Well, that's a relief

People have been asking me questions about vet school applications, and the unfortunate fact is that there really isn't news. Most schools will have interviews, but they won't be until January or February, so I won't hear back from them until (probably) next year. I went and checked all the fact sheets for schools and only Cornell said that I could expect to hear whether I got an interview in December.

Clearly, I didn't read these fact sheets closely enough because I got an e-mail today from the Royal Veterinary College telling me that I had been selected for an interview!!!!

I am excited, obviously, but my biggest sense is RELIEF. I am relieved to know that at least at one of the schools to which I applied I had a competitive enough application to make it to their second round. It's also a big relief just to hear something. Because of all the questions I'd been asked of late, I was beginning to get a little anxious that I hadn't heard anything. With electronic submissions these days, the most you get from schools is a checklist of what you've submitted and no other feedback otherwise. It's a little scary sending out stuff into the ether and not know whether it's made any impression. Here's hoping I get similarly good news from Cornell next month...

THIS WAS MY LIFE LAST NIGHT

I stayed up waaaaaaay too late playing Assassin's Creed: Revelations last night because I wanted to get to the part where I just run around and buy shit and have fun (which is, like, my favorite thing). I got stuck at this one game mechanic and decided to hire some mercenaries to help me out. They did, to be fair, but then I ended up in this situation. I was in an alley and I could not get past the four of them. Usually, if you take a running start at anyone, they either bump into you and knock you both down/aside or they fall to the side. These guys were like a brick wall. I had to run the wrong way to get them to move enough to shoulder past them.

When I say I stayed up too late, by the by? I went to bed at 3. Because I was trying and failing and then getting frustrated but determined to beat this one thing and I finally gave up because FUCK THE TEMPLARS AND THEIR UNASSAILABLE SNIPERS THAT'S WHY.

I'm actually really alert at work. I suspect, however, that I'm being kind of manic, which may lead to a breakdown/nap-in-the-middle-of-work later.

Jinxed it (or how not all proofs of receipt are good things)

I actually debated not writing anything about the interview for the RVC because I thought that it was too early to count chickens. But I was excited and swept up in a bunch of things. It's still premature, and it's too soon to crow about anything.

...as I found out when I got an e-mail from the University of Georgia telling me they've outright rejected me. My application was "incomplete" as the hours spent under direct supervision of a veterinarian failed to reach their threshold. My fault, I suppose, for not being more careful in checking which hours I met or did not meet as far as they were concerned. Still, I'm disappointed and now a little paranoid about what else I'm going to hear today. I only applied to twelve places, and I've just lost one for good. It really puts a damper on the celebration from earlier today. One down, eleven to go....

In the weirdest laterally-related-to-vet-school news, I was eating lunch by myself in the kitchen when the mouse technician from another lab comes over and sits across from me and asks me when I'm leaving next year. She may have meant "if" I was leaving, since she phrased, "You're leaving next year" almost as a question with intonation. Point was, there was a volunteer in her lab who would be a great replacement and she wanted me to recommend her to my boss if my boss was replacing me. I don't know this person, so I can't really recommend her, but I agreed to take her CV. It was a weird and kind of aggressive exchange, with her really determined to have me get this person's details in front of my boss. Next time the volunteer's here, she wanted to send her over to meet with my boss. ( have a feeling I know how that will go.) I'm right that this is weird, right? In pitching replacements to the person leaving? Who may not be leaving? (Because, let's face it, if I can't get into UGA, I'm probably not going to get great news from a lot of schools in the coming months.)