a rush

A short two days lie between my last post, deploring the lack of snow, and the arrival of snow in Grenoble. Yesterday, rain fell all day without mercy. I arrived in lab completely soaked because I left home in the middle of the worst downpour. I had forgotten to look outside before I took off. During the day, it got progressively colder with each passing hour. When I went to bed, car roofs were covered with a thin layer of frozen powder, and this morning, everything was white. It was also glacial, and the fresh snow was lying treacherously on frozen streets. I rode my bike anyway - had been a while since I've last velo-danced in such precarious conditions. One time, my front wheel tried to take a left turn while I wasn't looking. I yanked it back on the right path just in time.

This adrenaline rush got the day off to a dynamic start. Curiously, the day ended in a way that made my heart race even more. I had written that I'm preparing application for the next step in my life/career/whatever you call it. Sunday night, I had actually finished a few and sent them off. On Monday, I noticed that one had a deadline three days earlier and the requirement of an institutional application form to be submitted, which I hadn't done. This was my favorite offer. I guess I should have read all of it before getting excited.

On Tuesday, my boss told me she got a request for a reference letter from the person who had posted the exhilarant offer. Before she even replied, I got an email this evening asking me to come to London for an interview tomorrow.

Ok, I'm kidding, I've got two weeks, but it feels as if it were tomorrow. I am not at all prepared. I have no idea what to talk about - my unsuccessful but promising post-doc work or my successful thesis work - which is old and fading from my memory? When will the job start? I didn't read the offer. What does the lab work on? I won't be reading Pamuk for a while. How is the institute? A quiet reader of this post who is working there at the moment will have to let me in on the details. Do I want to go to England? I have said no on two occasions in the past, but maybe three times is a charm? And I'm reasonably convinced that I'm not going to pick my next job for the city or country it's in. Will I go on the interview?

I am not going to stress.