but if you try sometimes you get what you need

I was on campus today for a student meeting. It was set up at the last minute, one of my least favorite kinds of meetings, and I nearly canceled it because A____'s car crapped out last night but he needed to get to New Haven today for a meeting which might determine whether he's funded over the summer. The grads who live near me were kind enough to respond to my request for a ride into campus, but all of them were leaving much earlier than I needed to be in. Again, I thought of rescheduling my meeting, but if I did that I'd be leaving my student hanging. He's a non-trad, commuter student and I felt bad about that.

So I bit the bullet and car pooled in, getting onto campus 3 hours before my meeting with nothing in particular to do that necessitated being on campus 3 hours before my meeting. Man am I glad I was there though! I was checking email and grading (mostly the former). I got an email from the student I was meeting asking to bump the meeting to an hour later since he got tied up off campus. Grrrrr...fine. Whatever. I'm stuck here until my ride is ready to take me home this evening. The next email I read was a job announcement forwarded by someone in my department. "What the hell, I need a job and apparently I have close to 4 hours to kill now" I thought and went down to talk to the woman who forwarded the announcement. She filled me in on the details. It's a gig advising incoming undergrads. A temp position, so it's only 7 weeks but it starts right at the end of the semester, it pays decent, and so far all my job leads have left me hanging (post interview, but still no word yet). Also, none of the job prospects were all that thrilling, offering either too few hours with no room to pick up time or too many hours with no room for flexibility. After about 10 minutes and one phone call, I had an interview. About 30 minutes later, I got the job offer. YEEeeeeehhaaaa!

The supervisor seemed very cool. I get holidays off, it's a 40 hour a week commitment but both the interviewer and the contact in my department told me it ends up being more like 30 although you need to be available for the full 40. The supervisor told me that if I desperately need a day off or to leave early or come in late, I can. I didn't ask, she volunteered this info.

I know I'll still have a job search on my hands but now it'll be in late June since this one ends mid-July. This is kind of nice, since aside from the temporary relief it provides, the job search was getting hard with grading, grading, student meetings, grading, big student project presentation, grading, last minute assignment fuckery, and more grading. Also, being offered a job that fast and having such a nice interview makes me feel a little less like a loser, which I was kind of starting to feel like after sending applications and resumes into the void.

All in all, I'm pretty damned happy with how today turned out. The sun is out after two days of nearly non-stop rain. I caught an early ride home with my office mate so now I'm home with coffee (and food) and cigarettes and ready for more grading. And I kind of feel like fate finally said "hey, let's cut her a little break..."