"I don't know you, but I want you all the more for that." ~glen hansard & marketa irglova

The career fair that I mentioned before sucked. It was three hours of wandering around a huge ballroom full of rows and rows of tables where principals/school reps sat. All the teachers (there were tons of us) walked around the room and stood in line behind the tables to talk to the school reps. When you got to the front of a line, you'd have a mini-interview with the principal. The room was so loud, though, that you had to shout across the table at each other. And you had a whole line of people breathing down your neck waiting to "interview" for the same job. That is not an ideal interview situation to say the least, and I'm not even good at normal interviews where you can actually hear the person to whom you're speaking and don't have to worry about the crowd of people standing behind you. I spoke to a whole bunch of principals, most of whom said they'd email me once they decided if they wanted a follow-up interview and/or a demonstration lesson. I'm pretty sure I won't hear back from any of them. I'm still trying to set up some interviews on my own, but it's hard. English teachers are not in high demand. I know I'm guaranteed a job somewhere in the city, which is a comfort, but I'd love for it to be at a school that I like.

Today (actually, I guess it's yesterday by now) I went into the city and Nicole and I looked at a bunch of apartments. None of them were any good. We got to hang out for awhile, though, and we went to see the movie Once, so that made it a pretty fun day. The movie is fantastic; it's the best movie I've seen all year. It has a 97% on rottentomatoes.com (which is unheard of), it won this year's Sundance Audience Award, and it's been getting rave reviews all over the place, so you don't just have to take my word for it. It really is a beautiful film. The music will break your heart. It gave me chills throughout most of the movie. I liked being able to recognize much of the setting; it's an Irish film that takes place in Dublin. A lot of it was filmed on Grafton Street, where I spent a good deal of time last week. I can't say enough good things about the movie; just go see it. There are some video and audio clips and reviews here.

I saw a few other movies over the weekend. One night Kim and I went to see the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which wasn't fabulous. I still found it entertaining, though. I would find a video of Johnny Depp reading the phone book entertaining. I liked Keith Richards' cameo. We also saw Knocked Up, which was hilarious (yet also touching). I loved it. Katherine Heigl gave a very good performance, and Paul Rudd, one of my favorite actors, stood out in his supporting role. Go see it if you need a good laugh.

Hopefully this week I'll put photos from my trip to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin in an actual online album. I have tons.