I am sitting in a small crowded conference room with my colleagues, listening to a job candidate tell us about his cutting edge research--high-powered social software-ish important-to-the-discipline stuff much like what Collin does.
As I listen, I am inexorably drawn to the notebook computer at my right elbow. First I peek at the candidate's website. I find it to be just as impressive as you would expect. I am ashamed of my own comparatively puny accomplishments. Then I remember an assessment report that is overdue. As the job candidate regales my colleagues with witty tales of theorists I don't recognize, I hastily tap out a sentence or two and click submit. Whew! I push the keyboard away and focus once more on the candidate.
Attention turns to me. "Dr. Young, would you ask the last question of our candidate?" I demur, but my colleagues insist, "No, you really need to ask a question. This is the last time we'll have together."
I try and fail to remember something, anything, of the preceding conversation. Nothing comes to mind. I stammer the only question I can think of: "How do you involve the writing center in your composition teaching?"
"Are you serious? That's your question?" the candidate demands. "I just answered that two minutes ago."
"I'm sorry, I must have zoned out for a minute," I say. "Could you just give a brief recap?"
As the candidate and my colleagues glare disgustedly at me, I realize that I have exposed myself as a rude, ignorant fraud. Not only have I lost the respect of my colleagues, I have probably cost our department the candidate too. Even if we still manage to hire him, he will never want to collaborate with me. Why oh why did I start using that computer during the interview?
Then, I woke up.
It is so totally unfair to be humiliated like that in my own dream.
"I made a J for you, Daddy!" said Amelia.
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