I'm just sittin' here waitin' for the phone to ring. Company B should be calling me today to schedule my second interview. I'm kind of hoping that they'll want to interview me tomorrow so that I can go hang out with Liz and watch some anime or something on Thursday or Friday.

In the meantime, Company A called me to let me know that they wanted to call my references and background check me and stuff, so they're definitely seriously thinking about making me an offer.

The uncertainty is getting to me a bit. I mean, it's the best kind of uncertainty, in that the odds are getting higher all the time that I'm going to get at least one job offer I'll be happy with. I feel like I'm the heroine of a Jane Austen novel. I'm being courted, but will anyone actually come through with an offer? And will I end up with a Darcy or a Wickham?

On the other hand, if I get to be Eliza Bennet, that puts a cheerful face on the whole matter.

Hmmm...that may actually be a new one in the realm of business advice books: Job Hunting Secrets of Elizabeth Bennet.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a pharmaceutical company in possession of good fortune must be in want of an employee."

Hmmm.

Anyway, I have been dealing with my anxieties in the usual manner, by rather frenzied preparations for my upcoming interview. I should be well-prepared. I just hope that I don't work myself into a frazzle by the time the actual interview comes around. I've been trying to manage appropriate periods of distraction and amusement. Daniel dragged me out last night to a CalAnimage screening of a fan-sub of the first four episodes of Wolf's Rain, a new anime series from the same guys who did Cowboy Bebop. It was good. I want to see the rest! It will probably be a long time before licensed, legitimate DVD versions are released in the US. Fooey.

Aaargh. If I pick up another call from a telemarketer, expecting it to be Company B, I'm going to...whine about it in my on-line journal. So there!

It could be worse. If I were on the academic job market, this whole interview/courtship process would be happening on much longer time scale. I'd have ever so much longer to fret about all the possibilities and alternatives.

Eh. By the end of this week, unless Company B has serious scheduling difficulties, I should be done with the interviews. Then it will just be a matter of waiting, and doing the appropriate follow-up, and seeing what happens. (Well, and applying for any more jobs that come up and look promising, because, as good as things are looking, I might not get an offer from either of these companies. And besides, wouldn't it be fun to throw a Company C into the mix?)

Oh, and of course, there are all these crazy things that are going on in the world, and I feel like I should comment on them, and probably at some point I will. But right now, I'm just going to sit here, contemplating my career goals and practicing my HTML.