::hypervenilating::

Good googly moogly. I just got off the phone with one of the profs in the Spanish department at Wash U. He left a message earlier, asking me to return his call and leave a message of when would be a good time for him to call back. I did, and he called back this evening. He basically wanted to get a sense of my goals, why my interest is in Wash U and the Spanish program, my experience teaching Spanish, my experience learning Spanish, and my proficiency in Spanish.

Grrr . . . I always insecurely teeter between eagerness and bare-bones straightforwardness. I don't want to gush, but I don't want to seem stiff either. (sigh) I tried to be myself, I guess. I don't know why I always exit these sizing-up-by-a-superior experiences deflated and teary. I felt like my Spanish was sub-par when we spoke for a while in Spanish. He got the vibe that I'm interested in the Applied Linguistics, language-learning aspect of Spanish (which I am, from the bit of research that I've done, and in which he specializes) and "warned" me that the program at Wash U is highly literature-based. I'm unsure if I got across the point that I do want further grounding in expanding my knowledge of the literature aspect of it as well, since one of my goals is to teach at the university level.

Okay, I'm reading over this, and perhaps I need to just chill. The application deadline was the 15th and I get a call not even 2 weeks later. Usually, that's a good sign, right? The thing is that I don't know whether the interview is routine, as in, they interview every applicant and then make their decisions based on the application and interview combined, or if they narrow the field based on the applications and then kind of fine tune their choices with the interview. Also, I don't know if this particular professor called me because he's the "call applicants" guy or because I specifically mentioned him in my statement of purpose since his research area is similiar to my interests.

Okay. My worry session is over. It's in God's hands, and I have to trust and be confident in that.