June 16, 2014

Today at work I read books. I thought a little bit about answers to potential questions in my interview tomorrow but I spent most of my time reading. I think I switched off between four books. I finally finished the 100-page short story in one of my McSweeney's books and it was a tad disappointing. You pretty much find out in the beginning what is going to happen at the end and the twist is that there isn't a twist. A wife overhears two guys on a crossed phone line talking about breaking into a house and killing a lady. The wife is upset and finds out through the course of the story that her husband is kind of a bastard. Eventually they are able to talk on the phone and after the husband finds out that the cops know all about his shady dealings he tries to get his wife out of the house to save her. Not because he loves her or feels bad that he has paid someone to kill her, but because he knows he will get the death penalty now that the cops know about him. He is unsuccessful. The story really didn't need to be one-hundred pages.

I also continued reading about the English language in Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. A very interesting book. Here are two interesting excerpts. First, “Smith is the most common name in America and Britain, but it is also one of the most common in nearly every other European language. The German Schmidt, the French Ferrier, Italian Ferraro, Spanish Herrero, Hungarian Kovacs, and Russian Kusnetzov are all Smiths.” Second, “Yucatan in Mexico means 'What?' or 'What are you saying?' - the reply given by the natives to the first Spanish conquistadors to fetch up on their shores.”

Tonight I had three World Cup games to watch, and I'll be honest. I fast forwarded through most of the first game and pretty much all of the second game. In the first game I became a fan of Germany because Cristiano Ronaldo plays for Portugal and I can't stand him. He looks like the biggest asshole in the world and he isn't that much fun to watch. He spends most of the game just kind of standing around and he occasionally takes a shot on goal, usually during a penalty kick. He can make some amazing shots but that only happens when no opponents are near him because if they are, he'll fall on the ground. So, I was pretty happy when Germany completely destroyed Portugal with a final score of four to zero. Hopefully this was sufficient enough to completely demoralize Portugal because they play the United States on Sunday.

The second game was Iran v. Nigeria and neither team scored. Also, I didn't have any interest in either team so I didn't feel like I was missing much.

Lastly, the United States v. Ghana. Ghana beat us in the last two World Cups, knocking us out of the last one. So it was great when we scored after thirty-four seconds. And then it was a battle. US players kept getting hurt which doesn't bode well for the future, even with a demoralized Portugal. About a half an hour in Dempsey got kicked in the face and started bleeding everywhere, probably with a broken nose. I wouldn't say the kick to the face was on purpose but there was no real need for the opposing player to have his leg that high in the air. They were both going for a header. Despite all the injuries, the US somehow managed to hold on until around the eighty-fourth minute when Ghana finally scored an inevitable goal. It was surprising it took so long because it seemed like they had the ball ninety-percent of the second half. Thankfully, we scored again a few minutes later and won the game. I really hope they can pull it together for the next game.

I spent a lot of my night getting ready for my interview tomorrow. I printed out a copy of my resume, statement of objectives, and the questions I want to ask. I also looked over the school's website for the millionth time. Then I tried to come up with answers to a long list of possible questions. I'm still nervous but I am looking forward to the experience and to getting the experience over with, hopefully with a positive outcome.