(Sorry, this will be a long post with no pictures.) Last week Mark had 3 job interviews. 2 on Tuesday, 1 in Pocatello, ID and another in Ogden, UT for clerkship positions (practically the exact same job he had in Springfield, MA). Then he had one in Provo, UT for the Utah County's Civil Litigation Department.
Monday night we took a family road trip up to Pocatello and stayed at a hotel overnight. We decided to take Canon swimming in the pool because it had been such a long time since we last swam...and we thought he'd really have fun...he seemed really excited about it too. Well, Canon dipped his feet into the water and said it was too cold. So I grabbed him to pull him all the way into the water so he can get used to it faster. After about 10 seconds, Mark was trying to get him to play and splash, but he really wasn't liking the cool water. Canon cried and begged to get out. So I took him out, but he wanted to watch Mark swim..."um...ok, I guess you can watch Daddy swim around." Then he told me to get in the pool, so Mark came out while I got in. Canon seemed to really like watching us, even if he didn't want to get in the water. (Especially me: "Look, a whale!" he said while pointing at me in the water.)
The next morning Mark was supposed to interview at 11:00AM. We found a park that was just down the block from the courthouse, so Canon and I were playing there while Mark left to interview. He came back minutes later saying that the judge left a note on his door asking if Mark would be able to come back at 1:00PM since there was a trial/hearing scheduled at another location, and he wouldn't be back by 11. Thank goodness Mark's interview down in Ogden wasn't until after 5:30PM. So we hung out in Pocatello. We went to a real estate office to check out what the housing market was like, and to see what rent looked like in the area. That was kind of fun for me, but Canon wanted to go back to the park. We got a quick lunch fro Taco Bell and then Canon and I continued to play at the park while Mark went back for the interview.
Mark said the interview went well and he liked the judge, but he still wasn't positive that he would really want to move our family all the way up there for a position that wasn't really long-term...making it hard to find a position after the clerkship that wasn't in Pocatello. Mark felt that he was probably the most qualified out of everyone else that was interviewed, but his downfall was that the judge might think that Mark wouldn't be around long enough to make it worth hiring Mark.
We did make it down to Ogden in plenty of time to make his next interview. Wouldn't you know it, there was a park across the street from this courthouse too...so Canon and I were just hanging out at that park (and outdoor theater and flower garden that were close by). Mark said that interview went really well too, and that one of the judges made it a point to say that he found Mark's writing sample to be really good!! So that was a good sign. The Ogden position pays a lot better too, even though there's a higher living cost. Since Mark has experience already, and they have 3 pay grades, we weren't sure if they would want to hire Mark because they could pay someone else less money who was perfectly qualified to do the same job.
After his Ogden interview, we headed straight home. It was fun to see what the areas were like with Mark, to be there as a family...but then on the way home Canon started freaking out about bees. He thought he had a bee in his face once earlier that day...I think it was just a gnat. Then at the flower garden he thought he had a bee in his eye...it was just an eyelash. In the car on the way home he said he had a bee in his nose (twice)...which turned out to be mucus he just needed to blow out. He seemed so terrified about it that I couldn't be mad at him...but it was really nothing and we were only 15 minutes away from home. Couldn't he wait to freak out until after we were out of the car? Of course not, he's a 2-year-old. *sighs*
Then Mark had an interview on Thursday morning in Provo. He said it felt like it was going fine until they asked him what he knew about some legal doctrine he had never heard of before...let alone the fact that they didn't talk about it in his law school. So, he just replied that he would be able to look it up and learn about it more, but that he wasn't aware of the doctrine at the time. So, he felt like that was probably a dis-qualifier for him for that job.
So, as for the rest of the week we played the waiting game...Ogden said they'd let everyone know by the beginning of this week. Pocatello I think said within 2 weeks or so. And I'm not really sure what Provo said, but the last time he interviewed with them there was a second round of interviews which he didn't make, and he felt more qualified for that previous one than this one. So he's not terribly optimistic about hearing from them any time soon.
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