One week to go...

For four of the round 1 five applications there is about a week to go; hence the slow down in posts. My mood keeps swinging between the "oh wow, I'm almost done. This is great. I can't wait to hit submit and just sit back and wait because I'm confident this year will be the year" and the "Oh god, how am I ever going to pull this all together in time". I don't think I'm alone by any stretch of the imagination. As I sit here before heading into the office, cleaning up another essay, I'm in good spirits. A couple applications are more or less done. With some editing this week/weekend I should have a stress free week next week. Well, aside from the panic that hitting submit brings.

On a side note, I attended another presentation for UCLA last night. At this stage, most of these presentations are becoming rather repetitive. There are always the nuggets I pull out but for the most part, my research has tipped me off the key themes of what they offer and how the differentiate. I'm scheduled for another one tomorrow night with Tuck but since I've already been to three or four such presentations I'm inclined to skip it to work on my applications. It's amusing if you take a step back. Why should I go back and forth about this? It won't impact my candidacy (aside from standing up in the front row and yelling obscene remarks and making sure my name is known at the time) yet I'm still on the fence. Funny anecdote about that: I called Kellogg to reschedule my interview due to work demands. When I called to check availability I was cut off at the end of the conversation. There was nothing more for me to say by then except "Thank you, I'll be in touch soon. Have a good day." Yet, I contemplated calling back to say just that as my mind raced to thoughts of him marking my file with a note of "rude, hung up on me". When I took a deep breathe I realized how insane that sounded. Pulled my hand off the phone and walked away. Catching the same guy the next day, I was able to joke about it all. Point of all this: To all of us control freaks, take the deep breathe. At the end of the day, most of these little interactions will have no bearing on your application. So take solace in it and enjoy the ride.