Insomniatic thoughts...

I don't know what it has been lately, whether its the weather, the erratic sleeping schedule, or the shift from Burlington to home for the next few days, but I've been an insomniac the past few days.
It's probably a mix of everything. I went from sleeping in to about eleven a few days, to being at my internship for 9am Monday and Tuesday. Then on Tuesday after my internship things were crazy with rushing around to do an interview for a class and then getting called in for a closing shift at Blockbuster. I got home around 12:30am and went to bed just after 2am. The next day I was up early to pack for home, get things organized for my classes, and going to an interview for the U.N. project. ( more on this in a sec)

By the time I was finished with everything, I was exhausted towards the afternoon and early evening. It was a good thing, though, as I was looking forward to a good nights sleep in my own bed at home that night.

I spent a better part of the night working on Critical Thinking homework, and decided to call it quits at about 1:30am. I felt tired. I looked exhausted. But for some reason, once I finally crawled into bed and crashed onto my pillow, I couldn't sleep. My body suddenly became restless and my mind was running 100 miles an hour. I got up a few times and walked around, played with the cat, and tried to talk some sense into my self, saying I should be sound asleep right now. It probably wasn't until a little after 4am when I dozed off, and unfortunately my alarm woke me up for 8:30am so I could go and work in my dad's office this morning.

This morning I was completely exhausted, tired, cranky, spacey, you name it. I worked in his office and then grabbed some lunch, and was looking forward to a hardcore afternoon nap. But really, if I had been so lucky I probably wouldn't be updating this right now.

I'm tired, I can feel it. I can't even hold my eyes open all the way. I know this will be disastrous if it doesn't stop, because I will either get so run down that I get sick, or I'll completely crash at about 6 or 7pm and be wide awake at 4am. I'm hoping I either a) fall asleep at this computer or b) can squeeze out atleast an hours worth of sleep fairly soon here to keep me running for the rest of the night, allowing me to go to bed at a decent hour AND wake up at a decent hour.

I think part of it has to do with the interview. Ever since I had it, I've been dissecting it and going over every detail in my head. ( I tend to do this quite often with things like interviews and presentations and certain people interactions for some reason...)

I told my dad this afternoon when he asked about it that "if it was anyone but the college, I probably wouldn't hire myself either after the interview." Because it's the college...and I'm a student there...and was recommended for the position by my adviser...I'm hoping that scored me a few points.
After breaking it down, I've determined there were a few factors involved. First, I was distracted both before and during the interview. I had so many things going on that morning and the days previous, that my mind wasn't completely focused on the interview and the job. That is my fault, and I should have taken more time beforehand to mentally prepare myself and get focused. But, the location they held the interview in was not the most "interview friendly", as the door was wide open to a high traffic area, and people kept passing by and entering and leaving the adjacent room. But, while I'd love to blame it all on that, I know I should have asked for the door to be closed and I shouldn't have let myself get distracted by the noise.

The other factor is that one of my weaknesses is talking about myself to strangers. It takes me a while to even open up about myself to my close friends. Just ask them. But, an interview is just that...selling yourself to the interviewer. As Howie told me when I saw him afterwards, "Honey, its the time for you to flaunt yourself and strut your stuff."

There were so many things I wanted to say, things I had thought about beforehand that apparently disappeared the minute I walked in the door. My fear and nervousness got the best of me, and I gave minimal answers, some of which I realize were pretty lame after thinking back on them. When they asked me what I could bring to the project, I said "I'm a dedicated person, I try to put 100% of myself into everything I do." Jesus Christ, how convincing is that? It's such a cop out answer...people hear that and say, "yeah....okay.That's what they all say." I made no mention of any marketing skills or previous experiences. Hell, I'm applying for a market research position and I've done hands on market research for some of my classes. WHY DID I NOT MENTION THIS? I give myself some credit, I did use the example of the Spinner Place Residence Hall Council, stating that I'm not one to sit back and just talk about problems, that I try to take action. I.e. SPRHC for res hall issues. I also told them that many times I naturally tend to step up and take a leadership position when in groups. I didn't completely bomb the question, but this was a great open ended question that provided a great opportunity to showcase myself....and I didn't.
They also asked me a question towards the end, something similar to "if you had all the technology available at your fingertips, how would you go about using it for this project". If you know me, you know I don't like making quick decisions...I'm usually the type that will take the information and stew on it for awhile, and then get back to you with my decision...even ifs an easy one to make...I just like to be able to think about things before acting. Unfortunately, I should have anticipated something like this and THOUGHT ABOUT IT BEFOREHAND. I knew about the project...I knew what they were looking for me to do...so whyyyyyyyy didn't I think about what I'd do with the project?

I'm an idiot.

I gave some dumb answer about how the internet is a useful tool and can provide you with a great deal of information and opens up communication, yada yada yada. The more I think about it, I don't think I even answered the question... I just rambled on, hoping I'd say something close. Along those lines, they asked me what I'd do while in Africa and how I'd make the most of my time there to gather information. Again, should have thought about this beforehand. I mentioned something about just learning everything there is to learn about the target market, their culture, their beliefs, etc... something about conducting focus groups....and something about having them play the games to see what their knowledge of the equipment is, where their skill level is at, and if there's any glitches in the game how that would be a good opportunity to catch them. Too bad I think she said the E-gamers were just developing concepts...I don't know if that means they're even going to HAVE something to test out at that point...I mean, they'd have to come up with an actual prototype in a month, a little less, as we'd be going to Africa the end of August.

Oh man. It will be a miracle if I pull this off.

I guess its good that I'm getting all this interview experience now, with this one plus all the ones I did for my internship. With every one I tend to review it over and over and over, thinking back to the questions, my answers, what I should have said, what I shouldn't have said, and how they reacted. But at the same time, I could have just blown an extremely good opportunity, one that would look good on a resume, give me a bunch of hands on experience, AND pay well. $11/hour, yo.

I think Amanda said it best when she said, " I wish interviews were set up differently...I wish they let you do a two minute or so elevator pitch about yourself and THEN started the interview, to give you time to say what you wanted to say about yourself." That way you could think about it beforehand and get in the key points you wanted to before you had to answer any questions.

So, what would I have said? I would have talked about how I've done first hand market research through my Consumer Behavior and Research class through the project we did for a start up web company. I would have talked about my people skills, and how I am confident talking to strangers and probing for information (aka PHONEATHON for 2 years.) I would have displayed that I had knowledge of marketing by freaking mentioning it during the "what would you do" scenario, talking about conducting primary research and using that, along with secondary research, in order to compile a detailed consumer profile and marketing strategy. I should have come up with some marketing ideas for the project, especially viral, and talked about how to spread it via the web, word of mouth, social networking (a facebook and myspace application). What about connecting with other companies to have them promote the game? MTV does this with a game about the genocide in Darfur. What about a cell phone game? Hell, put it on a CD ROM and slip it in a cereal box, I don't know. I should have come up with ANYTHING to show that I was capable of thinking of thinking of these ideas. I should have also mentioned more about gaining a first hand perspective of the culture and the people while in Africa. Learn about their past, why they act the way they do. Learn the games they play now, how they interact with each other, their physical movements, their thought processes. Learn about their daily life and lifestyles,find out about any influences on them, and just talk to them in general to get a better understanding of who they are, what they stand for, and how the see the future. I did mention that the better they understand their consumers, the better they can market products to them....but I should have elaborated on that.

*sigh*. Well, there's not much I can do about it but wait until Friday or Monday when I should hear back. Then I'll either be jumping for joy or bawling, one or the other.

This will definitely be a learning experience, either way.