Lions and Tigers and Bears

Today was my Build-a-Bear group interview. I found out that someone will call by Friday to tell me if I get to come in for an individual interview.

Of the people being interviewed I was the oldest and, not surprisingly, the only American.

Highlights:

We each had to choose one of the stuffed animals and make it introduce itself to someone else's stuffed animal. I chose a ginger cat because he reminded me of Socrates, except that he was covered with pumpkins.

When introducing ourselves we had to name the most famous person we had ever met. I saw lots of famous people when I visited Jess last spring, but the only famous person I've come face to face with was Bruce Campbell at a book signing. Yeah, I had to explain who he was. B-grade actor? Army of Darkness? Um, he was in the last Spiderman movie...

At the end we were paired up and had to find out two things about the other person to share with the rest of the group. I was paired with the only guy in the interview. After finding out my two things I tried to make conversation with him by asking him what kind of fun stuff there is to do in Norwich. He told me that he had just turned 18 so he didn't know about the fun stuff yet. Apparently there is nothing fun to do if you are under 18 (which is the drinking age here). I told him I had to wait until I was 21 to have fun.

Hitting my Stride

More and more I feel like I really live here.

I went for a run this morning for the first time since our move. Thanks to all the exercise I get as a consequence of not having a car I haven't gotten too out of shape. I was actually able to run for a full half hour, just like when I was in Athens. I even discovered that there are free pod casts on itunes, so I'm going to try those out for a while since all the audio books at the library are on playaways.

When I was stretching I noticed how dirty the rugs are. Our flat has all wooden floors, but there are lots of rugs covering most of them up. Since I was feeling especially motivated I decided to ride in to town and try to find a vacuum sweeper type thing. I went in two malls and one department store (without getting lost!) before deciding that I was not going to be able to find the one sweeper that seems to exist in all of England for any cheaper no matter how many places I looked. So I got that one and will hopefully have cleaner rugs tomorrow.

I have almost completed the beginners guitar book that I purchased at the same time as the guitar. Well, that is to say that I can play all the songs, but the interspersed chord lessons are not coming along quite as well. I have been forcing myself to spend most of my practice time on chords for the past few days and I am improving, but I also miss being able to feel my fingertips.

Possibly the best thing that happened today was that I was called about interviewing at Build-a-Bear. There is certainly no guarantee I will get the job, but it is a start. It wasn't until I applied that I remembered I applied to work for Build-a-Bear once before. When I was in high school and first started looking for a job I applied to work in their store in the Mall of Georgia (I think?). Anyway, Jeff had applied there not long before and been offered a job. He told me that in the interview they asked him if he ever lied. He said that he did. Everybody lies. They asked me the same question in my interview and I told them that I do not lie (I certainly try not to). I did not get hired. Perhaps this time it will be different.