Interview After Interview...

Before we moved to Norfolk, I came on the weekends and looked for jobs and plugged away at sending my resume to places on the Career Connection Website. Well, I never got any bites on jobs or interviews until the week before I quit my job in North Carolina. So, I scheduled my first interview in Virginia for the Monday after my last day at BB&T. I was super excited to have an interview and felt like this would be my step in the right direction for getting started in Norfolk! Boy was I wrong...I came to the area the weekend before, plugged in my GPS and Paul carried me away to the location of the first interview. I mainly wanted to find it before the interview so I could decide on how I needed to dress...professional or business casual. Once we found the place, I decided that business casual would be the better choice of the 2. I also decided that while we were looking around at the area, that on the day of the interview it would be best if Paul drove me and sat in the car just in case I got in the door and needed to have a fast exit plan. You can tell how I was feeling about this interview already! So, the day came...I got in my business casual attire and we were out the door! I got in the door for the interview and the lady who called herself the professional receptionist (which was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt might I add) handed me an application and said, "Here fill this out and when you're done you can wait for someone to call you back!" I was already looking for my quick exit but decided I would stay and fill out the application partially (I know, how professional), I didn't want all of my information out there for someone to come hunt me down later (I know my afraid side came out). So, I get interviewed and find out during the interview after several boring sighs and yawns that the next question the interviewer asked me I would answer it "dumb" so he would escort me out! The question was asked and it was..."So, tell me on a scale of 1-10, 1 being not interested and 10 sign me up, when can I start, what would you consider yourself?" I didn't even think I just said, "I'd be a 4 or a 5 because I'm not comfortable with this area or this city just yet." His response was, "Well, we only hire 10's!" Of course my response was, "Well you're not getting a 10 out of me!" So needless to say that interview was over really quick and I was never more happy to be out of that place!



Then we moved up here and my job search started seriously. I even asked the leasing agent that helped us with the apartment if she knew of anywhere that was hiring...she didn't. So, some time passed and I was still sending off my resume and walking around the malls and door-to door in our little community asking if people were doing any hiring. The only response I got was "Honey, we're firing, not hiring!" The majority of the places were laying people off from the holidays. After all, we moved up here right after Christmas. So, I decided that the week before last I would take the week off from looking so hard for a job and only send my resume to places I really thought I would have a possible future. I got a phone call on a late Friday afternoon from a Dr.'s office. The interview lasted an hour over the phone and she set up an informal interview with me for that next week on Monday. I went to the interview and felt more comfortable on the phone than I did in the office. So back to the drawing board I went! Time passed and finally I get a random e-mail from our leasing agent! She wanted a copy of my resume so she could pass it along to some of her contact that she thought may need help! Little did I know she was plotting to give my resume to her boss because they are hiring in the leasing office. While Rachel was here visiting we were in the game room playing pool and the Office Manager came over and asked if she could talk with me about my resume. So, she set up an interview for that next week on Tuesday. I felt so comfortable in the interview (minus the fact that she told me she still had to interview one more person) and she said that she would like to start the background check paperwork and find out if her boss would like to do a second interview with me since he would be here that next week (which is this week). I wasted no time on filling out the paperwork for the background check and rushed it back downstairs to her! She just said after I gave the papers back to her, "I'll just let you know something when I find out hopefully by the end of the week!" Well the end of the week came here and I heard NOTHING! I was starting to mope around and worry...Finally on Monday, she called and set up a second interview. So, I have a second interview on Thursday with her and her boss! Please cross your fingers that this goes well and maybe I'll have a job offer by the end of the week or beginning of next week!



Sorry for rambling on...this is just something I feel so strongly about. I'm getting cabin fever and running out of things to do! So, hopefully I'll have a job to take some of this time that I'm not so used to having off of my hands! Until next time....

Fun Filled Weekend

So, this weekend my sister came into town. We did lots of exciting and fun things! Friday while Paul and I were waiting for her to get here we went to meet a couple of his classmates at Red Dog Saloon.

We had a good time while waiting on her to get to Norfolk. We had a couple of appetizers and around 7:00pm she arrived. We went to the apartment to pick her up and came back out. We hung out there for a long time and went on our first adventure to downtown to check out the Norfolk night life scene. We had a good time at the other place we went, it was called Fahrenheit.

On Saturday, Rachel and I slept until noon while Paul and Kenny went to school to work on their cadaver's in the lab (what good students they are for going to lab on their day off from school). Once Paul got back from school Rachel and I got ready and we headed to the beach for the afternoon. It was a little cold but it was a nice day and it was nice to get out of the city for a little while.

After we left the beach we headed to the Greenbrier area and had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. We all had crab legs and shared a dessert! It was some good food! The pictures do no justice from how good the food was. Oh, and Paul isn't mad in his picture, he was trying to dance the way the servers danced at Joe's. It was fun to watch that!After dinner we went to over to Kenny and Jenny's and watched the football game. On Sunday, Rachel had to go home. But we went shopping for a little while first at MacArthur Center. I hope she had a good time! Paul and I had a blast with her! Rachel, you're a star now(like I promised you would be) so do your happy dance and even if that guy you're doing your happy dance with says he can't dance with you because he has a girlfriend, remind him it's "only a dance" and dance anyway! I love you and hope you'll be back for another fun weekend soon!

White Coat Ceremony

Last Friday Paul had his White Coat Ceremony for school. He got a white coat and had to take the PA Oath. It was really neat listening to the speakers. They talked about the significance of the white coat and the amount of applicants they had. They had 1300 applicants this year and only accepted 53 of those applicants. The first year the school took applications they only had 47 applicants and only accepted 27 applicants. So, EVMS has done some major changes in the many years that they have taken applicantions for PA's. Then, another speaker gave us the significance of the "short" white coat that Paul got that day. The "short" white coat means that he is still a student and only "practicing." The long white coat that he will receive on the day he graduates means that he is ready for the real world and ready to "practice" on his own and not in a school setting anymore.

Taking the PA Oath.

Afterwards, all smiles...or as Paul would say, "Now that I have this coat, the journey really begins and my gray hairs are coming!!"

His dad came to the ceremony!

This is Paul's friend, Kenny. They were in the initial interview together. They live a block away from us. We carpool with them to and from school. Kenny's wife takes them and I pick them up when they are ready. They are a really nice family and we have had fun getting to know them and hang out with them. They had us over the next day for supper. It was really good...they introduced us to some Utah Mexican food!! I'll have to get the receipe from Jenny so I can make it when I visit home!

Now, the fun begins for us! Paul has his first test today. He was on campus late last night and when he got home he stayed up for another hour or so to continue studying. His mentor, Gary wasn't joking after the White Coat Ceremony when he said that his life was over and welcome to the world of studying all of the time and spending endless hours at school in the library and lab. This is nothing really new for me or for Paul when it comes to studying. He studied a lot for his undergraduate classes and spent a lot of time at school for clinicals so we're used to this pace...just not this fast of a pace. They say it's easy to get behind so he's constantly trying to stay ahead! I know he will make a great PA, I'm so proud of him!!!

Adjusting

For those that didn't know, Paul and I moved to Norfolk, VA. We moved into our apartment on December 27th. We moved to downtown Norfolk to a little town/village called Ghent. You can walk everywhere you go, but it's so cold right now we prefer to drive the long distances (such as to EVMS (Paul's school) which is a mile away) and walking the shorter distances (to Starbucks, which is about 2 blocks away). I decided to start a blog so friends and family back home can keep up with us and visit if they want! So, we've been here 2 weeks as of today and are still adjusting to not having family and friends around. Well, Paul's grandparents and brother are about 15 minutes away. But, there's nothing like going to see your parents and other family members and getting a home cooked meal every once in a while. Here's some pictures of our apartment building and our apartment. I posted them on facebook but I know some people do not have facebook so you can't see them!

It was raining the day we went to sign the lease, so this it the outside of our building! We're on the top floor in the corner.

Some of the kitchen into the living room.

The bedroom area...it's a studio apartment, so there's no walls or doors so, it's all open.

The bathroom.

Us, playing around in the elevator...we were going to Paul's PA "Meet and Greet" lunch the day before school started. We walked, but a nice couple (Kenny and Jenny) that we met at the "Meet and Greet" gave us a ride back to our apartment.