What a morning

Earlier this morning, I was sitting in bed with a cup of coffee, watching the family of four magpies chattering around the trees outside.

Then I heard the clatter of the letterbox, the scrumbling of letters being forced through, the thud as they landed on the doormat. The thud seemed to land somewhere in my stomach and pins and needles spread out from my centre to my finger tips. I sent Rick to get the post.

He handed me a brown envelope with the red Warwick postmark on it. My hands were shaking as I held it, then started to rip it open. I pulled out the contents, revealing the reverse of an expense claim form. Was this their way of saying “thanks but no thanks, and here’s an expense claim form for your trouble”? Unfolding it, I found a letter tucked inside. The words blurred in front of me, I couldn’t read it.

Then Rick hugged me and said “well done!” at which point my eyes focused again and I managed to read, “I am pleased to be inviting you to a panel interview at 3.30 pm on Monday 13th December”. Oddly I felt tearful, the adrenaline turning to nausea in my stomach as it started to flood away again.

An hour or so later, and I’m excited. I have to give a 5 minute (!) presentation on the topic of “Online careers provision for graduates: pitfalls and potential”. I feel confident; this is something I can think about and research easily. And I’m OK with panel interviews, they are just people, after all. Phew. Here we go again.