Candidate #0000 - Post 2

102 days until graduation.

Music I’m currently listening to: Accidentally in Love, Counting Crows
Mood: drained

Today has been one of those days. Actually, this whole weekend has been crazy busy and I feel like I need a vacation. But let me start at the beginning:
I like to keep Fridays my “day off,” so that I can get schoolwork done, maybe schedule an occasional meeting or catch up on sleep. But somehow, this never happens and Fridays are just as busy as any other day of the week. This Friday, for example, I was in meetings from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., then spent about an hour in the office desperately attempting to get some work done, and finally went to dinner and bowling with the executive board of the Residence Hall Association (RHA) – I’m one of their advisors. I got home late and still had work to do, so once again, it was up most of the night. Not a big deal, you may think, since the next day was a Saturday. Wrong! Saturday, we had another meeting schedule for the RHA Executive Board to get ready for the semester. That took up most of the day, and then I had some errands to run and more work to do. I passed out on the couch around 3 a.m.
So then there was today. I slept through most of the morning, and then dragged myself out of bed to start on some of the reading for class. I was just taking a shower, when my phone rang. I volunteer for this local Sexual Assault Crisis Hotline. I had signed up for the shift that would have started today at 6 p.m., but somehow that got screwed up and I was now on for the entire day and night. Again, that wouldn’t have been a big deal, if today hadn’t also been the Community Room Opening Party in my residential area. I’m the Hall Director for a Family Housing area and after a semester of working on it, I had finally managed to get an empty apartment and change it into a Community Room that my staff and I could use for programs and events. The Opening Party was supposed to be this huge event. I had bought all kinds of food, decorated the community room and invited a lot of important people. So here I was, still half asleep and getting ready for this party, when I get a phone call for the Hotline saying that I needed to meet this sexual assault survivor at the hospital. AHHHHHHHHHHH!
Fortunately, my staff is amazing. I called them in a panic and five minutes later, one of them met me at the community room, so I could show her where everything was and briefly go over what needed to be done for the party. Then, I jumped into my car and rushed down to the hospital.
Six hours later, I returned. Exhausted and drained. The good news is that the party went really well. I talked to two of my staff members and they both had only great things to report. I’m a little bummed that I missed it, especially after I have put so much work into this event. *Sigh*
And once again, it’s getting late and I haven’t gotten all my work done. I wanted to take care of some more job search preparation, but I’m afraid that will have to wait until next weekend.
I did buy this really cute binder – it’s pink, which is my favorite color – that I am planning on using for all my job search material. I’m going to get dividers and then keep track of all the different jobs I’m applying for. For example, I want to print out job descriptions, mission statements and other information about the schools I’m applying to, as well as keep track of when I make contact with them and how far I am in their process, etc. I really want to be organized with this.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you the good news. I finished my first cover letter. One of the many meetings I had on Friday was one with my advisor. I had asked her to look over my cover letter and give me some feedback, so we set up that meeting. The good thing about having this appointment was that it forced me to actually sit down and write this cover letter. I picked an institution that I would be really interested in working at and which is also interviewing at ACPA; then I checked out their job description as well as the school Web site and information about Residential Life; printed out the Residential Life mission statement and core values; and finally just sat down Thursday night and wrote it. I think the first draft turned out all right. And now, after some input and help from my advisor, I’m actually proud about my first cover letter. I think it’s good and makes me sound really smart. I still want to have a couple more professionals look over it before I send it out, but I’m so much closer now to sending out the first stack of cover letters and resumes. Of course, I’ll have to change my cover letter for each institution I’m applying to, but at least I have my first one and can use parts of it for the other ones. I also feel like, it should be getting easier as I’m becoming more comfortable with cover letter writing.
Okay, this is already a really long post, but there’s one more thing I have to mention: Can I just tell you how much I love my advisor? I was really struggling with this job-searching thing, but the meeting with her on Friday helped so much. She has so much confidence in all of us. She kept telling me that I shouldn’t sell myself short and that I have a great resume and cover letter, and many school will want to hire me. I just want one to offer me a job.
It’s great to have someone, who believes in you and is there to basically hold your hand throughout this whole process. I don’t know what I would do without her help. And she’s not the only one. Several other professionals have offered to look over my resume and cover letter. The first few classes for one our graduate courses is focusing on job searching. Residential Life is organizing this Mock Placement for all of us graduate students on February 3rd, and everyone is just being so helpful and encouraging. I’m really lucky to be in this graduate program and have all this support.