Mystery Cheese

Cynthia and I have recently acquired a very interesting job. We must sort through the resumes, cover letters, questionnaires, and on-line applications from people who want to either join the Masters in Poland program, get a job working in Poland, or both. We currently have around 100 applicants, and get between 10-20 more each day.

To sit here, and read the resumes of people who want to be here, is a fascinating job. Not only is it a glimpse into the life and aspirations of a stranger, (with all the voyeuristic thrill which that might involve,) but only last year we were in their shoes, applying to be accepted. I remember vividly the anxious anticipation which accompanied the opening of every email, the careful wording of the questions we sent, etc. So I still feel quite heavily the responsibility to respond to people as promptly and honestly as I can. Hopefully that feeling will go away with time, and I will feel free to trample their pathetic dreams with impunity. Oh, glorious day.

What bothers me most is the sheer number of applicants with solid qualifications. We only have a few slots to fill, and so we must choose between the girl with a BA in English Education, and 5 years experience teaching English in Hong Kong, and the man with 1 year experience teaching English, but 5 years experience in Japan as a journalist, a Masters in Neurophysical Linguistics, who is also an avid diver and photographer. (Which are points in his favor, as far as I am concerned.) So who do we pick? Solid Workhorse who needs the degree for long-overdue advancement in the field they have obviously chosen, or Interesting Person with greater life experience, who needs the degree for advancement in their latest field? Many people would put their money and sympathies with the Workhorse, but the more eclectic person with a wider range of experiences in life appeals strongly to me. What if one of them is 50 and the other is 28? How does that swing the balance? Older people often have a better idea of what they want out of life, and can be more focused, but at the same time, they can also be more demanding, and seem to consistently have a harder time staying on the same page in classroom discussions. (Or, maybe I just notice it and attribute it to their age if the person in question is older, and if they are younger I just think "Idiot" and forget about it?)

There is another category of applicant, though. Despite the fact that the website clearly says we only accept applicants with experience, we receive a fair number of applications from cheerful, scrubbed-behind the ears, painfully sincere and over-motivated college graduates from Padukah, Idaho, who obviously spent a lot of time rearranging the elements on their CV and sprinkling it with inspirational quotes which they no doubt view as reflective of their deeply-held beliefs, all in an effort to distract me from the fact that they still have "Independent temporary childcare provider" on their resume. (That's "Babysitting" for anyone who didn't catch it, and when you do the math on the dates you see - yup, at the tender age of 14.) From which they moved on to other, less-impressive, jobs.

Now don't get me wrong. Just because I am mocking them mercilessly in no way indicates that I do not feel sympathy. Au contraire. The fact is, these are the people I feel the most sympathy for. I recall when I graduated college, I wanted nothing more than to get a posting teaching abroad. I wanted it so badly I could taste it. It was my DREAM to go overseas and teach. And it seemed so difficult. So complicated. So daunting. So when I read these people's resumes, I feel such sympathy for them - they sound so motivated, so eager to go overseas, so . . . idealistic.

That is what pulls me up short. I sense in a lot of these cover letters an idealized sense of what life in a foreign country will be like. They seem to think mostly in terms of what life seems like when we are on vacation - everything is new, fresh, interesting, and sipping espresso in sidewalk cafes. I practically feel like some are envisioning their life set in black and white Henri Besson photos, and there seems to be far too little recognition that their day-to-day would involve going to work, coming home, and doing the laundry in a machine whose instructions they cannot read, and having a TV on which it is only possible to watch two channels because the others can't be understood.

But that is its own small pleasure, isn't it? The fact that the options available to you are suddenly more limited means you focus more intensely on the ones that are still available. It isn't necessarily only a reduction in the breadth of pastimes offered, but also an opportunity to engage more deeply in the remaining few. And then one musn't discount the small pleasures of life that would not be so common in one's home country. For example, the adventure of purchasing groceries.

When Cynthia and I went shopping the first few times, it was a complete gamble as to what we would end up coming home with. Milk turned out to be buttermilk, Corn was discovered to be a main topping for certain pizzas, and you never really knew if you were buying flour or cornstarch.

We once bought 2 pounds of gorgeous looking dried dates, only to discover that they were smoked. Odd as it may seem, some perverse individual actually thought it a good idea to smoke fruit and then consume the shrivelled, char-flavored remains. Or maybe that was why he was selling it - he didn't want to consume it himself, and must have got a good laugh from selling to us. I ate perhaps six of them, each time convincing myself that they couldn't possibly be as bad as I remembered, before hurling the bag under the counter on the theory that as they moved closer toward rotting they might also increase in edibility. However, all such hopes were in vain, and the dates (or whatever they were) sat under the counter for about 4 months before I threw them out.

However, as the months have passed, we have become quite proficient at distinguishing cream from kefir, (both have happy-looking cows on the box) and figuring out which kind of flour is best for biscuits, and which is better for quiche-crusts. One area, however, retains its enchanting air of mystery.

The discount cheese case always contains about 20 different lumps of cheese, all different shapes and sizes, for different prices. It seems that when a piece of cheese is sufficiently reduced in size, the attendants wrap it in plastic, and put a sticker on it designating the price per kilo, price of the particular piece, and the type of cheese. You can probably guess which of those I am actually capable of deciphering. (OK, to give myself proper credit, I can also read when it says "Yellow cheese" or "White cheese," but seeing as it is wrapped in clear plastic, it isn't exactly any more informative than if I weren't capable of this astounding linguistic feat.) I would like to be able to open each one, and sniff it, but suspect that someone might say something. So we just make our selection based on price. Selecting two or three lumps of the cheapest cheeses, we make our purchases, and scurry on home.

Once safe in the confines of our house, we take out our newly acquired cheeses, unwrap them, and yes, sniff them. We cut small pieces and nibble them and stare at the label and wonder if we will ever taste this particular cheese again. Because we never know what the cheese gods will have in store for us next week.