Interviews and Confessions
yesterday i officially started the 2006 job interview season. i had my first scheduled interview and after that decided to call up the one firm which said they wanted to meet but did not state a time yet and got an interview slot with them later in the afternoon. was i nervous? hmmm, i don't really think nervous is the right word, more just concerned. i knew i had practiced enough with thoughtful answers although in either interview, none of those questions were really asked in that particular way. i mean, its sort of naive to think that an interview situation would be like some sort of pretyped dialouge following your drafts of answers for certain questions. but it was a good amount of nervousness and in general i didn't find myself stuttering or wavering too much in either interview.
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in general, the first interview went very well....mostly because i think there was a distinct connection between what i could offer and what the firm wanted. it was sort of one of those situations where they basically said, you are just at the right moment in your career and we are at the right moment of our firm development. beyond the basics of what i found was appealing was that they were very candid in stating to me that this is not a begginning position, but an intermediary one, one where i would be directing other people and working more on the client side of things. in essence, i would be working under the director of a practice group...making me in essence, with maybe just a tad of exxageration and over-formality... but an assistant director. not too shabby eh? overall, i was impressed that the company was willing to say... we see you above the "ruffian". hopefully their offer will be commensurate to the perceived enthusiam i saw.
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the second interview didn't go badly. but i don't think it was quite a home run, as the first one felt like. and i think its because there was a initial wrong match in what the firm was and what i wanted to get out of a firm. that's why i wasn't really too perturbed when they didn't seem enthusiastic about either a potential offer or even suggesting that they were looking for people really. reason being, is that despite this firm doing urban design work... they really are a landscape architecture firm instead, and me being a regular architect, there could be some disconnect. and i think they are willing to hire architects, but ones with distinctly more experienced, 8 to 10 years. in short, they are not willing to develop the next generation of principals from someone not of their field to begin with...which is more than understandable. and i think it makes sense for me too... that i want to find some place that is also willing and engaged in "protege-ing" me for me.
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this type of relationship is actually what my boss was speaking of when i talked to her last week. she said that at this point in my life, professionally, i needed to look for position that would put me "on track" towards better things...consciously. i need to be under a senior official who is engaged in passing on their knowledge and experience. otherwise, i'll get loss in the shuffle and have to move up the ladder with a lot of unnecesssary time and legwork. for better or for worse, it is up to who you know... not as a system of privledge, but as a system of efficiency. you still got to, as my mother would say, have stuff in your stomach, but alligning yourself with people who can get you plaes, and proving that you've got the brains and bravado to do so, that's how you make it. haha... before this becomes a self help book, i'll stop there. so all in all, i think i have one more seriously "potential" job offer in hand at the moment. i hope they won;t be scared away by the amount of money i asked for on the application form... haha.
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in other news, i had an interesting type of interview today as well. fellow readers, friends.... i broached "the" topic again today with my dad. basically, i tried to come out again. well, not come out, as that suggest that i wasn't out before... but let's just say to... "beat a dead horse" about it. at least that's how i feel. in general, it went over as i expected... anti-climatic. why my dad, hmmm, i dunno. he seems the calmer one and the one that i already have a history of trying to remind my parents that i am gay. and also that i am really concerned about mental anguish or stress i might cause my mother, whose health, in real honesty, hasn't been so hot for the past few years. i mean, i think if both my folks were seriously robust and ironman/woman kind of folks, i would have been... fuck it... let's state i'm gay...they'll get over it. but i don't think that is the case, and i wouldn't want it on my conscious that i might have demoralized my mom to teh point that affected her health... that would be crushing to me. so that is why i am trying to enlist the "help" of my dad so to speak.
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so basically i said, can we talk dad, in private. we took a drive and first of all, he came out with this long ass talk about what he and mom were doing was all for me and all of that. and you know, honestly that's all cool and that's what i told him once he finally stopped talking. but i basically told him that i have two lives. one in houston where i'm straight, the other outside where i am gay. i told him, that i am at a point in my life where i have to decide what and where i want to do with my life and if that life involves being in houston, i can't lead two lives anymore. i told them i wasn't saying this as an ultimatum, i am not asking them to accept anything. all i sam saying is that i want to say this, to be honest about it, and shoe them my quandrary. one where, as it stands now, because we don't talk about it and assume fairy tales, i find myself in a situation where i choose choice A and my folks are happy and i am miserable, or i choose choice B, and i am happy and my folks are miserable. of late i realize that can't be the way i think because we're not talking about separate entities that are completely independent. i won't be happy if they are unhappy, and i like to think that they won't be happy if i am unhappy. what's teh solutions? i suggested that basically we've got to start talking about it. for seven fucking years i have been trying to talk about it. i may not have ideally come out initially in the best light, fuck, i was under so much stress from that incident, that i quit school for a semester... but right now, honestly... i REFUSE to believe that i can't even TRY to get a complete sense of self.
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i am a extremely lucky person. not once in my life have i had to really worry about anything. and all the silly stuff that i use to think was important, age and maturity and experience have taught me otherwise. i've gone further than many, and have the greatest potential to really do something great for society, for people, for myself. and i am fucking excited about it honestly, and extremely thankful. the only thing i realize is holding me back, is the issues we try not to face, thinking as if they will resolve themselves. no.... they will not. nothing in life will happen to you if you don't do anything. i cannot lead this life of partiality anymore. and right now i am not asking for perfection... hardly. i am asking that the lies stop and that we try to work towards a more honest relationship.
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so i told my dad, in really calm terms actually... basically that. i am at a crossroads, i am not forcing anything on you, i am not asking you to choose one way or the other, what am asking for, is for you to listen... to be aware... to acknowledge that i have this issue and that i am trying my hardest to work through it but that i have hit a stone wall... and cannot get pass this without your help. i was asking for help.
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in all really serious matters i have never asked my parents for help. i have been independent, brazen, determined to find my own answers. they've been there, don't get me wrong, they have never made me feel as if they didn't care. but the problem is.... on this issue of their son being gay, i don't think they have ever listened.... and i haven't said enough. i share blame in such but i am tired. i am tired of seven years of complacency slipping into delusion. i am tired of feeling liek as long as they don't know any specifics than we can dance this elaborate dance, each getting acidly more tired of it and frustrated, but for the opposite reasons. i am tired of fearing for what could be a horrible ultimate conclusion to not doing anything... a life based on an integral lie, for whatever good intentions it might have been borne from, but a life i think that will grow more bitter as it is sweet.
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call it youth and optimism, but again... i REFUSE to believe that i can't do anything about it.
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my father's reply? what did i expect i guess? he told me that he heard what i said and that i heard what he said... and that we should start heading home because mom had made lunch.
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all i can pray for is that some step was made today. its all about small steps. you know... that what i pray for a lot lately... that God gives me strength to do what i feel i need to do. life is passing by incredibly fast and these are moments that could effect me for the rest of my life. every moment is a chance to change, but we get caught up in the ease of familiarity and complacency and comfortability and i think we forget what our dreams were.
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you know, i hate to make it sound like a movie gave me the cahoonas to bring up the topic, but the other evening i saw this movie called "Last Holiday"... which was actually very warm and good. in short, it was about a woman who was informed she had three weeks to live. she had lived a very quiet, shy, and fearful life... and ultimately, thinking she was going to die... she decided to do everything she never did because she was either too afraid or thought that it would never work for her. ultimately she became the toast of the town because she exuded a zest for life that probably awakened in other people this slumber of complacency we all seem to walk around in. she took control of her life and lived the life she wanted to according to her rules. so i dunno, i would think that if i only had three weeks to live, i would certainly do exactly what i am doing now... being completely honest. you can't expect to control people's belief ultimately, but you can control your belief in yourself i guess.
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we'll see how it all shakes out. otherwise, i lead an amazingly blessed life... so a little heartache, might be ok. but like returning merchandise, you never know if they'll take it back...unless you try.
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not to dig up the whole saga of brokeback mountain again... but i did come across the great heartful image of the movie... the absolute most best scene in the book at least... an artless momoent, and a funny vintage image of what i assume was another movie titled the same, but maybe it is photoshop because the subtext seems just too funnily related! (they answered the call of the wild frontier? what's each others asses? where no man has gone before? haha)
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posted by faux chink @ 2:28 PM
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