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The interview (installment three)
Dec. 7th, 2004 11:07 amI had the worst night ever. I finished off yesterday evening by losing spectacularly at Scrabble, despite getting "divot" on a triple word score - 33 points - and went to bed thinking I should get to sleep early and be well-rested. Argh. First, my mother woke me up at about eleven, because she called thinking quite reasonably that I wouldn't be asleep yet, as I never am at that time. Sigh. And I tossed and turned till about one, because there were people downstairs who would not shut up, including one person who was just screaming randomly, not happily or anguishedly but just psychotically. I don't know who it was but I would lay money on the Arsehole of the Universe.
Then at two am, my phone rang to tell me I had a message, which I'd already listened to, and I went back to bed wanting to kill everyone and everything for keeping me awake. By eight o'clock this morning I gave up the pretence of being asleep, got dressed in horrible interview clothes (actually, they're not horrible - white shirt and black pants, simple, though it's supposed to be informal and I would have worn jeans and a nice top if my mother hadn't threatened to kill me) and didn't bother with breakfast, consuming two cups of black coffee and two paracetamol. With one more hour to kill, I withdrew to the JCR and nervously read through the Guardian.
One of the helpers, Craig, who is from West Yorkshire and sounds like it, showed me the way up to the room. He, like all the helpers, is terribly nice - I'm not fond of any of the other applicants because of the undoubtedly cut-throat atmosphere round here. There's a constant game of one-upmanship going on, at which the clear and smug winner is a half-Chinese, half-Jewish-Hungarian boy who speaks four languages, is a black belt in judo, has backpacked all over Europe and apparently did something very important related to the UN. I did my best to ignore him.
So I sat there outside the interview room, waiting to be called in, distracting myself by reading the wall notices about German scholarships, and took deep breaths. And the door opened and the previous applicant came out. It turned out to be Mumless Pierced Guy, who ignored me entirely as he drifted down the stairs. They asked me to wait another minute before calling me in.
The two interviewers were female, one a Politics tutor and the other a Philosophy one (I was so grateful for the lack of Economics), and really very nice and keen to put me at my ease. The study was wonderfully lived-in, with books and papers all over the floor, squishy comfy chairs and an arthritic electric fire. They faced me, I sat back, and they asked questions.
"What are the indicators of effective checks by the legislature on the executive?"
"Do you believe in determinism?"
"What sort of political system does Britain have?"
"Why should we continue asking philosophical questions if our every action is pre-determined?"
That last one was my favourite - what I said boiled down to the fact we don't have any choice in the matter.
And they didn't ask me at all about my application for Medicine. I'm impressed by that, and also that I was called for interview at all, considering how many applicants they turned away before even this stage. The interview drew to a close a long time before I thought it would, and they didn't even give me an article to look at or any such thing. I look back and don't feel I did badly, but don't feel I was anything at all exceptional, and that's a shame because it's really what I wanted to aim for. We shall see - the calls for second interviews go up late tonight, and that's a whole different kettle of fish.
Now I'm going to call Helena and attempt to drag her out of Merton, and probably spend some time roaming round Oxford. I can breathe now.
Then at two am, my phone rang to tell me I had a message, which I'd already listened to, and I went back to bed wanting to kill everyone and everything for keeping me awake. By eight o'clock this morning I gave up the pretence of being asleep, got dressed in horrible interview clothes (actually, they're not horrible - white shirt and black pants, simple, though it's supposed to be informal and I would have worn jeans and a nice top if my mother hadn't threatened to kill me) and didn't bother with breakfast, consuming two cups of black coffee and two paracetamol. With one more hour to kill, I withdrew to the JCR and nervously read through the Guardian.
One of the helpers, Craig, who is from West Yorkshire and sounds like it, showed me the way up to the room. He, like all the helpers, is terribly nice - I'm not fond of any of the other applicants because of the undoubtedly cut-throat atmosphere round here. There's a constant game of one-upmanship going on, at which the clear and smug winner is a half-Chinese, half-Jewish-Hungarian boy who speaks four languages, is a black belt in judo, has backpacked all over Europe and apparently did something very important related to the UN. I did my best to ignore him.
So I sat there outside the interview room, waiting to be called in, distracting myself by reading the wall notices about German scholarships, and took deep breaths. And the door opened and the previous applicant came out. It turned out to be Mumless Pierced Guy, who ignored me entirely as he drifted down the stairs. They asked me to wait another minute before calling me in.
The two interviewers were female, one a Politics tutor and the other a Philosophy one (I was so grateful for the lack of Economics), and really very nice and keen to put me at my ease. The study was wonderfully lived-in, with books and papers all over the floor, squishy comfy chairs and an arthritic electric fire. They faced me, I sat back, and they asked questions.
"What are the indicators of effective checks by the legislature on the executive?"
"Do you believe in determinism?"
"What sort of political system does Britain have?"
"Why should we continue asking philosophical questions if our every action is pre-determined?"
That last one was my favourite - what I said boiled down to the fact we don't have any choice in the matter.
And they didn't ask me at all about my application for Medicine. I'm impressed by that, and also that I was called for interview at all, considering how many applicants they turned away before even this stage. The interview drew to a close a long time before I thought it would, and they didn't even give me an article to look at or any such thing. I look back and don't feel I did badly, but don't feel I was anything at all exceptional, and that's a shame because it's really what I wanted to aim for. We shall see - the calls for second interviews go up late tonight, and that's a whole different kettle of fish.
Now I'm going to call Helena and attempt to drag her out of Merton, and probably spend some time roaming round Oxford. I can breathe now.
