Monday, April 11, 2005
The broken record scratches out its well-worn and frankly tiresome refrain:
I suck at interviews. I switch to Default Senseless Self-Sabotaging Babble Mode with the first sentence out of my mouth. I can't seem to stop myself from hedging on my virtues, and blurting out deficiencies as a sort of self-introduction-on-autopilot. Even when they aren't asking for them. The negatives always come out more strongly than the positives. They sound a great deal more convincing to my ears.
All of this constitutes - yes I know, I
know - a ridiculously stupid strategy to adopt. And then when the chance comes for me to wax lyrical on subjects that I am normally comfortable with, it falls apart - because I need time to organise my thoughts and time is a luxury you don't have in the interview room.
And what's with all that bloody interrogation on why I didn't opt for med school?? I'm sick and fed up with it... sure, I have reasons for that decision, but they are probably all the wrong reasons. And no amount of sugarcoating is going to make them sound more palatable to the fault-finding inquisitors on the other side of the table.
Drowning my sorrows in the NUS Central Library proved effective. After 2 hours of dazed and awestruck aisle wandering and bookshelf browsing, I came away with a book on media ethics, one on semiotics and American popular culture, an introductory text on sociolinguistics, and (to appease the inner geek) an academic study of
Star Trek in the American Mythos. Within the Library's impressive collection of opera, symphonic, instrumental and vocal sheet music, I managed to locate and photostat the score for Chopin's Nocturne in Eb Major. There are advantages to being a Non-graduating student: all the perks with only a fraction of the stress.
I must stop this habit of drifting into libraries and emerging with books that serve no constructive purpose other than that of bibliophilic masturbation (which is not constructive), taking up valuable time that could be more productively employed in preparing a solid personal PR campaign that would better address pressing Real World Concerns.
If I don't make the USP, I'll be content with spending all my available free time in the Central Library [note: instead of the
Science Library where I must rightfully belong] soaking up useless information.
Oh, and the Central Library actually has
Angels in America on DVD. It's probably a sociology thing, but all the same, I am impressed.
words were spilled on Monday, April 11, 2005
