Sunday, October 15, 2006

Cue the ZZ Top

Yesterday, we had our make-over party. (And "preppy" was the word of the day.) We went over to Macy's to buy some clothes for my Oxford interview. I should have gotten some better clothes for my interviews in past years, but I figured Oxford will care about this more than most and I really want this job, so this basically served as the impetus. Lemming, Zifnab, and (Mike)^2 were there to provide style advice (because I have a great sense of style for ironic t-shirts but not for much of anything else), moral support, and verbal abuse. You can tell that we had a lot of fun, and I managed not to break the bank too much. (There is a dent in my wallet now, but not too large a dent.)

I haven't purchased my plane tickets yet, though I am planning to do that tonight before prices jump. (There are fewer configurations available at reasonable prices than there were a couple days ago, so I'm going to buy this tonight and get that settled.) The plan is to arrive a couple days before my interview (so I should be leaving either a week from Monday or Tuesday) and to return on Sunday. I have dinner at Somerville College on Thursday night---the tenure-track position includes a tutorship at that college (which is named after 19th century applied mathematician Mary Somerville)---and then my talk (which is only 20 minutes) and the other parts of my interview are on Friday. The current plan on Saturday is to explore Oxford with a friend of mine who is temporarily living in London.

I haven't yet explained the title of this entry. I'm not going to, but let me just mention that if you don't understand the reference, you need to be educated. (Given that I have a job interview in mind, I'm actually twisting the meaning somewhat, but Fox used Culture Club's "Do You Want to Hurt Me?" for a medical report, so I'm far closer to the correct theme then they were.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think pictures of the sharp dressed Mason are needed.

Mason said...

Gazebo gets a point for catching the reference (as opposed to the -\infty for not catching it). (Speaking of -\infty, Kacie Shelton tells me that there is an expansion pack for Arkham Horror with cards that are much more evil than the ones currently in the game. As an example, she pointed out one in which a single investigator is trapped in some realm and has to fight an Elder God on their own. There is also apparently going to be some expansion that is more substantive than just extra cards.)

No pictures were taken to my knowledge, and things definitely aren't as sharp (or close to as sharp) as described in the song.

If I end up with a relevant picture from England, I'll post it. (However, if it's from my camera, it might take a while, because I have rolls of film from 2004 and later that I still need to get developed...)

Anonymous said...

Ouch! Does this expansion have comparably extreme good stuff, so that the trapped investigator has at least a miniscule chance? I would certainly think that the investigator would be devoured if defeated, so that's a pretty darn harsh card.

My condolences on having to wear something other than a humorous t-shirt. Good luck with the job talk!

Mason said...

I have not seen the cards in question, but my understanding is that it's cheap enough that it's safe to buy without much investigation (especially if investigation might put me face-to-face with an Elder God).

Well, I would wear something other than a humorous t-shirt for the job anyway. I felt it was important, however, to wear something better than any of the things I already ownded.