Long time, no see.

Hell, things have been BUSY lately, and I haven't been updating this as a I should have. I do have several important things to mention, but I will most likely discuss the most important today, and spread the others out over the weekend.

And what a day today is! I had what I consider to be a very successful interview on Tuesday and should be getting a call today as to whether or not I have a job (I'm pretty sure they will call because the it is the Human Resources Manager's last day, as she has taken a position in Australia, which is closer to her home of New Zealand).

Its a language school here in Lyon, and the available position(s) are for teaching English. The company, ILTC, is celebrating their 25 year in business- so I know that they are well established.

The position would most likely be English training to a small class (about 10 people), as well as phone training where the student has a packet of materials to study and work on, and then they call at a set time to practice with a trainer, who then fills out an evaluation sheet for the student.

Because of the fluid nature of the company, the offered position(s) may either be salaried (full-time) contract work, or hourly (which typically means part-time).

Aside from that, the interview process was extremely interesting. Instead of just a one-on-one interview, the candidates they selected to come in were asked to present a 5-minute lesson to the rest of the candidates, while three of the employees evaluated your lesson and presentation skills. You were provided with a whiteboard and markers, and were allowed to bring whatever props you wished. The only two rules were 1) That it NOT be about teaching a language, and 2) that it is restricted to 5-minutes, after which you were cut off.

Some were good (me, of course), some... not so much. The candidates were asked to volunteer for the order they would go in so, of course, the one person who showed up late immediately raised her hand to to go first. Among the lessons taught were card tricks, how muscles work, and how to make a 10-minute chocolate cake (that last being, aside from subject material, one of the best presented lessons, as well).

For my lesson, I immediately knew that, if I wasn't supposed to do something language related, it would be something art-related. I settled on something that was extremely easy for me to draw: me. That's right! I taught 12 strangers how to draw a caricature of me in 8 easy steps. In between I explained what caricatures are, what features to focus on, and how, with a little bit of practice, ANYONE can start doing caricatures. After I showed the group how to draw me, I asked a volunteer to come up and, using prompts from the group, draw me on the whiteboard. Needless to say, it was excellent! In fact, almost everyone in the class did a perfect job. This means either I am a great teacher, or a happened into a group with flourishing artistic talent. Let us hope for my sake that it was the former and not the latter!

After all of the presentations were done, the three employees got together for a quick discussion and then started bringing in the candidates one by one. I went fifth and believe that I made a fairly good impression. The head interviewer mentioned that they felt that there were three strong candidates in the group, so I hope I am one of them.

Anyhow, as I mentioned in the beginning, we are supposed to get word today on the results. Keep your fingers crossed and, hopefully, I will be updating this blog with good news instead of bad later in the day!