Monday, March 17, 2008

Waiting & Interview Questions

Waiting gets harder when there is less to do.  Last week, I gave my final presentation and now I just have to write a pretty simple 10 page paper due Friday and I will be completely done.  It's so hard to make plans to do anything when everything depends on the unknown.  Simple things like my phone died today.  I want to get a new phone but I don't want to start a new plan just to have to pay the cancellation fee in a few months should we get the opportunity to move to London.  We want to plan our honeymoon but that is on hold as well.  If he gets in we'll do a week or so somewhere really nice.  If not, we'll take a longer vacation with the comfort of knowing we can afford to do so.  Plus I just really really REALLY want to know.  I'm impatient that way.

We finally went over the interview in detail today to try to figure out what kind of impression he made and whether or not it's a good indication of the final decision.  Basically the interview lasted 1.5 hours.  The interviewer talked a bit about his industry in the beginning and asked Mr. Baby if he had any questions.  He had about three questions (he googled the interviewer a few nights before so he already had a few questions in mind).  Next, the interviewer told him to relax and said that the purpose of the interview was to select applicants in not out.  Then, he began asking questions.  Mr. Baby says it was all very conversational and comfortable.  Almost every single question was exactly or similar to the questions that I asked him in a mock interview--I made a list of 30 questions based on web searches and added a few spontaneous questions to follow-up on some points he made (think I discovered a new talent-I'm a great mock interviewer!).  Next they did the brief presentation which was basically the same question that everyone seems to post about the decision to fire an employee because of comments on a social networking site.  We also did this in the mock interview so he had some idea of what he wanted to say.  Last they talked about LBS.  The interviewer gave lots of insight on the pros and cons of LBS and gave some personal advice about what Mr. Baby should focus on once there.  In the end the interviewer encouraged him to keep in touch and to feel free to contact him if he had any questions.  Overall, Mr. Baby thinks he made a pretty good impression and felt confident when he came home from the interview.  So confident, in fact, I was treated to a romantic dinner at our fav fusion restaurant in Hollywood :)  That being said, I think the wait has dampened his confidence some.  Realizing how small the class is, accepting the fact that the applicant pool is probably very competitive, dealing with the lack of contact from the other two schools he's waiting to hear from.  It's so very hard to try to keep spirits up and find ways to make it through the waiting.  

Meanwhile I take some comfort in preparing for the move just in case.  I've scoped out apartments to get an idea of how much we can expect to pay in rent, looked for job opportunities, and best of all met with my graduate advisor who gave me a few contacts in London to help with my possible job search.  I've looked at how the health insurance works there, made list of the places I would like to travel to should we live there, and found out about what we will need to do to get our cat there safely.  Phew!  I don't know what else to plan/stress for!  I know that everything will change regardless of the many plans I make, but it helps me to sleep at night knowing that I've already started the knowledge gathering process.  Ick.  What am I going to do with all of my spare time once that last paper is complete?

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