For reasons I still don’t fully understand, when I was in high school a few hundred years ago or so, I received an application from Oral Roberts University. I hadn’t requested one and still don’t know how they got my name. Although I didn’t apply, I was impressed by the lengthy application form, which I remember being somewhere around 10 or 12 pages and included things like personal Christian testimony and pledges to have no fun whatsoever for four years. (Something like that.) It was also the first application I’d ever seen that required a photo.
Little did I know, this application was pretty much an omen for my future.
When most normal people apply for jobs, they fill in a one or two page application, turn in a one or two page resume and sit through an interview with “What are your strengths?” “In what ways are you a moron?” etc. In my case, with the exception of some summer work, every job I’ve ever had, and one I didn’t, have involved lengthy applications and application processes.
First was for the Air Force which involved exams, physicals, repeat physicals, physical fitness tests, pupil dilation and marching about the square shouting orders. Oh, and six weeks of getting yelled at by men in campaign hats.
When I decided not to go into the Air Force, I applied for the Peace Corps. Once again, I had a huge application that included authorizing a basic background check and then was subjected to a series of physical examinations. The only problems I had involved my ears. For my initial physical, the nurse checked my ears and ran out of the room screaming and praying. I won’t get into details, but the praying was followed but a thorough cleaning. (More on why this was necessary later.) Despite that cleansing, I still failed the hearing test which put my application on hold.
Eventually I tracked down a professor at Kansas State who offered free hearing checks if the testee allowed students who intended to be doctors and/or mad scientists to conduct the test whilst the professor supervised. I was then taken to a dark room in the basement of either Lafene Student Health Center or Leasure Hall where I failed the hearing test again. The professor did a quick survey of my ears, which involved nearly pulling them of toward the back of my head and declared I had weird ears.
More specifically, rather than a straight ear canal, mine curves slightly. This means, um, ear matter doesn’t always exit the way it is supposed to and can build up if I don’t take precautions. That’s what had frightened the nurse in the first test. To make matters even more complicated, because of my weird ears, when I put on headphones, the way they sit over my ears causes them to partially block my ears which is why I failed the second test.
The professor was giddy at the thought he could now give his students a chance test my hearing via bone conduction. This meant using devices that attached just behind my ears and sent sound vibrations through my skull to my internal ear. Oddly, it sounded just the same as using headphones. Using this method, I passed and was medically cleared for the Peace Corps. (Since then I’ve learned how to better position headphones during hearing tests to keep them from closing off my ear canal; also, since I passed the Air Force hearing test, either the headphones fit better or the Air Force has lower standards.)
The last long application was for the JET Programme which involved 15 or 20 pages of information and a personal essay and more physicals. (All of which I passed.) It also required a photo be included, which apparently almost caused me to fail because it gave the impression I was very serious. Either way, it got me to Japan.