A Late Interview Season

I admit it, I lost the motivation to blog for a while.
Just wanted to get my secondaries in (did that).
Then I had to complete my D.O. secondaries (did that too).
The end of last year was just a blur. I have no memory of *anything.*

"Turned down from an interview-invite? When did I apply here???"

I had given up on getting interviews. I was in a really bad zone of negativity and kept away from most people beyond superficial online correspondence with friends via Facebook. And then one interview invite drifted in at the end of December for late February. Then another in January, and now all of a sudden I have 5 scheduled this month.

A really long, long-distance-relationship came to an end at the beginning of the year. At that time, I kept thinking I should be upset about it, and I was to a certain extent, but then I realized that I had already given up on making things work. And then my interview invites started to flow in, and I had other things to worry about, like travel arrangements and preparing for interviews. That's probably one reason why things would have never worked out between us. The fact that I can push aside personal issues to focus on the task at hand without thinking about it too much. Another reason is perhaps that, outside of professional settings, I'm not good at compromising.

I had my first interview this past Monday at a DO school. I left with a great impression of the school and the environment. I left with the sense that I did okay, despite this being my first interview, despite it being a group interview. I was able to think on my feet, not ramble too much, and stick to my points, even if I didn't respond to follow-up questions as smoothly or concisely as I would have wanted. They really grilled me about the DO vs. MD route, even though I wasn't the only one who had not shadowed a DO. It wasn't a scenario I was unprepared for, but some of the wording of their questions threw me off and might have made me second guess myself, so next time I'll have to keep that in mind.

Afterwards, they kept me back to ask me two questions, which was scary. They asked why I decided to retake the MCAT, despite having a good score (Honestly, I never considered the percentile measure..only that I wanted to do better), and presented a scenario. Possibly to gauge my leadership ability in responding to a conflict. It wasn't tough per se. I remembered to pause and think about my answer, but I did leave thinking, "Dammit! I should have said that toooooo."

I also discovered one of my interviewers, the anatomy instructor, had observed an bypass surgery with the same cardiothoracic surgeon that I had observed. I was really excited to talk about that, because it was such an awesome thing to watch, and found out that my interviewer was actually able to scrub in. I'm glad I wasn't the only person to have felt giddy and excited during (and even after) that experience.

I'm happy to have made it this far, whatever happens. Trying not to think about my hemorrhaging wallet too much. Whatever happens, I've booked a 5-day vacation for myself over 4th of July weekend to visit Austin, Texas and it will be an opportunity to celebrate or get over the whole thing.