#jnmrambles

-which, an offer is *was* on its way, or so I thought

On March 17th, I applied for a English teaching position that requires "Master Degree" in English. The HR personnel of the Uni (Like, an actual Uni, instead of some crappy, illegal educational workshop) reached out to me in two weeks, on Apr. 1st, saying that I'm qualified for this position and invited me to the online interview a week later.

This is an esteemed university in the local province, one that can rank top 3 based on its reputation.

On Apr 7th. I presented thirty minutes of my curriculum design and delivers a small demonstration of how I would teach the class, after that, the panel of six raised a copious amount of questions that dragged the interview towards an hour.

By then, I thought this was going very well.

(Apr. 9th) At the end of that week, I asked for the result of this interview. The HR said they have one more interviewee to do.

(Apr. 12th) Finally, HR shared the delightful news that I have passed their one and only interview, that they have started the process to issue an offer.

I WAS FUCKING THRILLED.

(Apr. 19th) And then another week, I asked whether they had news on the offer, and the HR said "I'll go ask". And not another word.

(Apr. 23rd) The uni had announced a few of its positions being filled. So I asked again. This time, HR said, they had filed the papers and handed them to the School, which means that the next step would be the uni HR office.

(May 10th) No word. No news at all. The anxiety was killing me. So I phoned the University HR office, and was given the reply that the papers still hadn't got to the University level, which meant they were still in the School level.

I phoned the number of the hiring officer on the hiring ad. A woman picked up the phone and told me: We are holding another OFFLINE interview. Are you available on the 17th?

I was puzzled and asked: But I thought the online interview was the only interview needed? And I passed it? Why is there another interview now?

The woman said nothing. Only that "Someone will contact you regarding this information"

I'm like: Okay. Can you send me the address of the offline interview via Wechat?

And then a few minutes later, she said "Maybe not 17th. Definitely a Friday. Could be 24th."

I was so puzzled.

And the HR that initially contacted me told me an hour later: "Can you come to our uni for the interview on 31st?"

-- by then, my attitude is "okay. just another interview. no biggie"

(May 11th) And today, at nine o'clock in the morning.

The HR said: "Don't come on 31st."

I asked "why?"

HR: "Because our dean wants a doctor instead of a master"

I asked: "But your hiring add says master and above?"

HR: "Yes ... but we want a doctor, you see. And uh... there's a new doctor candidate cv in our hands."

I asked: "but I AM QUALIFIED. AND passed the interview. And you handed in the papers to hire me? I'm literally given an oral offer by you?"

HR: "Well ... things change. Good luck!"

Now, I have contacted the HR personally earlier today, ensuring what I have suspected. They have this "other candidate" that is neither stronger in academic records, nor in the interview/mock teaching process, only better than me in the sense of a more powerful relative. That's why they wanted me to go to the Uni for OFFLINE interview in the first place, so that "the other candidate" could win "fair and square". - They could easily give the other candidate the score of 90% while giving me a 60% "Well, your performace is not as good as his", so that they could justify the hiring process of this other candidate. But then considering an offline interview would require a camera and recording, they thought "Oh F- oh no Jam could easily outperform this poor bastard". So, "THINGS CHANGE GOOD LUCK"

The point of this rant is not that I think schools, unis, or whatevs should only hire me. No. But all I'm saying is, they have promised me an offer (in oral form, I sadly add, so that no legal way of punishing them), and in the duration of a month, they have stalled, dragged, even thought of a malicious way of "allowing me to go to their university just that they could say no to my face", changing dates and time, wasting my time and money (a lot of it, I might add, I have turned down two offers for this uni, just because they PROMISED - i am an idiot, I know), torturing my mind and triggering my anxiety because they delayed, and delayed again, and they did it without remorse.

Look, after two months of trying to search for a job, actually, nearly NINE, if you count the previous months where I worked towards the exams to get a job. I have been rejected/ghosted/ignored over four hundred times, and I accept them. I truly do. I don't expect HRs to spend their time carefully going over each applicant. I also don't expect every CV I send out there would be replied with a job offer. I'm fine with the results I get, and I have my conscience intact. That's fine by me.

But what I don't tolerate, is the fact that they have purposefully wasted my time for a whole fucking month, giving me false hope, promising me an offer and then denied it from happening.

Goody-news for them, those who wanted to stuff another dude by their ridiculous "connections". I don't care that guy they want to replace me with is some dean's nephew or some director's son. I'm fucking stubborn. They have stepped over the wrong line and as long as I live and breathe, I promise them, I will have my eyes over this position, and dare they put one person in it, I will send a report letter to the authorities, and let's see if their recruiting speed could compare to my ctrl+v.

Chris Evans as Johnny Storm. I thought that the whole Fantastic Four cameo was fake news but NOOOOOOO HE'S THERE. (Though very unfortunately no Reed or Sue or Ben.

Cavillrine! Henry Cavill with that hair and that cigar and that beard and the motorcycle gets me. Every time.

Elektra, Gambit, Blade, X-23. Especially Gambit. Channing Tatum has a gift of whipping the roles he play into a full comedy XD

Lady-pool was played by Blake Lively. I wasn't so sure when she appeared but the credits said so.

a few others like Red Devil, Pyro are also in the movie. The toad guy and psylock too, but I'm not sure if they changed the casting

Happy Hogan! In the first few minutes when dp applied for the avengers. The photo of Tony and Peter, the half-made shield, a couple of iron man helmets, and that moving thingy in Ironman 2 where Tony finds it obnoxious on Pepper's desk were there in Happy's office.

It was a great surprise in general that they were able to be there and it felt like a revisit of my 2000s movie collection which I watched as a kid. The easter egg at the ending credits was a very touching moment, it was a video put together with blooper scenes from the X men films and fantastic four.

I have just got my tesol certificate and soooo ready to apply for jobs and whatnot! --I'm going to plan the TKT and CELTA for my second half year when I'm available.. especially CELTA.

And I have recently joined a Stop Procrastination Training program for the sake of my personal wellbeing. It's a lil expensive but I really need to do something to deal with my procrastination -- and on the other hand, it's slightly relaxing to know that there's some one (like, half of the program attenders and almost all of my tumblr moots) out there in the world procrastinating more than I do lol

On a more serious note, the job application I ranted about a couple of weeks earlier finally got a reply (of some sorts). I got a call earlier this week with a frantically apologizing hr -which, tbh, it wasn't his fault- but the uni has decided that this hr would be the fall guy, so...

It was not the best outcome we anticipated, but it's just ... this, for now.

And I've got an interview slot later this week for a rather large company. They don't pay well but they have this position overseas.

To be honest, I am still debating on whether I should apply for a PhD. I'm not good at doing research, but I'm not bad at writing papers or conducting classes, the latter one I really enjoy. But to attain a position as a college english lecturer, PhD seems like a must in most places. Also that the particular field I study, Intercultural Communication, is a rather new and less-supervised and ... uh Language and Liberal Arts field that doesn't come with a lot of professors and universities to choose from, not to mention that HEAVILY TUITIONED places like UK/US is a big hard no for me. So for now, I'm going to apply to those lecturer positions which demand less (like in Japan, that sometimes doesn't need a phd to apply for this position, AND ALSO IT LACKS YOUNG PPL WHO ARE OF AGE TO WORK, LIKE, A LOT? I think the chances are high) and we'll see how this goes. If it runs smoothly, than yay. If not, I probably have to endure another four (or five) years of academic life.