3.28.2007

It is totally normal to cart last night’s pajamas to an interview, right?

So…my whirlwind trip to NY…yeah. Well, after being delayed from Friday until Sunday night, the flight actually got delayed AGAIN, Sunday afternoon as I was at the gas station and literally minutes from getting on the highway for the airport. So at least I got to go back home and veg out for two more hours. I ended up arriving in NY at 11pm and my flight out was the following day at 3pm, so very business-man-esque.

I stayed at the apartment of a good friend from high school’s younger sister, which I had been sort of dreading, thinking that she’d be all insufferable and freshly-doctored and stuff. But she was very nice and gracious, putting me up and all, even if it was totally surreal seeing that people YOUNGER THAN I have lab coats and stethoscopes lying about their enormous Upper East Side With Views of the East River Apartment.

She had a crazy cat who pounced on me a few times throughout the night, but I wasn’t relaxed enough to sleep well anyway. In the morning I walked to the Met; it was about a 30 minute walk, and beautiful and brisk out, and I totally did not get lost. In addition, an elderly woman stopped me on the street and asked ME for directions.

You guys would be so proud of me: since I was going for just one night, I didn’t even check luggage. I just brought my largest handbag and stuffed my interview outfit and toiletries into it, and so I just looked like any other woman with a big honkin handbag, as women there tend to have. I was pretty pleased with myself and my packing prowess, actually.

The interview went by in a blur; I do remember them asking me how I deal with “difficult or micromanaging superiors,” which is a question I hate. I mean, I deal with them the way most people do – by bitching about them voraciously to anyone who will listen and counting down the days until the job ends. I didn’t say that out loud though; I came up with some lame-o “interviewy response.”

(Incidentally, I would hate to be an HR person and have to spend my days posing inane questions and then listening to peoples’ bullshit responses. I mean, how many times can you hear somebody say that their greatest weakness at work is “being a perfectionist” before you just want to scream?)

They had asked me to bring along an image I like and to be prepared to discuss it for five minutes, and a professor advised me to bring three instead and ask the interviewer to choose, so that I’d look extra-prepared and kiss-assy. I followed her advice and I think it went over well.

So, they told me that the whole decision process will take a month, which means 2.5 weeks from now, not that I am counting very carefully or anything.

OMG. I might be in NY for the summer!!! That would be so incredible! I am trying not to get too hung up on it all, because it was an honor just to make it to the interview stage, but of course in my head I have a continuous “squeeeee!!!” noise of excitement and anticipation. We will see.

supine @ 11.34 pm |

3.21.2007

My bag got searched at security in both airports, because I look dangerous.

Hey you guys! My whirlwind trip went really really well. I am going to write a proper post soon with all of my embarassing/odd things I experienced (because you know I can’t complete a project without SOME awkwardness), but I just wanted to post a quick summary so that you knew I had made it home okay, and am not lost on the subway still trying to get out of Brooklyn, or something.

I had my interview with two women and it only lasted 30 minutes but we had lots to talk about, and I don’t think I said anything particularly weird or flubbed anything. At the end, the main woman said that I had a “really strong application,” with my varied background and all (read: inability to settle down and choose a career). The coolest part was when she told me that they’d had 900 applicants and are only doing 60 interviews! And then they whittle it down to 15 positions, so at this point it is 1 in 4, which is not too bad.

Also, after the interview I met up with the man who had spoken to my class last term about the intern program. He is an alumni of my school and now works at the Met. He also looks like Richard Gere and I want to jump him, but that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, he walked me around the modern art galleries even though the museum is closed on Mondays, so we saw people installing art and vacuuming and stuff, which was wild. He was so nice and supportive and told me that when my file got to his department, he’d tell the reviewer to look at it extra hard.

So, I have a month to wait, but either way it goes it was a really good experience. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

supine @ 11.50 pm |

3.16.2007

KHAAAAAAAN!!!

Wintry mix in the northeast? Check. Cancelled flights to NY all today, tonight, and possibly tomorrow? Check. On hold with Delta for two hours before finally getting rebooked on the first available flight on Sunday night, for a Monday morning interview?? Roger that!

So, spring break is off to a bumpy start. But it will be okay! I am about to go out for lunch with F, to celebrate our being temporarily liberated from classes, and at least now I have two more days to relax and mentally prepare for my interview. Too bad I won’t be doing so in New York, but hopefully I’ll get the job and be living there for two months, and it’ll all even out in the end.

The severe sleep deprivation mixed with waitressing burnout has made me positive and giddy! Happy Friday, everyone.

(Kat, thanks for your continued support of my tiny fledgling career!)

supine @ 12.11 pm |

Off to the large apple

I am finally done with finals! And I think I am ending up with straight As again, so it feels doubly great. Am packing now for trip to NYC tomorrow – I hope the flight doesn’t get cancelled due to the “wintry mix” that my mom keeps emailing me about every five minutes. Maybe the cold snap will pass right over, or something? Yes?

I am gone all weekend and my interview at the Met is Monday morning, and then I return to Savannah that afternoon. I will let you all know how it goes!! Have a good St Pat’s weekend.

supine @ 12.43 am |

3.13.2007

I kind of need a vacation.

Today I accidentally washed a load of laundry with a Werther’s Original candy. I noticed this only when I unloaded all the clothes and found the almost-empty, wet wrapper (ew) at the bottom of the machine. It was a load of whites and I had dumped a lot of bleach in with it, so thankfully nothing got stained all caramel-y or anything.

At first I was all, um? but then suddenly I realized that I had waited on a table recently who were chowing down on the Werther’s (sp?) while they waited for their food to come, and when I teased them about it they gave me one, which I stuck in my server apron and promptly forgot about. Fast-forward to bleaching-of-the-aprons day, and there you go – I have washed my clothing with a hard candy.

Other than that, it’s been a pretty lucid, productive day. I got a haircut in preparation for my interview in NY on Monday and it looks great. It’s too bad it’ll be so cold there next week. It hit 80 degrees here today, and I had been envisioning myself skipping gaily to my interview in a pretty little skirt and cardigan, or something, but it’s like 40 degrees there, so I guess I’ll be falling back on my dull, grey, wintery clothes.

So I pulled out all my old DC office clothes to try everything on. The resulting horror led me to throw out all the junk food in the house and fix a big salad for dinner. Like I said, productive.

supine @ 9.56 pm |

3.10.2007

Waitressing = Slow Tiny Repeated Ego Deaths

I really really really need to get this summer internship in New York, because I seriously need a hiatus from serving. I am not going to make it through another tourist-infused summer, I’m just not. Every day I get closer and closer to stabbing someone’s (mine, or someone else’s, I don’t even care anymore) eye out with a fork.

Today I was going over the menu with some 800-year-old lady, and she asked for the fried green tomatoes. I said, “Yes ma’am. As your entree?” And she snapped, “No! I have a very small stomach!” She then paused to regroup before declaring:

“I will have them…as my meal.”

KILL ME NOW.

supine @ 4.53 pm |

3.5.2007

Aaaand, freak-out over

All is well. I am better now after my ridiculous trip-booking-induced anxiety attack of last night, which peaked when I wrote that last crazed, run-on post and then called E crying. (Yes, I really called him crying. All over what should have been a joyous, fantastic trip to New York. Um, high maintenance much?)

But now it’s all okay. My high school friend fiiiiinally stopped vacaillating over the cost and agreed to come, so I have booked the cheapest possible package trip in which the hotel is A) in New York and not, like, Yonkers; B) not a hostel; and C) with a bathroom for each room. You would be surprised how many hotels in New York require their guests to share bathrooms. I cannot, because I’ve seen National Lampoon’s European Vacation one too many times.

So, I will be in New York from a week from Friday until the following Monday. Should be excellent! The friend who is meeting me there went to NYU and the only two times in my adult life I have even been to NY were to visit her, so we have a history of fun times to be relived and built upon. Does anybody have recommendations for me of your favorite restaurants or bars?

supine @ 2.16 pm |

3.4.2007

This is why I need to have a BFF

Oh Christ. I am trying to figure out my trip to NY for that interview in two weeks, and I had asked my two best friends from DC to come up with me, so we could split a hotel and they could come Friday night to Sunday night, and I would just stay over the Monday night alone and then interview and then fly home to Savannah, and oh god. The one girl hasn’t even called me back, and the other told me that money is an issue if the hotel is “as much as” $100 a night, because then her part for the two nights would be 100, plus the train fare to get up there, and it’s “not worth it financially for her to go for just a weekend,” but she can’t go for longer because of work. So I have just spent two hours and countless internet browser windows trying to find the cheapest possible package. The best one is about $500, and I figure the hotel figures for $100/night in that, but it also involves my flight leaving at 6am.

!!!!!!

Of course I am having to go to her stupid wedding in August, and wear a stupid FLOOR LENGTH BLACK DRESS, like, in DC in AUGUST, but whatever.

Oh god. I do not want to go to NY alone and spend two days in a cheap hotel room alone. And my other option is to ask High School Friend #3’s younger sister, who apparently lives in some super apartment right near the Met, if I could stay with her, but she is very snotty and has just finished med school at Columbia, which I’m sure has only made her even MORE snotty than I remember her, and I just cannot face that for two days.

And I can’t just fly up on Sunday and be alone for one night, because flying on a Sunday is prohibitively expensive. So it has to be Saturday (if I am alone) or Friday (if my friends were to come, but apparently nobody likes me enough to come with me).

Fuck fuck fuck. Also, next week is finals.

supine @ 7.02 pm |
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