Interviews and missed trips

hello everyone!

another week has gone by in beautiful, yet chilly, lille and i wish i could report settling into a "normal" routine, but that would be a lie. since the last blog, that week and this week have been complete opposites.

last week was filled to the rafters with interviews, either in person in paris or via skype and phone with canada. you see, it was recruitment season for my last co-op and so i began applying. i also wanted to find an internship in france - no matter the cost - to live my dream of living and working and having a life based in europe - even just for a few months. living here is sort of like a drug. its a way of life that is exactly what i had envisioned. while i dont get to go to the market every day for fresh food inspiration, i do have the opportunity to walk in beautiful parks to get to the tram, or up the street to the boulangerie or a just across to class. i love that my life has turned from sedentary to active. honestly, it feels like if i havent gone for a walk in a day (like today because it started to snow), my day isnt done.

anyway, interviews. in total, i had 8 separate interviews, 2 in paris, 2 or 3 on the phone and the rest on skype. i was most excited for unilever france because a) it would allow me to be working in the industry that i want in the capacity that i want and b) it would let me stay in france for at least another 6 months!  the night before my interview, i laid everything out, packed my bag and got myself ready for a 5am wake up. i set my alarm on my phone and plugged it into my tablet - something i've done dozens of times before - to let it charge. i closed my eyes and went to bed. i wake up with a start and turn on my phone to see the time - sunlight outside is telling me that it`s later than 5am, but that`s impossible, my phone would have gone off. click. click. click. oh fuck. the batteries dead. i turn on my tablet. 8:30am. shit. how could this be happening to me?? i spend the next few minutes unsure if i want to cry or yell or curl up and disappear. how could this be happening????? it was like a scene from a nightmare. i emailed my school and my friends asking for their thoughts. at 9am, not many people were on fb, so i sat and thought. train! i can take the train! seeing as it takes me an hour to get to the train stations, the best i could do was 10:30 or later. great. train at 11:42, gets me to paris by 12:42 and another hour to the headquarters - just enough time to get me to the part right after lunch and just before my interview. let`s do this. i throw on my clothes and off i go. i get to the train station at 11:38 and sprint to the ticket booth. 11:39 - all booths open, i ask everyone to bud them. 11:40 - i tell the ticket person that i need a ticket to paris now. she looks at me and says the next train is at 1:10. what?? what happened to the 11:42? i learn that the TGV closes its doors 2 mins before departure so even if she sold me the ticket, i wouldnt be able to board. all i can think is... FUCK - WHY GOD, WHY?????? me, being me, calls my friend who is at unilever already and tries to see if it`s worth it for me to go. they're still in a conference and i can`t talk to the department head... goodness gracious! why was the world against me today????? i finally get contact and she says that the department head isn`t available right now... next interaction - she`s not in the area. next interaction - what next interaction? i dind`t hear anything. fine. left to my own devices, i bit the bullet, waited an ever so torturous 15 min wait to buy my ticket and bolted onto the train. finally, sitting there, i did my make up and closed my eyes for a quick nap. in what felt like no time, i was approaching paris gare du nord and it was time to get to unilever. train after train after train. all i could think about was making it there before interviewing started. 3pm. obviously, nobody in the neighbourhood knew were unilever was, right? 3pm and i step out from 40 mins of transit to, like all french streets, no clear indication of where anything is. thankfully i met someone who knew where the headquarters and off i went. "just up the street" he said... 25 mins later, i`m  just outside unilever and i don the jacket and the shoes. a quick reflection in the mirror and i think to myself - wow, i may actually be able to pull this off. some classmates see me and giggle because i`m so late, but honestly, who cares? my dream is sitting in front of me. it`s up to me to take it.

after a brief pause at the reception, the department head comes up and looks surprised. "what are you doing here? didn't you get the message that unilever got your message and understood that you couldn't come today for an interview? that you could do your interview over the phone?" pasted smile. "no, i dind't get it. its fine though. i wanted to do this interview in person. it was important to me." inside:"stupid, stupid me! why did i come?!?!" all things said and done, i was taken downstairs to wait with the rest of my class. they looked confused as to why i was coming so late. i just wanted to get my interview done with. i was told 45 mins after i arrived that my interview would be at 5:30 (it was around 4:30 by that point). an hour of pleasant conversation later, i look up and see that there were still people waiting to be interviewed. asking around, i realize that the person before me still hadn`t gone in; the interviewer was running an hour late - good thing too, because apparently they didn`t have my resume on file. i needed to borrow a classmates phone to forward my initial email to someone else who had to print it and give it to the HR responsible. goodness gracious. i don`t know what else i could handle that day. the inteview itself finally came and honestly, i felt awesome. it felt like my interview with gsk when i got my first co-op. i even used  the day`s events as proof of character and interest. it was awesome. at the end of the interview, they told me that they`d call me in 10 business days. ok, so i took the bus back and all i could think about was how i could move my life over here. i wanted the internship so badly.

the week continued with the rest of the interviews, including another interview in paris with fiat/ fga capital. that interview was the most elaborate interview i`ve ever done. my friend was right, interviewing with a big company really is exhausting. it required going to paris on thursday night after a day of class, spending the night at my friend`s place, waking up at 6:30am for a 9:30am interview, arriving late, interviewing for 2 hours and then taking more that 2 hours to get back to my friend`s place. after all of that, i couldn't get in touch with my ride share back to lille AND i get a call from my school in canada telling me that a food cpg company wants to interview me last minute and wanted to know if i was available. as it turns out, i was already on my way back to lille from paris for another skype interview and having spent the better part of the last 24 hours away and travelling, i just wanted it all to end. obviously i wanted to do the interview so i said yes, but i was truly exhausted. then, on the ride back, the snow storm hits and 21 km from lille, the highway comes to a stand-still. 1 hr in 35 mins. do the math. we had to get off the highway at 6:30 and, seeing as my interview was at 7, i had to call canada to ask them to rearrange my schedule of interviews. the next one was scheduled at 8. the guy driving did his best and i got back to my appartment at 7:56pm, just in time for my interview. unfortunately, the interview didn`t go so well and while they were smiling at the beginning, the manager was nothing but withdrawl physical gestures by the end. it was unfortunate because that was the job that i wanted. oh well, what could i have done. the second interview happened and it went well, but i didn`t have the heart to do it anymore. i ended up calling my sister to hear the kids laughing. (i swear, it does magic for the soul.)

the next day i was supposed to go to brugges, brussels, but alas, with the snow, everything was cancelled. i ended up spending the weekend at home recuperating after recruitment week, desperately waiting to hear unilever call.anyway, the next week, monday night, i get the results of the interviews in canada. 3 offers, 2 "ranked" places and 3 "no rankings". i also hadn`t heard from unilever. then began the difficult task of figuring out what exactly to choose. i waited until i could call unilever at a normal hour and presented my case. the HR rep who interviewed me told me that i should take the certain one in canada and then come back to unilever. and that is exactly what i did. i broke my heart and after my decision, i was broken for 2 days. like seriously, it was like what i`d imagine a break up to be like. i couldn't focus, function, i was sad. horrible feelings. then, on the 3rd day, i decided to start booking my trips and taking full advantage of my time here, as short as it may be. 4 trips were booked in one day, the first being the following saturday to cologne. after that, anyone ever heard of retail therapy??? it was so nice to just walk around the stores and finding new things to get - one of which was my trivial pursuit - french gastronomy edition. as one of my friend`s puts it, it`s really a story of love...

this past week, unlike the one before it, was light in work and stress. i got a chance to buy a grocery buggy and found a way to traverse the park over a bridge. i watched old people meander along and kids walk on the frozen "river". it was so pleasant. it helped put things back in their place.anyway, this past saturday rolled around and i got everything ready for cologne. i made travel notes and jotted down ideas of what to do. problem was, i forgot to set my alarm. no alarm, no waking up. no waking up, no bus to cologne and definitely no trip. thus, another weekend in lille. good thing i still hadn`t exhasuted my retail therapy... new coat, bag and many gifts. oh how i love them all!

lol, i guess, some things never change :)