On Waiting

Had an interview - for my school and my position - last week. Was told i'd be told by today. Not Yet.

And the waiting now sucks. I'd had the interview on a Wednesday, and was told the folowing friday - yesterday - the news would be out. So, since the 'deadline' has passed, I amnow worried. I knew i wouldn't be 'gifted' the job, but I figured I'd have a good shot. I suppose i shouldn't be oo worried - maybe Monday word released - but this job is kinda a bit more imortant to me than any other job - so I sit and stew. I will also amidt that Ire ally haven't been pursuing other jobs in the system or subarbs. I know I should have been folowwing it up - but, eggs in one basket sorta thing.

There are 6 total candidates - me being one - and I caught site of one of them when I was preparing for my interview. Seemed I was a better candidate - but maybe not as I only saw a bit of him.. And then there are the other four up for the job.

The interview was tepid. It was w/ the principal and the other librarian. I raced to finish a little portfolio of my work - not relly a standalone portflio, but one that accentuated my 'selling of myself' to the principal. Despite the amount of preperation and work going into the interview - it lasted maybe 12m and wasn't really a comprehnsive go-over. I didn't get a chance to show my portfolio except for one part. i wasn't able to talk about being a total member of the library staff for the last three years. I wasn't able to talk about the soccer program (I'm head coach of the girls program - this is a good good thing). I was only briefy able to go over my love of the school 'just a little bit'.

What was went over?

The question of Questions, which i really do not have a satidfactory answer:

Principal: "So, Hilts, I see you left this school and you left this school when you were a classroom teacher- why?"

I confessed " Well, Mr. Principal .... I was a lot younger and did a lot of growing since then. My gifts - which are considerable - were not best highlighted as a classroom teacher. I hav been a librarian here for the past three years - and there has been all good positivs in thse last three years. "

And it's true. Im ideal for the job. Talking to Vito after the interview, we went over my recent resume. Vito is an administrator who - guess what - hires people for academic posts. His deal was that in the last seven yars I have had a good work record - mainly - and my checked past hopefully will not sink me.

Yet i wait - and the last two days I have specfically waited for the post to arrive and see f thre is a letter from my school - a slim, slender, or sleek envelope inwhich a rejection letter is addressed to me.

Here's hoping I get a call and not letter. But its time now ....

My New Obsession

Usually its the Letterman or SNL or Grey Whistle Test or whatever that blows the mind whith the kickass live version of song fuckin' brilliant song that one just cana get too used to - and here he delivers on letterman. But the second version? the unplugged one en el medio es bonito- the harmonies.....

　
　

The Loss

The Loss

in todays dcs

Stalingrad

In the midst of all the Jutland stuff , my other revelation of interest when I was 18 - the Russian Front - just added a battle star to my tunic. Finally - i've been wanting since I was 18 - I fin shed The Road to Stalingrad last nite. Finally. It's pretty god - but reminded me of reading books on English soil conditions in the 16th century sometime a grad school away. DENSE SHIT. But also - accomplished. Unfortunately, i'm still stuck in the world of some of my great accomplishments being finishing this book or another.

Went out to eat w/ GF last nite. Pretty good. Miss her since we rarely see each other these days - I stop by her library 2-3x a week, we lunch on Thursday afternoons, and ....... So, it was good to see her. She had to work on Saturday morning, so I decided to protect myself from Mitty- yeah, that fucking bad I've become lately - by finishing the last 20p and drinking up a bit. Did keep me out of trouble - a near runthing these days.

I was @ Lanigans - and it was loud, crowded, drunk, beautiful, and young. Lanigans can be a fucking ghost town some nites - but bot this nite Fun - but whatw as really fun was reading about the last little bits on the Stalingard operation. We all know how it turned out - despite our American D Day, Pearl Harbour, Iwo Jima - the Englanders tobruk and the Battle of Britian - there really was no battle like Stalingrad. Two events - the destruction of 6th Army @ Stalingrad and the burning of Hamburg - both in 1943 - were the events where the Germans were like "OH - SHIT - OH - SHIT!!!" Not only did it cost the Germans a quarter of a million men, it also was the fist major battle where the Germans were just throttled.

And Erikson knows it. This book was written from the Russian view. Erickson was a specialist in eastern languages and his major works comes out of his knowledge of the works not usually rad by western readers- and his extensive interviews w/ those involved. For years (I know, imrepeating fom lastweek) all we got was the Western perspective of the war -allw ritten during the Cold War and really hating the russians. So, we got decades of written shit where Western writers LOVED th fucking Nazis - because the Germans were now our allies and the Russians were supposed to be our enemies. So - the Germans were great, they almost won the war - and the Russians were sheep who only won because they would let their massed troops get gunned down in every battle in pursuit of victory. And pay no mind to the fact that NINE OUT OF EVERY TEN Nazis were killed by the Russians.

So - the importance of Stalingard - Erickson treats it so highly that the planning and carryingout of the offensive takes up a lot of space and importance in the bok. Fact is, oly the first half of th battle is even INTHIS BOOK. SInce this book is titled The Road to Stalingrad, it stops the moment the Russian pincers close around the kessel. The next book - which I immed. picked up when I finished the 1st volume - walked out of Lanigans w/ my newpour on my desk ...er, table- threw the just cmpleted volume ontot he front seat and picked up the new volume. Have only read the frst few pages, but it's good.

And that thrilling rush to finish the book. It took a long time to finally get the hang of reading it - so dense - but again the end was a race. It was all concerned about that operation and the planning of it and the readying of it and all that ... pages after pages - and when it all comes down - meaning when the artillery finally fires on the preadvance bombardment - Exciting.

Funny too - @ NIU, when my assignments were to read book after book and have meetings w/ teachers to discuss "what's it all about??", I developed the habit of penning in notes, underlines, numbers etc etc etc- anything to annotate the important stuff. I generally just underline these days, and all the way through Road to Stalingrad there are penned in underlines. However, when the artillery finally went off, i wrote in "finally" next to that section.

Here, however, is my favourite section of the book. It is the exact moment of genesis of the whole idea of a Stalingrad counteroffensive. The backdrop is that the Germans, in the second year of the German Russian war, had a giant offensive in the South. The Germans entered the city of Stalingrad and for several months the city was a most horrendous scene of destruction. This was the period of the war when the Germans could still mass troops, so both sides kept throwing troops into the city. @ the beginning, it just looked bad for the Russians - the Germans had pushed and separated the Russians defending the city - and the Russians were desperate for some solution. So - the big guys meet:

What, then, does the Stalingrad Front need to break through the German 'corridor' and link up with the South- Eastern Front, Stalin asked. Zhukov replied: at least one fully reinforced field army, a tank corps, three tank brigades, and no less than 400 howitzers, plus nothing short of one fully concentrated air army. Vasilevskii agreed with this estimate. Stalin at this point picked up his own map with the location of the Stavaka reserves displayed on it and studied it at lenght. Moving away from the table, Zhukov and Vasilevskii talked quietly between themselves in a corner, saying in effect that another solution would have to be found. Raising his head suddenly, Stalin asked: 'and what does "another" solution mean?' General Zhukov was apparently taken aback tat Stalin had such sharp ears. Stalin continued : 'Go over to the General Staff and think over very carefully indeed what must be done in the Stalingrad area. Think about which troops and which areas they can be drawn from to reinforce the Stalingrad group, but at the same time don't forget the Caucasus Front. We will meet here at 9 o'clock tomorrow evening.' (p. 389 of John Ericksons The Road to Stalingrad.)

Finally, a fight. One of the teachers @ my school. He's a good friend, but he's also The Know it ALL. BCD laughes about one of his buddies - nice guy, too - but his sthicht is all conversations hav to be about Bob Dylan or Ikera Kurasawa and his films. If these two topics are not being discussed - he'll make sure the conversation will make its way around to it. So, my teacher buddy - hes got a similar deal. It's really hard to have any sorta conversation bcause he instantly changes it to something else - and then start to say "See, yr wrong!! Yr wrong" and every time, its NOTHING from what I said. I mean every time, I find myself not being able to carry on w/ a second sentance because he has to change the subjet and ..........

So, lunchenette @ Gilmart, when Iwas trying to talk about this book, of course I couldn't get the second sentance out per usual, and I just told him my deal:

"

Let me speak on my subject - you can get the next minute, but please give me one minute. Shit - you can have the NEXT FIVE MINUTES - just please let me have one uninterrupted minute. And Barbarossa( the book he was presently reading?) Yes, a good book - it was the first book I ever rad on the subjectand started me on this road - but its FIFTYS OLD NOW, AND SHOULDN'T YOU READ SOMETHING WRITTEN IN THE LAST HALF CENTURY - especially since to me all of that during the Cold War written stuff is kinda tainted against the Russians?"

I felt bad. But at least I was able to get my opinion out for once.

people -all - over - the - world

Will be in the Far west subarbs in the AM - boy finally gotta get is haircut for an interview tuesday @ the one and only job (besides anything to do w/ the White Sox, Black Hawks etc...)I really want on Tuesday. So yes, the day I have been waiting for for many years - a job that Im really good @ and that makes me rock, is close. Very close. And I have no idea if I'll get it.

And mind you, for the last three years i have actually been working as a Librarian @the school already for three years. Im well liked by the staff and students and known full well they profit from my presence. I run the girls soccer program and will be w/ the boys in the fall - if all goes right.

BUT - who knows. There is one person who holds my fate - the principal. I will amidt to eddiecurrying favour - trying to- w/ him by being 'seen'. Damn sure he saw me @ Prom, and damn sure he heard me say that "This year a lot more teachers showed up than the last three". But I really hope that the effort and results froom me these past few years will pay off. I have worked hard for the kids - and I guess me as well.

So - a trip west to Aldo's (SOME people actually go by their real name here) to get it chopped - I'll look like im sixteen again. Except being productive, like all my frenz.

The Nite brings a battle tip to the way south subarbs - Joliet. St. Rita in the State championship game. They been in state a lot these past four years - but this is there first final appearance. Rain will abate, I know. Long drive, but not too bad. Probably will take Mayo - nice to get him out of his lonesome existnce. Will bring him to Pignick in Julliet as well - be ready y'all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsOL_nYTmA4

Ah, the Catholic League. Rita is one of those schools where people have a lotta Love for. A girl once told me that her husband went to Rita, but he wasn't one of those guys whose whole existance revolves around that he went to Rita. I'm not that bad - after all there is college, and I DO HAVE A DEGREE FROM NORTHEASTERN ILLIONOIS UNIVERSITY, Y'AL!! But I do love the school. Shit, many years later, and i'm still going to the games.

Anyway, here's the song of the day. Blame PhillyDug-Out for getting me in this mood - he was posting tonnes of disco shit and it clicked me on. So - for Phillydug-out - it's timeto get down.

Warspite.1

Tired of the Jutland stuff, I know. Yesterday ordered Rules of the Game from Borders online - took a long time to order it because I was searching out libraries and etc to find it - but since I asked my sisters not to give me cash but to give me Borders cards so that - when I need a book and my natural cheapness prevents me from buying it - these ease the pain.

Oh - and here is Warspite. Warspite's helm jammed @ Jutland, and did two complete lazy circles betwixt the two battle lines. Shell magnet. After the battle, the oral history of the guys below decks when they came upon deck they were thunderstruck @ the damage done. Warspite had the heaviset armour aroubnd its vitals - but non vital parts had lessor armour. This resulted in the ship - the engaged throughout the battle - have it's lessor armoured parts deeply damage - some parts were just blow overboard. Yet as a fighting ship, it almost lasted the whole show. No, not sink - just there came a time when its speed was so reduced that it had to limp out of there because it couldn't keep up w/ the rest of the fleet.

Above are nice drawings of Warspite - one is colour coded to show the damage, the other is closeups of the damage. Just imagine the german shells hitting and damaguing and whining off the armour and ...... ok, that's my job.

Final Four

Haven't been to a Rita baseball game ... well, since I haunt high school campuses i've seen them play by chance a few times. But dose boys are in the Final Four in baseball, and maybe just maybe I should take that ride to joliet and watch the game. Funny - baseball amongst all the spring sports tends to finish last - Im sure a few of the senior Mustangs have greaduated a few weeks ago - just like my nephew was representing his school after he had graduated.

So, odds are I'm going. Gf won't go - since her complete embargo of all Fire, USA, White Sox, Cubs, BlackHawks, Bulls, high school sports, Trivia, or anything to do with either me or my frenz- I know she won't be there.

It'll be like the late 1990's again - me, @ a baseballl game, by myself. Hmm - 1999? Hopefully the Rita kids can play.

Why?

The Times They are a-catching up

I checked - it'd been a full decade plus since I'd read a last Jutland book - but, after my several of posts on the battle - the discovery of a new book that seems what I need to read - and referring to an unread book that' I'd had for several years - well, it was a good weekend, Jutlandbookwise.

It was this review - unearthed while trolling for images of German battlecruisers - that really boiled me to bother about - yes, yet another tome on the fucking subject. Seems the last decade has actually unearthed @ least four works of varying degrees of importance on the subject. I've three under my belt. And then there is that fourth - The Rules of the Game.

I've written on this last week, but I really ran dry the Jutland material in the mid 1980's. It's when I discovered it in my life, and even though that rigorous scouring of all available and non available sources that I wa staught in Grad school wasn't in my house @ the time - but I was so rabid on the subject I bled the undergrad world dry of Jutland material back then.

So - the world moves on, fleet actions slip under thousand plane raids in my personal importance, and a decade has passed. But I was academic enough to realise that from 86-96 or so several things of importance came out. In 1986 - why didn't I read it then? - was when John Campbell's Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting came out. This was the book that is basically a dry recitation of the battle damage inflicted during the battle. There are mini chapters -2 to 3 pages - which narrate the battle - and then 30 pages detailing the shells and the damage done. From this book I delelo[ed a fascination with the reflective abillities of heavy armour - and also discovered that this book is a fucking drag and a chore to read. Seriously - "this shell richocheted off of this deck and then hit ... " Oi. However, it had to be read.

V. E. Tarrant's Jutland: The German Perspective: A New View of the Great Battle. 31 May 1916 was released in 1995 - I got it in that bookstore near the Alimedia Theatre in Oakland - one Cali weekd I saw the book there, and then returning to the Bay Area a few months later (I was always like that - rememebr Vito and Rocky??) I returned and bought it. This book was important because it allowed non German readers to read a lot of revelent shit that hadn't been translated yet. or ever. And guess what- boring as hell. I used to have a bias against German translated into English. But then again, when I developed that idea, it was when I was in my Marx period. W/ Marx, it was so dense - and I just HAD to understand - so I would read and reread and re reread shitloads of MArx - and then read companion books to explain it all to me so I could understand. Again - I had to read it (and it's of course really kool these days to be able to engage in discussions of Paris Manuscpipts 1844, On the Jewish Question, An Introduction to the Critique of Political Phiolsophy, etc etc etc and to actually be able to discuss them - well, if the texts are in front of me ... except for On the Jewish Question - a great title). But THIS BOOK - shite, it was a drag to read - like Marx. Again, the thickness of German was blamed - like Marx - but these days I dunno. I barely remember the book.

And it's funny. This lastw eek I got both dowen fromthe shelves - and they both looked greedily readable. Like Iw ant to marry each book. But I know I domnot want to marry either of those books. There's someone new.

And it's Andrew Gordon's The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command from 1996. From the reviews, it's important and will teach me new things- or will al least slice my attention to things I've never pondered before (IS my hope). It's supposed tobe reading candy - canna put it doen once you sortie w/ it. And, it's something I'm pursuing- no chicago public Library has it, cheap online bookstore diddna have it - but I am getting it.

So cheap am I that it's hard to buy new things. So cheap. Esppecially since as I age and become less of a collector - I relaise that I do not have to own every book i read (Something about a library @ my house and ... I dunno). But to combat this cheapness, i told my sisters to give me Borders cards for xmas-bday whatever. I have $40 worth, and finally I am going to use them. I have to order it online, and it'll take 4-8 weeks to get off backorder - but order it I am. About $25 paperback w/ shipping included after a 25% discount online coupon is used. So I'm getting it.

So, 1986, 1995, and 1996. Oh, last book - the candy i read over the weekend - Is Jutland: Death in the Grey Wastes (2003). I'd gotten this book cheap a few years ago 2d lhand - and Immedialtely shelved it. When I started to write on Jutland last week, I got it down to look, feel, smell, touch it - and before long, iwas devouring it. The weekend. Compulsive. Ittaught me new things. It fired me for more reading on Jutland. And - it's a simple oral history. No chapters on why Jellicoe was right, or Beatty was right, or whatever - just the sailors (And,f rom time to time, Jellicoe and Scheer etc) telling their story. The book is outstanding.

So - a fire again on warships from world war one. Whn I should be concentrating on all the news tuff on Russia.

well, where ever the wind .... and now, the wiond blows over the North Sea. And no - I do not know anyhting obout Distant Victory, the 2006 book on jutland ... yet.

Saw "Apocalypto" last nite. HAd to worry - sick Mother has low rate of 'violence allowance' and was cursing me and my future spawn because of the movie - but not only was it good, it wasn't actually that violent. Sure, a heart ripped out or what- but not too bad.

Good to go see.

Titanic

Only today did it all fall apart. Finals were last week, and only the really geeky kids are coming in this week - and come they did until earlier today, when the year finally broke. Suddenly, kids could walk the halls. Teachers said "yeah whatever' to kids who said "Can I stay in that class this period since no one is here?". In years past, @ schools described as ghetto, the halls would be clear a week ago. This school is really nice, so kids came - of course, until today.

But again, today was the day - finally - that, in the "Titanic"* sense, things fell apart. So today has been an endless progression of walking through empty halls, having 2-3 kids in each class - shoot, it's 9th, and I want to take a walk to see the desolation....

The song that is going through my head is that old The Sound Of Philadelphia song "It's time to get down."

The good/bad news this summer is that I will NOT be a summer school teacher teaching english - although I willbe working. I'm gonna get maybe 12h/wk having fun - a summer intro program for new freshmen. There will be four soccer coaches on staff, so a real big deal for us is to try and get the good kids before anyone else does. Ergo, four of us out of maybe 15 teachers in the summer program. I will amidt that although I wanted to do the english thing this summer ....

pero tambien.

Used to be when Iw as a regular old classroom teacher i'd put up a sign on the door and tell the one kid whow as gonna show up to go to whatever room I was hanging out w/ my teacher frenz @.

**********************************************************

*=In the movie - a fave of mine yes - one of the two bad guys, when the ship is sinking, tells the other that 'things are beginning to fall apart' on the ship and they better be prepared to leave. Stuck w/ me.

Fleet Action is Imminant

the Time nor the Place

End of the year, Friday and not a kid nor a teacher in the place - well - and me rocking tunes out. "Browneyed Handsome Man" by Chuck Berry comes on, and me walking does a bit of air guitar on at the riff and suddenly realise - shit, I'm air-guitarring Keith!! -

Our influences, noticed by others ...

Kennel District

Somesongs

just remind you of a broken heart,

way back then,

yet they're such good songs.

Then there is

"When u were mine"

by Prince.

This song just reminds me of dansing.

Context, the dang king, huh?