I had my phone interview today.  I scheduled it for 8AM so that our neighbors wouldn’t be up, making it difficult to concentrate or hear.  Good thing, because it’s now almost 10:00, and they are at it already.  The interview itself went very well.  I had my questions answered to my satisfaction and then some—it felt “right.”  I thought the hiring manager was very honest and straightforward, and above all, personable.  The next step is to have a phone interview with their colleagues on the West Coast.  Ironically, the person conducting the next phone interview is someone I know from my lab tech days 8 years ago.  He and I also had several exchanges at an annual conference because he was doing his graduate work on the biochemistry of the molecule that I studied as part of my dissertation.  Small world.  The hiring manager was really excited that I already knew this individual….I asked her whether it would be a conflict of interest for me to already know him and have him be the next interviewer, and she replied, “Heck no!  I see it as an advantage because you will be working closely with him!”  Wow.  After the next phone interview, I will give a seminar that will be videoconferenced to the West Coast.  Yikes.  That part makes me nervous, but I suppose I have some time to prepare and practice a good talk.  I’m really excited about what I’ve learned about the job, and I can see myself really enjoying it and feeling challenged.  

The other side to all of this is that I’m now confronting the reality that I will have to be away from Holden all day long once I go back to work.  I feel really really sad about it, and conflicted, even though I know that the only choice for me to continue my career is to jump back into it as quickly as possible.  I feel rusty already, and it’s only been a few months.  I love Holden with all my heart, so I am trying to savor the days I have with him because I don’t know how much longer I’ll be out of a job and able to spend all my time with him.  The feeling of sadness and dread that I feel about being away from him is not something I was able to anticipate whatsoever before he was born.  This is the only thing that is tempering my excitement about this job.

Now to get coffee and wind down from the interview…