EPTI survived anyway, the place they had booked for me was actually quite nice. Better than anything I've been in lately to be honest. I liked this town. The buildings are all quite beautiful (and old). Still, I would've enjoyed it more if it wasn't FUCKING COLD AND RAINING! Cold and rain in England... whou would've thought?
Anyway, I went to the cinema to get warm as I visited a bit of the city. A really small bit, say... 3-4 streets that were on the way to the Oxford University Club. The movie was terrible: "No country for Old Men". Too fucking slow and the accent was annoying, as was the theme.
I almost fell asleep in there. Only the sting of having been ripped-off 7 pounds to see it kept me awake.
I got back to the room, read a bit and went to sleep at 7.30. Smooth. I was so nervous I only slept 13 hours. What can I say... I'm a cool customer.
The interview wasn't that bad actually. I arrived at the secretary's office like 50 min too early. I had "misplaced" my plane tickets on the journey to Gatwick, so I had to reprint them again. I had no choice, I had to ask her. She had a good laugh.
I think she liked me. She kept making jokes all the time and helping me relax. Really nice lady. She even invited me for a tea. I had to decline because i didn't want to have to go to the loo in the middle of the thing.
They didn't ask me anything overly difficult, to be honest i was expecting deep psychological questions about my motivation, I was even mentally prepared for some anal probing. Instead, they just asked me what i was doing in the lab and what was my degree like. So here i had thought up all these great responses to deep questions of life and they just wanted to know what the fuck i was doing still in uni after 5 years. Just great.
The fuckers actually caught me with one question, I couldn't remember how we're actually gonna measure the magnetic field of the superconductor we're studying (we haven't gotten to that part yet), so I bluffed and said some shit in Spanish, chucking the mistake on a mistranslation. The fucker called and pushed all-in. Shit, that was embarrasing, I had to admit i didn't know jack shit. Still, I think I did well. They seemed to like me well enough.
Little did I know that that was just the beginning. OH YES. They had prepared their anal probes all right, the touring around the groups wasn't just a tourist attraction where you get to sit and look at the pretty scenery. It was a half hour interview of death with each of the project directors. Just peachy.
Technically it wasn't an interview, they were actually explaining what they were doing. The thing is, they're the ones actually making the decision to have you on board or not, so they're the ones you gotta impress. If by any chance you forgot to ask a question about something they were talking about, they wanted to know your opinion on the matter. Sly fuckers.
The first one wasn't so bad, I could actually answer and ask interesting questions, but the second one caught me red-handed. Red-handed with the knife still in my hand and an audiovisual recording of the whole event. He said: "you know, for physicists like you, with NO knowledge of biology and a keen interest in biophysics, we have the DTC. In fact, I want you to look at this list of past students of mine. Do you see the pattern? Do any of them NOT come from the DTC?".
Fuck it, they were looking at me like i was some sort of misplaced cutlery item in a computer shop. The second one actually took me to the fucking DTC, to see if i could still apply in time to get my scholarship. Thankfully, the deadline was on that same day so i had a decent excuse to tell them to fuck off.
The last project I saw was quite interesting. We will try to solve the power crysis. Yeah, we'll be working on solar cells. It sounded really interesting actually. I think the cat is almost in the bag with this one. It was the last project, so I could tell the guy that his was the most interesting and that i'd definately put it first in my prioirty list. He said he'd see what he could do to get me in, but couldn't promise anything at that point. Nice chap.
I put the materials science as second option. I liked the guy and if I got in, there'd be plenty of movement around Europe to perform the experiments. Really tempting to be honest.
The secretary seemed to really like me, I was even willing to consider some small infatuation by this point, she had taken off some time from her lunch break to get my refunding settled. I gotta bring her something the next time i come around.
Fucking biophysicists and ther fucking DTC. It would've been a complete hit otherwise. I still think i have a good chance of getting in, gotta e-mail the solar cells guy, lest he forgets.
So that's that for the interview. Did I mention that it was cold and wet? I think i did. I almost froze to death on my second tour around the city (the secretary had pointed out some nice places to see on the map), we supposedly hit a really cold week for some reason, bloody English weather.
The following day, (don't ask me how, but the secretary booked two nights for me, when we were supposed to get only one), I got up too early and had to wait 4 hours for the bus. Man was I bored. The trip back was fairly uneventful, I still had to wait another 3 endless hours at London Luton Airport, but I got home fine. Had a nice dinner with my mum too.
