job hunt: chaos!

It's a bit after midnight right now. The alarm goes off at 4:45 AM so we can get to the Saturday sangha program, but it has been a crazy week and I am all wound up, even after 35 minutes of zazen (which I'll do again after I write this). I skipped sitting this morning, otherwise I might have better noticed how active my mind has been, and I might have decided against that iced mocha in between interviews this afternoon.

Here's my week. Bear in mind that for any interview stuff, I spend a day or two getting ready, instead of reading or doing whatever I'd like to do. And the interview really breaks up the day, because I don't want to be distracted by running errands beforehand, and I usually need to decompress afterward.

Monday

• Interview in SF.
• Give my dharma talk.

Tuesday

• Phone call about the sudden new opportunity of Mountain View #2.

Wednesday

• Job offer from San Francisco. Recruiter gets all snippy at me when I don't accept immediately. I have a negative emotional reaction to the recruiter, and try not to transfer it to the company.
• Casual interview with a couple of the tech guys at MV #2, to see which of 2 jobs I should be applying for. Didn't realize this would count as an interview, really.

Thursday

• Free! Except for prepping for Friday's interviews. I went to my favorite bar, did a little reading, but mostly had a couple drinks and hung out with some nice geeks from Electronic Arts.
• Discover, with tremendous surprise, that there are a couple decent duplexes, at reasonable prices, in a neighborhood where I would actually want to live, and the mortgage payment could be 60% of the rent we're looking to pay (and the rents would pretty much cover that). The idea of buying a house in the midst of all this other life change, let alone being a landlord, is insane. And yet. And yet. Things will settle a bit once I have a job, and then...

Friday

• Interview at Mountain View #1, 10 AM - 1:30 PM, then chat with the hiring manager for a bit.
• Meet the founder/CTO and VP of Engineering for Mountain View #2.

The round today with MV #1 went very well, and I know the boss wants to hire me, so I'm expecting at least a verbal offer on Monday.

I met with the MV #2 higher-ups today to clear up exactly what job they want me for, and unfortunately, it sounds pretty awesome. Exactly the sort of situation I'd been planning to look for, in fact, though not necessarily right now, when my technical skill is still coming out of hibernation. But apparently, here it is! Now I have to deal with it. I'm interviewing with 3 final people on Monday, and then they'll let me know quickly. (And, with great gratitude, that should be my last job interview for this job hunt.)

One bit of clarity I've come to is that I will decline San Francisco if MV #1 or MV #2 makes me an offer. Deciding between the two Mountain View jobs would be a good--phenomenal, really--problem to have, but very difficult. I'll lay out the pros and cons in another post.

I am mentally exhausted. A morning of Zen stuff is exactly what I need.

mid-week check-in

This morning was supposed to be mellow, with C taking a test, and while they did that, I thought I would finesse the plans for G, H, and the English Club. Except, surprise! Some of the class needed to stay in their classroom to finish the prep for their acto, and did I have stuff I could do with the remainder? Who were, of course, not quite the usual Wednesday group, so they're not all at the same place, and the chemistry was different.

Daily life here resists finding a routine.

It's not been one of those enjoying-teaching weeks, which is okay. Anna's visit made me more conscious of how much energy I'm putting into making things work as it is; which is to say, all of it. The reason I watch TV and eat cookies when I get home is because that's what I have space for. I could stand to socialize a bit more, especially with Chileans, and I need to direct some more effort toward lesson materials prep. It's especially hard to find energy for socializing, because I spend my entire day dealing with people, often in challenging Spanish, and after that I mostly want to wander off into some cool, shaded little hole and not talk to anyone.

Some things about me are changing, and others aren't. But what do I know? Someone once asked a teacher at Zen Center what happens when we sit zazen, and the teacher said, "You can't possibly know."

I'm not really happy with the lesson I'm teaching this week, but I'm still dealing with the tail end of my cold, my girlfriend just left the continent, bitch and moan, bitch and moan, I haven't taken the hours to fix the lesson even though it's entirely in my power to do so. I'm short-changing both me and my students, in a way. Then again, I'm not pushing myself beyond my ability to manage my mood, and that's good for everyone, too. Is that, in fact, more important?

Ain't nothing simple, eh?

I miss aikido. I may take a bus in to Santiago on Friday afternoon, train at Aikido Hakusan, train again midday Saturday, and then come home. That somewhat optimistically assumes that after a couple months of sporadic exercise and a week of being sick, I'm in good enough shape to do consecutive two-hour classes. Aim high!

40 minutes. one pose. go!

I read Zen teacher Brad Warner's blog, because he's reasonably funny, and while in writing he often comes off as being insecure about his writing, and trying to sound like an edgy jerk to make up for it, I think he knows his stuff (and he's more confident and relaxed in the videos I've seen of him talking). And every now and again we get a gem like this:

"Lately when I give instructions in zazen I've taken to describing what I do as being like a yoga class in which there is only one asana and you hold it for-fucking-ever."

I love this, because it's true. The zazen posture is a yoga posture, even in its variations for those of us who don't like a full lotus. (I can do it, but then nerves get pressed and my leg goes, not asleep, but actually numb and I can't move it.) I noticed last year that as much as I rely on zazen to stretch out my mind somehow, I also rely on it to stretch out my body. If I get to do my usual morning sitting, my mind has already run through most of the nonsense I would have brought into that day, and my muscles have stretched and relaxed into their natural states. (Well. So has my mind.) It's a physical practice, which it has to be, because your body isn't something separate from you; you're not some independent thing inhabiting a container made of meat. You are the container of meat. (Along with a lot of other things. The important part is to note that you are not one thing in particular; there's not a single essential thing that you could point to and say "That's what I am." Go ahead and look for it. I can wait.)

You! Meat container! You should go sit zazen!

Yeah. I dunno either.