Posted 10:17 PM by Ben
I got the job.

I got the job.

I got the job.

Do you want details? I spent all day at work calling my voicemail to see if Alachua County had left a message for me. No dice. My mood got worse and worse and I got increasingly more frustrated with the whole thing.

I finished at 4:30 and tried checking my messages again. It didn't work, so I called Alachua County, who told me that Eastside High hadn't made their decision yet. Still alive.

I checked my messages again. This time it worked but the mailbox was cluttered with old messages. It asked if I wanted to delete message 16, which I assumed was old. I deleted it.

On a whim, I ran through my messages again. Turns out message sixteen -- now inaccessible to me, gone forever -- was from Eastside High School. I frantically called Eastside, where I was vaguely told that I probably had the job. They promised to call me back as soon as they knew.

More waiting. I called Eastside at 5 and nobody picked up. Presumably they'd all gone home. This is the same school that's made me wait an hour and forty minutes for an interview and scheduled another interview without telling me. Disappointed but not surprised, I gave up for the day.

At 5:30 I was talking to my mom when a call came through. "Ben, you're it." I was put through to the principal, who asked if I'd put on my game face and come through for the team. I said I would.

::Deep breath:: I'll go into the lessons I've learned next time around. For now, I feel good and can sleep easy tonight. Thanks for your prayers, thanks for reading, and have a good night.

Posted 11:08 PM by Ben
A crazy, crazy day. First off, thanks to Evan and Rachel for coming up on Sunday and visiting. It was great seeing both of them -- I appreciate the food, the Wu-Tang DVD, and especially the advice and general talking. Two wonderful people.

So this was a big day. My second interview at Eastside High. They said they liked me a lot. They showed me around and previewed some textbooks for me. They said they'd make their decision by the end of the day. Of course, they were full of crap. But that's okay. There's always tomorrow.

I got everyone's hopes up at work. Even I was dancing around, thinking I was hired for sure. And I still might be! But I am back into The Waiting and that is just the shittiest part.

Was that a Tom Petty reference? Fuck Tom Petty. He went to Howard Bishop Middle School and Howard Bishop Middle School didn't want to hire me. My web of hatred is growing. I'm even conjuring up a mild dislike for Kevin Bacon, and that's sure to get worse.

After the interview I raced to work, changed in the car, availed myself of the facilities at Publix (as Katie's mom would say, Too Much Information!), and dishwashed for the rest of the day. Thanks to my short haircut, I have been renamed Seargent Suds. Whether this is a step up from SuperBen, Defender of the Dishroom has yet to be seen.

Actually, I appreciate the nicknames -- they mean people are thinking about me. I stick out in some way and that can't be bad.

After work, I met Katie at my apartment. She's the newest resident of Gainesville. Today was the end of the long distance phase of our relationship. RIP 6/20/00 - 8/4/03. I made the six-hour trip to Miami at least 30 times since the fall of 2000, and she made the trip up plenty too. No more. I guess this is pretty historic.

We're not at the new apartment yet, but she's sleeping in my bed right now. I couldn't be happier about it :).

Her parents took us to a really nice dinner at Leonardo's 706 here in Gainesville. And I saw our new apartment for the first time. It's going to be a blast living there.

Pray for my employment. Many thanks to Tricia, who has been praying in my favor for a while.

Have a good night, everyone. Tomorrow I get the job. I just know it. I've gotten my hopes up enough and tomorrow it is going to happen. Sleep well and thanks for reading.