Murder!
Tonight, Mom and I went to see a production by the Clayton Community Theater of Agatha Christie's Mousetrap. 
Although I've read the play twice, I have never had the opportunity until now of seeing it performed. I rather enjoyed the show, although it went on a little longer than I had expected. The theater, which is located at Clayton High School, where I substitute teach quite often, was in the round, so that the audience was on all four sides of the set, with no walls separating the cast from the spectators. The actors entered and exited the stage through the corners of the room, which were contrived to look like doorways or staircases.
On a side note, after discussing my summer camp situation with a fellow Famous Eagle staffer tonight, I am almost certainly decided towards working at Philmont this summer. Here's a picture of the cabin at Sawmill Camp where I'll be staying.
Back in the Saddle Again!
Well, after a two-week forced hiatus, I once again earned a little bit of pocket money today by substitute teaching. The two weeks of vacation were rather relaxing, even if I didn't accomplish anything of note, but it gave me some peace of mind to know that I might actually receive a paycheck of real substance from the Clayton School District on May 20; I'm just worried that the paycheck I'll get on April 20 for the month of March will be puny. If I want to go with Tempe & Ben and my Venturing Crew to Shiloh on Memorial Day Weekend, we're talking $80.00, or if I want to attend Pi Pi Rho and Alpha Phi Omega Spring Weekends, April 26-28 and May 3-5, respectively, at Current River in the Ozarks, those will easily run between forty and fifty dollars apiece. I do know that I'm booked to sub again on Friday, which is reassuring.
Today I substitute taught for a band teacher at Wydown Middle School in Clayton. Basically, all I had to do was to put tapes of Fantasia 2000 and Great Moments of the Ed Sullivan Show into a VCR and press play, but as always, crowd control and class discipline were my primary responsibilities. For some reason, I just had an extremely low tolerance for disrespectful behavior and disruptive activities today, and sent three students down to the front office to sit there for the rest of the class period under the watchful eyes of the school secretaries. I felt a little ashamed when the sub whom I was working with, who was skinny as a rail as it was, told me that all he was having for lunch was a Slim-Fast, after I had let him know that my lunch plans involved a trip to the Schnucks nearby to buy a chicken club wrap. Go figure. I'll try to resume my diet in earnest in a day or so.
Lucky Jim is turning out to be as funny as I had hoped. I really sympathize with Dixon, and can quite easily picture myself getting into the sorts of scrapes that seem to be continually plaguing him. I hope to lie down to read it for at least two uninterrupted hours tonight. Ben and Tempe, thank you again for buying it for me for Easter. For any curious readers, check out the previous entry for a link to the Masterpiece Theatre page discussing its production of Lucky Jim back in February.
Lastly, I seriously discussed working on the Philmont staff yesterday with my Scoutmaster, Tom Coscia, and a friend from Troop 21, Andy Paster, who worked at Philmont himself in 1998, when he was 29. I didn't even expect to receive a Philmont contract, because even though I had submitted an application back in September, I had told Tom not to bother mailing in the letter of recommendation form required for my application to be considered. However, last Thursday, a contract to work as a Program Counselor at Sawmill Camp, the only staffed camp in Philmont's Backcountry to offer 30-.06 rifle shooting as a program, arrived in my mailbox. If I plan on accepting this contract, or even if I will end up turning it down, they'd like to know by April 10, so I've got to make up my mind soon. The bind that I'm in has arisen because about a month ago, I returned a signed contract to work as the Older Boy Program Director at Camp Famous Eagle this summer to my council director of camping, Pat Martchink. I didn't particularly want this job, so I won't feel much guilt if I do back out, especially if my reason was to work at Philmont, but I have committed myself. However, I cannot help the fact that my Philmont contract arrived so late in the season, and this is an opportunity that I'm not sure that I'd like to pass up. As Mom said, what we regret later in life are the chances we haven't taken. I have to admit, money aside, I am leaning towards accepting the Philmont offer. I'll announce my final decision with much fanfare here in a few days.
Grad School Application Process B.S.
I had the most unpleasant experience of this whole wretched saga occur to me today. The department chair of a certain state university, located somewhere roundabouts Northern Illinois, out-and-out insulted me in an e-mail response today. I had applied to this program, which is only an M.A. program at that (keep in mind that I have been accepted into three Philosophy Ph.D. programs thus far), and found out on March 21 that I had been accepted. I discovered this by calling the school myself on that day to check on the status of my application. The staff at the Graduate School said that my file had been sent over to the appropriate department, and connected me to the department secretary. She informed me that the chair of the dept. had just signed off on my application, meaning that I was admitted. I thought that it would be crass to inquire about financial aid at that point, so I didn't.
Lo and behold, what do I get on the following Tuesday, but an e-mail from the department chair letting me know that the Graduate Committee has already held its first round of discussions regarding to which admitted applicants to award teaching assistantships, last Friday (March 22), and that I was ineligible to be considered at this time because a sample of my philosophical writing was missing from my file. I could remedy this by sending via e-mail, faxing, or mailing him my writing sample, so that I could be considered in the next round.
Well, earlier that day, in light of the fact that I still had not heard from a significant number of the programs to which I had applied, I had called all these schools once again to check on the status of my applications on file with them. I was rather frustrated to find that one school which had been in possession of my application for close to two months had yet to act upon it, because one letter of recommendation, out of all the materials they had requested, was still missing. The situation with this school, and then with the unspecified state university in Northern Illinois, had me slightly steamed, and after trying to distract my mind with other activities, I felt that I had to write to both of these schools, and let my feelings be known in a reasonable and civil, but nonetheless plainly dissatisfied, manner. I responded to this e-mail, telling the chair that I was perplexed as to why, when his school had had my application for close to a month, someone could not have checked my application earlier, seen that I was interested in a teaching assistantship but was missing a necessary item for such a position, and contacted me earlier so that I could have submitted it sooner. I let him know that I felt that this was something that the admissions staff at the Graduate School of his university or the Graduate Committee of his department should look for when applications first arrive. I also remarked how promptly the school had cashed the check for my application fee.
Perhaps I'll discuss the situation with the second school, located somewhere in Kansas (which was favorably resolved), at a later date, but I would like to tackle the issue with the former program now, which led to the altercation today. After a blissful nine days of vacation, as all of the schools I substitute teach for were on Spring Break, I expected to be called this morning for work. When no call was forthcoming, I slept in, and waking up around 8:30, went to check my e-mail. There was a solitary message in my Inbox from the chair of this department with the M.A. program, whom I will hereafter refer to as "Dr. Pigment." He informed me that as he had been attending a conference, he had only recently gotten the opportunity to check his e-mail. He quoted one sentence of my e-mail from last week which read to the effect that "If I had read the fine print more closely, I probably wouldn't be in this situation." His words were "I agree with that statement." The prententious asshole then went on to suggest that my reading skills were not up to par with what was expected from the students in his program, that I was receiving special treatment as it was, because my application had come in after the March 1 deadline, and that it was still incomplete (not bothering to tell me what was missing this time).
Well, I tried calling his office, but the same departmental secretary I had spoken with before told me that he was out until 2:00, and that he didn't have voicemail...yeah. I then proceeded to write one of the most irate e-mails I have ever composed, letting this punk know that I found his e-mail rude and offensive, that my reading skills were not at issue, or I wouldn't have the kickass GRE scores that he had a report of in my file, that no other school to which I had applied was missing any application materials for which I was personally responsible, and that as I had mailed off the application to his program on February 21, I refused to accept the idea that it had arrived late. I went one step further, one which I half-heartedly regret, and told him that there was no way I could see myself in his program (which was not high on my list of choices anyhow), and that I would let several of my friends throughout the state of Illinois know about this lousy treatment, and would encourage them to spread the word about it, and to discourage others from applying there.
The sleazebag, Dr. Pigment, hasn't responded yet, and probably won't. No loss. I just regret my action if he should try to somehow blacklist me in academic and philosophic circles. I honestly don't see that I have done anything legally wrong, certainly not libelous, slanderous, etc., but I never like being threatened, and I'm not particularly proud of having made a threat myself. However, this guy needs to be taught a lesson in humility, and while I might not be that teacher, I can hope and pray to God that he gets a real come-uppance one of these days for his excessive pride. All I can say is that the worry that haunted me throughout the day when the potential ramifications of my e-mail had gotten through to me was punishment enough, and I will do my best to never again shoot first and ask questions later. Talking to my dad did reassure me somewhat, and his take on this guy and his program did much to set my mind at ease by putting Dr. Pigment in a more pragmatic perspective.
On a lighter note, I received some wonderful gifts from my family for Easter yesterday, which were just what I had wanted. This year, as so many of us are trying to avoid unnecessary candy, we decided to simply exchange small gifts, like a mini-Christmas. I got three books: Xenophon's Persian Expedition (Anabasis), Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition from Penguin), and Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim. I also got the Diagon Alley starter deck of Harry Potter cards. We watched some Special Features on Giles's new Glory Collector's Edition DVD, Mallrats, and The Godfather, played SET, and baked a pineapple upside-down cake (defeating the purpose of the candy-less Easter). Still a fun day spent with my family.
