and foremost institution of civil society." There was a sound economic basis for this, to be sure. Lee drew attention to what he called the "Parent Tax Penalty" whereby parents doubly contribute to entitlement programs through their taxes and the expenses they incur raising future taxpayers. And he insisted, "Here, I am not speaking about the family as a moral or cultural institution, strictly as a social and economic one." But that in itself is significant: the family, not just the individual, is what economics must be about.
"Conservatives sometimes get criticized for putting too much emphasis on the family in policy debates," he acknowledged. But "the real problem may be that we don't think about the family enough. For family is not just one of the major institutions through which people pursue happiness. Is the one upon which all the others depend."
At the Heritage Foundation in April, Lee delivered a communitarian manifesto of sorts entitled "What Conservatives Are For." He emphasized "that the true and proper end of political subsidiarity is social solidarity" and explained that his "vision of American freedom is of two separate but mutually reinforcing institutions: a free enterprise economy and a voluntary civil society."
Lee's proposals focus on relieving burdens on the institutions that strengthen society in their everyday practice. This outlook goes straight back to his Utah origins. "We've always been a state that has had strong institutions of civil society, very strong neighborhoods, very connected neighborhoods where people know each other," the senator tells me. "Sometimes people are quick to assume that that just refers to people who are members of my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but it's not just that. There's a very strong neighborhood dynamic in Utah that perhaps traces back to the way we were settled," he explains.
"People had traveled great distances, sometimes thousands of miles to get there to what was initially a fairly desolate desert. The Salt Lake Valley was said to only have one or two trees when the first Mormon Pioneers arrived in 1847, and it required people to work together a lot to build these communities, to make the desert blossom like a rose. And that has become part of our culture, and it has thrived."
{Niki ads this link here: Mormon Communitarianism- Distinct by Eschatology
Communitarian concern for the social fabric and libertarian resistance to big-government interventions fit together naturally for the Utah senator. "Lee has been eager to show that social conservatism and concern for the family doesn't speak a different language than his kind of constitutionalism and limited government-ism," says Yuval Levin, editor of the policy quarterly National Affairs. Levin is encouraged by the direction he sees leaders like Lee taking.
"I think there's been a tendency for a decade or more in conservatism to move away from communitarian talk to a much more individualist talk, and it's very much in need of counterforce," he says. "Conservatism needs to be a counterweight to radical individualism, not an enabler of it, and to me to see that being expressed again is really crucial."
At AEI, Lee opened his proposal by speaking of "a new and unnatural stagnancy" that has trapped the poor and worn down the middle class. There are the beginnings here of a different way of talking about the economy, in contrast to the GOP's old prosperity gospel for the upwardly mobile. Republicans a year ago proved all too ready to fan the flames of upper-class resentment with talk of the 47 percent of Americans who pay no federal income tax. Lee rebukes that mentality, pointing out at AEI that "people who pay no income tax do pay federal taxes—payroll taxes, gas taxes, and various others," and squarely declaring, "Working families are not free riders."
Lee rails upward instead, against the cronyism that big government and big business together have cultivated at the taxpayer's expense. "At the top of our society, we find a political and economic elite that—having reached the highest rungs—has pulled up the ladder behind itself, denying others the chance even to climb," he warned at AEI. At Heritage, he went so far as to say, "The first step in a true conservative reform agenda must be to end this kind of preferential policymaking. Beyond simply being the right thing to do, it is a prerequisite for earning the moral authority and political credibility to do anything else." How, he asked, could working families take seriously a conservatism that props up and subsidizes big banks and corporate agricultural interests?
For a GOP long seen as the party of entrenched financial interests, populist credibility must be won back, and a deregulation agenda alone won't cut it. This is where Lee's rugged communitarianism is especially vital to his cause. In his Heritage speech, he described the conservative vision as "not an Ayn Rand novel. It's a Norman Rockwell painting, or a Frank Capra movie: a society of 'plain, ordinary kindness, and a little looking out for the other fellow, too'. "
He continued,
In the last few years, we conservatives seem to have abandoned words like 'together,' 'compassion,' and 'community' as if their only possible meanings were as a secret code for statism. This is a mistake. Collective action doesn't only—or even usually—mean government action. Conservatives cannot surrender the idea of community to the left, when it is the vitality of our communities upon which our entire philosophy depends.
Lee's understanding of civil society redirects what often seems like a pure populist backlash—a mere reaction—to finding constructive ways in which limited-government constitutionalists can act on James Madison's notion that government is for "the happiness of the people" and Abraham Lincoln's idea that it ought "to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all."
But can Lee sell his communitarian message to his fellow constitutionalists? Levin is hopeful: "He has a shot because to a certain extent he's filling a vacuum, and that means he really has an opportunity to shape the arena the way he wants to."
As Lee himself said at AEI: "For a political party too often seen as out of touch, aligned with the rich, indifferent to the less fortunate, and uninterested in solving the problems of working families, Republicans could not ask for a more worthy cause around which to build a new conservative reform agenda."
Jonathan Coppage is associate editor of The American Conservative.
This article was reposted in numerous places around the USA:
This article was reposted in numerous places around the USA:


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"The only time I think of cigarettes is
when I receive one of your stupid letters!"
"The only time I think of cigarettes is when I receive one of your stupid letters!" Recently, a clinic graduate expressed this sentiment when I inquired as to how life without smoking was going.
He was trying very hard to forget that he had ever smoked. It was a part of his life that he no longer wished to dwell upon. But my follow-up correspondence was making forgetting impossible. He was now at the point where he threw out my letters without even opening them.
The fact is that I continue to send these letters so that the ex-smoker will never forget about smoking. For if he is like most ex-smokers, he will never totally forget his smoking past. He will forget the cigarettes that made him sick, the ones that made him feel socially ostracized, and the countless ones he smoked daily without even being aware that he was lighting them.
Most important, he will forget the cigarettes he didn't want to light but which were alleviating urges that were too powerful to control. In essence, he will forget about the majority of cigarettes he had smoked, and then, only occasionally, he will remember a "good" one.
And then it happens. One day at a party, under stress, or just out of boredom, he will get the desire for that "good" cigarette. By having distanced himself from his past addiction, he will have forgotten or just no longer accepts the fact that even "one puff" is almost certain to result in full and complete relapse.
Because he no longer accepts his addiction, he sees no reason why he shouldn't be able to enjoy a good cigarette. So he tries one. Maybe it will be a great cigarette, maybe it will be a horrid one. It really doesn't make a big difference.
Good or bad, it will take control and he will once again be an addicted smoker. He must now suffer all the physical, emotional, social, financial and health consequences that accompany nicotine addiction.
I actually sent the letters to everyone from my clinics for two reasons. First, as stated above, to keep the ex-smoker from getting complacent and losing a quit.
The second was in the sad cases when the smoker had relapsed, the letters were to serve as a constant reminder (usually referred to as pestering) that smoking was a problem that needed to be dealt with.
There were plenty of times that people came back saying that one of the letters brought them back to quit again. Those were some of the most wonderful effects I felt these letters had.
Never allow yourself to forget your smoking past. Yes, there may have been some "good" cigarettes, but there were certainly a lot more bad ones and even the "good" ones were slowly killing you.
What is sad is that the man who made the comment, as well as all the others like him who really need to read the letters, will never see this one before it's too late. They will have thrown the letters out without ever having opened them.
Maybe next time they quit smoking they will know better - if there is a next time. Consider the full ramifications of just one cigarette and then choose to - NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!
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