Beautiful Harbor

Tomorrow's July 4, and I don't know what I'll do. I'm so bored that I may just head over to one of the casinos in Vicksburg for the first time in almost five years.

Midweek holidays are a bummer. It's not worth it to travel to Hattiesburg just for the day. I don't know what's happening in Jackson tomorrow. I emailed friends and didn't get a response, which is why I'm thinking: Casino.

I've been going through my messages in my yahoo account. I had forgotten that I set up a gmail account some two years ago, and it's still active. I suppose I should make use of it.

When I found out that I wouldn't be offered a position at an institution some three months ago, a friend asked me if I would be ever be interested in a job at another college. I said I wouldn't. My impression was that she didn't seem to think it would be a big deal to apply for a job there.

Well, today I received an email message regarding a vacant position at the college she mentioned, and if I did apply it would be a promotion. However, I'm not interested, and to be frank, even if I were, I know I wouldn't be considered.¹ I wouldn't want decision makers at the college in question to think of me after I read the job announcement.²

I think I'm heading over to Don's or perhaps Martin's. Maybe I'll see friends who'll know if there's anything going on tomorrow that might be of interest to me because let's face it, going solo to a casino on a holiday is just pathetic.

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¹In order to be considered, a candidate would have to provide an explanation of interest in Christian higher education, list a senior pastor among the references (who even if I did regularly attend church would be unqualified to pass judgment about my work as a librarian unless, of course, the pastor happened to possess a master's degree in library science), and include a statement of personal faith and how it applies to Christian academic libraries. This college has one of the most restrictive job announcements I've ever read, and I've read thousands of them and applied for hundreds of positions after I earned my MLIS degree.

²The vacancy is at an institution that has a student, faculty, and administrative population from what I understand to be very conservative and very religious, and as I previously blogged: ...I've had past experiences with institutional religion that were too negative. Partly it's because I consider myself to be pretty rational. One consequence of my rationalism is that overly emotional appeals (e.g., political, sports, and religious) to me don't work. Also I've had interactions with some Christians who verbally tried very intensively to convince me to attend church and wound up being insulting towards me.

When responding to such tactics, I usually ignore people who practice them, which has often infuriated said people. At any rate, I've not considered myself welcome in church in years.