I guess if you’ve been paying attention, you’ve noticed that most of the photos I’ve posted recently have been of signs. Signs, signs, wherever I look. Big signs, small signs, commercial signs, hand-made signs; advertising, promoting, accusing, demanding. They’re everywhere!

So, I’m thinking: aren’t there signs made not of solid matter, but rather more like “signals from the universe”?

What’s going on? There are “signs” in my life that seem to be pointing in a positive direction. And it’s happening rather all of a sudden. I had those two interviews the week before last (and I’m still waiting to hear back about results and/or next steps). Now, as of this afternoon, I have three more scheduled in the next three weeks: for an associate dean position (Salem, OR), a vice president position (Aberdeen, WA), and a vice chancellor position (San Mateo, CA). The latter is with the San Mateo County Community College District (Bay Area), the place where I came in a close second for a dean’s position during fall term (and where I made a good impression and some friends, I think).

With all this interviewing activity, aren’t the chances pretty good that there will be some place that will fit? (One would think…!)

I’m choosing to believe that all these invitations are a good sign.

And it certainly feels better to be popular than not!

Soundtrack Suggestion

And the sign said “Long-haired freaky people need not apply”
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said “You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you’ll do”
So I took off my hat, I said “Imagine that. Huh! Me workin’ for you!”
Whoa-oh-oh

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?

(“Signs” – Five Man Electrical Band)

“Spring in the world!
And all things are made new!”
(Richard Hovey)

This is the week of spring break, or at least it’s the week of our spring break here in Oregon (for the public colleges and universities, that is). Not all colleges in the country take a break at the same time, of course: the sunny vacation spots and airlines couldn’t handle it! This time of year certainly makes me think of taking a trip – namely one for fun and not one where I’m someplace merely to interview. Two years ago in March, I took a day trip to the Oregon coast and visited Mo’s (see above) in Newport. I also made another trip that month up to Bellingham, WA, during spring break week and had a spectacularly good time there, on the ferry ride, and in Port Townsend.

Typically, too, during this time of the year, I try and attend to the “spring cleaning” ritual. I clean house more thoroughly than I normally do, the car gets special attention, and, now that I’m in living in a house, I decide what to do with the yard.

This year, all that seems so senseless. The sale of the house closes this week, I’m told, and I will have a new landlord I have never met and whose name I do not even know. What is constantly in my awareness is that I need to vacate these premises by the end of June.

Why put any effort into cleaning right now at all? There’s no reason, actually, so I guess this place will just get dirtier and messier until it’s time to for me to pack up and leave. It’s not the way I’m inclined to live, but there are just so many more important things to pay attention to at the moment.

Maybe we all should be thinking of other, larger-scale tasks, instead. Let’s bring some newness to the world by making it a better place?

● By removing the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan?

● By sweeping the likes of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld from the West Wing and the Pentagon?

● By upgrading voting machines in places like Florida and Ohio?

● By replacing the current occupants of various statehouses with more effective ones?

● By building voter confidence in government enough so that tax measures would/could be passed that are adequate to meet state and local needs?

Yes, there are lots of ways that this season of renewal could be used. How about some fragrant blossoms of universal peace and enlightenment?

I believe I have taken a picture of this sign at the Oregon Country Fair every year I’ve been there. I love its color and texture. Will I have a schedule allowing my attendance there this summer?

I wonder what life is to bring me in the next few months. I have a temporary job and am furiously looking for a new one. My rental house is being sold out from under me. I have experienced rejection and displacement. I must find my way away from here, but what that means, exactly, I don’t know.

Right now, it seems that my total focus is looking for work. (Some might argue that blogging is right up there on my priority list, too.) The actual process of seeking a different domicile has not yet commenced, as I hope to combine that with a new job and city. I spend weekends preparing job applications, and every single vacation day doing interviews. My expanding list of physical symptoms of stress have led to regular doctor appointments, and now even more-frequent acupuncture treatments.

The scariest physical symptom I’ve experienced, so far, is the development, ten months ago, of tingling and numbness in my left foot and toes. If one can give any credence to the “illness as metaphor” perspective, then what interpretation might apply here?

I am numbed-out? I am unfeeling? Part of me is asleep? I am frozen? I am burning up inside? Part of me is dead? I am damaged? My nerves are frazzled? I’ve taken a misstep? I need to tread lightly? I need to walk away? I’ve stretched myself too far? I have a hole in my sole (soul)? I need to realign my qi? I need to find someplace warmer? I need someone to give me a foot massage?

What can this possibly be about?

To mark the occasion of the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, two days ago I was part of a contingent of approximately ten thousand who gathered in downtown Portland on a bright, sunny, spring-like Sunday afternoon to rally for peace. It was the largest demonstration I had ever been part of.

I admit that I use the term “rally for peace” quite purposefully. To label this a “war protest” would be a mischaracterization, I believe.

Let me elaborate...

I lived through the Sixties. (And, yes, I actually remember them.) As a young man who turned the draft-eligible age of 18 in 1965, I knew that, quite literally, my life was on the line with practically every personal decision. After high school, I made the choice to go to college – admittedly as much to earn a student deferment as an education.

College campuses then were much different than they are today, and often known for their level of anti-war activity. Students – we – knew what war was, were able to view its horrors on television every evening, and (the males at least) were acutely aware of the fate that awaited us should we cease to be students. Campuses were home for “the movement.”

And, by the time this massive social movement generated most of its heat, in the late Sixties and early Seventies, organized protests were serious, intensely-emotional experiences. Thousands and thousands of young American men had lost their lives, and there seemed to be no end to the slaughter. We, the country, increasingly (yes, I know, it took several years, and it was never a consensus view) deemed Vietnam an unjust war, entered in to illegally, and perpetuated by leaders who lied to the country about its origin and purpose. And, no exit strategy was in sight.

(My, how times have changed, eh?)

Candidate Richard Nixon’s “secret plan to end the war” was seductive, and served to dupe the electorate enough to get him elected President in 1968. But, of course, there was no such plan, and by November 1969, protests reached massive proportions; a march on Washington, D.C., (the largest ever, I believe) that month attracted over 250,000 emotional, highly-motivated participants. Then, on May 4, 1970, four students were killed at Kent State University as they raised their voices in opposition to Nixon’s decision to invade Vietnam’s neighbor, Cambodia.

The demonstrations I participated in, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Corvallis, Oregon, were less dramatic than those, but still, certainly, intense. For example, I remember standing, for the most of one entire night, outside the county courthouse in Eau Claire listening to the reading of the names of war dead. And, even in sleepy, conservative Corvallis, I witnessed acts of civil disobedience during this period.

My point is: the anti-war movement, back then, involved actual protest. My sense of what goes on now, and, regrettably how I experienced the event on Sunday, was that we (and I’ll include myself) engaged in a social gathering as much as a “protest.” Yes, it was a rally. Yes, there were speeches and inflammatory rhetoric. Yes, there were placards with serious messages, some of them quite outrageous and irreverent. Yes, there were marching and chanting. (“What do we want? PEACE! When do we want it? NOW!”) Yes, there was plenty of that typical protest-like activity.

But, did the event seem oriented toward effecting change? To me: no. It simply didn’t have that feel. Rather, it reminded me of a retro theme party. There were many, many of us (yes, again, I’m guilty) with still- and video-cameras, engaged in a party-picture kind of enterprise, posing for photos, while with friends and/or holding signs. There were families and others congregated into small groups. There were dogs and Frisbees. There were information tables and pamphlets. There were commercially-made flags and other artifacts, likely ordered from internet sources. And everyone had a cell phone. Geeesssh.

OK: bottom line, here’s what I miss. The outrage. I want us, the American people, collectively, to be incredibly angry about the meaningless large-scale loss of life in a part of the world where we really have no legitimate business. I want us to be incensed about the erosion of our civil liberties. I want to hear of our insistence on being told the truth. I want a gathering of this magnitude to mean something: to be acknowledged as part of a nationwide effort to change the direction of the morally-bankrupt regime in, and agenda that we now have coming from, Washington, D. C.

I want peace. And, I want it now.

Yup: I made it to Corvallis, to Bend, and back. I’m exhausted but alive and well. It’s amazing how much living can be packed into a few short days should the opportunity present itself. My brain is abuzz with things to talk about.

Ah, where to start? Maybe with a list of topic possibilities, such as: the pleasing size of my tax refund?; the car/bicycle accident I witnessed in Corvallis?; an extremely rare ex-wife sighting?; how my body was reacting to the stress of this most-recent interview experience on Thursday morning?; how I played with my water-bottle cap during part of my interview time in Corvallis?; the drive across the mountains, particularly the blinding snow, rain, and hail storms I experienced (successively, not all at the same time) late yesterday afternoon?; or the state of exhaustion I felt last night after being “on” for five straight hours during interviews, then immediately driving four hours to get home?

I could probably write a decent little blog-entry essay on any of those topics. And, it’s possible I will. But of course, the heart of this week’s experience was the OSU interview. And, believe it or not, as I write this today, I’m struggling with the inclination to hold back in discussing the last two days’ events.

The Central-Oregon-based Oregon State University position I interviewed for, if I were selected, would quite likely make me a public or semi-public figure in Bend. There will surely be an article in the Bend Bulletin about the position and the successful candidate, whoever that is. So, I can’t help thinking: my name would be announced; somebody, likely the newspaper, would Google me; and here’s TechnoMonk’s Musings: my personal life totally on display for all the world to see. I haven’t kept too many secrets here! (Ohmygod! Maybe I should have thought of this earlier?!)

Well, I guess the reason this is even in my head, is that I believe the interview process went quite well. I walked away yesterday with the sense, and still feel today, that my performance was exceptional (if I do say so myself) and that I made a compelling case why I should be the successful candidate.

So there.

At this point, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to go into any of the real details of the process or the personalities involved. Well, other than to say that they certainly did structure an experience designed to get to know their candidates. I’m pretty sure they have an excellent sense of me, anyway.

One little story might not hurt, though. As I was attempting to answer one of the questions posed by a committee member in Bend yesterday, I was talking away…and talking and talking. I went on for maybe three or four minutes (that’s a guess), and then, smiling at the group, I finally stopped myself. I said, “well, you know, I’ve been told that I’m really pretty good at giving ‘policy-speak’ kind of responses – you know, the kind of political non-answer answer that sounds good but just doesn’t really say anything? I think maybe I’m doing that here and should probably stop.” It got a little chuckle from the group, and the mayor of Bend made an observation, something to the effect, that given my skill in this area, perhaps I should run for Governor?

So, there was a little time for a touch of humor in the midst of much seriousness.

I’m told that Bend, Oregon gets, on average, about 300 days of sunshine a year. Even though I’d have to buy snow tires, I could probably handle that. 

Soundtrack Suggestion

Here comes the sun

Here comes the sun, and I say

It's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun

Here comes the sun, and I say

It's all right…

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say

It's all right

Here comes the sun

Here comes the sun, and I say

It's all right

It's all right

(“Here Comes the Sun” – George Harrison)