The Headache Builds

Being in back in class this semester is both a blessing and a curse. My classes are wonderful. I am taking one called Public Narrative: Story of Self, Us, and Now which teaches a leadership framework for drawing others to a cause. It's basically a class on how to tell a good story. The second is a writing course, where I am (re)learning the basics of writing, revising, and editing. In addition, I have the chance to pursue my own freelance writing, and start finishing up some research projects early (though the chance that these will finish before the spring is slim to none).

The downside is that I am on my computer 24/7.

I first started getting headaches only towards at the end of the day. Originally I thought it was due to staring at a large white screen for so much of the day. But the dull pain has started earlier and earlier. Today I realized that it is more likely due to the stress of interviews, i.e. the stress of not getting more interviews, though I'm sure being on the computer for eight hours a day only compounds the problem.

I figured that after October 1st, I would start hearing from program after program, either with invitations or rejections. However, all I hear from my inbox is crickets these days. Those first few invites have ruined me. Such a tease. Being in class and on my computer all day, the minutes now tick by so slowly. Each time I see a new email come to my inbox, the tab says...

"Inbox (1) - rswendiman@gma..."

I immediately rush to check to see if it's from a residency program, but it never is. It's just another Priceline.com email again. I get about 100 emails a day at this point, and each of them is a huge letdown.

One of my classmates told me that some interviews won't go out until beginning of November. I think my head is going to explode.

SO WHAT IF I'M CRAZY!?!? SO ARE YOU!

I'm also leaving my phone on at night so I wake up to new emails. Generally, I'm so tired by the end of the day that I wouldn't pop up to a fire alarm, but some nights I do wake up to that damn ding-a-ling sound. Lately, I've been waking up at 2:33am. That's when the Kennedy School sends out their daily announcement email for the day. Thanks, HKS.

The weird thing is, I won't be like this for the actual interviews. I enjoy them. It's the part that I can't control that I hate.

This will all be better in a month.

Or maybe not.

AHHHHH!!