It finally happened, May the 25th 2005, my first ever "serious" job interview.

I couldn't sleep much last night, I always have this inability to sleep the night before the big events, can it either be final exams, important presentations, or even early flight home after being away for 2 years, etc. This one is no exception.

So after countless numbers of sudden wake-ups, I decided not to torture myself any more by getting up three hours before the 9 o'clock interview, and thus giving myself far more than enough time to make myself look tidy and well presented.

Naturally, I came to the location early ? way earlier than I should. The only thing I reckoned I could do was to go over AGAIN my presentation, which I had repeated over a million of times last night. I did it inside of my car, cause I didn't want to attract too many eye-balls; not because that I look like Tom Cruise, apart from we have about the same height, we share almost nothing in common, but it is certainly abnormality to wear suit and tie walking around campus area (the panel is staying at the so-called "executive residence" ? a hotel that the university built for "important visitors".)

I was 10mins earlier; I thought that was a polite thing to do. So I had to kill my entire 10mins "good intention" by reading the local news papers (I know, it sounds lame; it was. But I didn't have other choice, I didn't want to repeat my presentation again, cause I have already done it a million and one times.).

Just before I was about to regret of coming in too early while doing nothing except building up my nerve, a tall (according to my measurement! in fact, statistically speak, he is probably one the people sitting on the average of the normal distribution in terms of the height in NZ), glassed, tidy mid-age male approached me while I was reading something that I couldn't even remember now. "**" (my English name) he said. "yes" I responded surprisingly, as I didn't pay attention to his coming. He then told me his name, which I think I forgot it 2secs after I heard, or maybe I didn't even hear it clearly, who knows!?

I was directed into a room with two other panels sitting in two individualised sofas, again smart looking, glassed, well (formally) dressed, but much younger. I think they must be in less senior positions than the first one I met. Off course, all these didn't come into my mind when I greeted them, my mind was full of what I read early on about what I should do and tattoos that I shouldn't do. "Greet nicely" my head told me. "good morning, I'm **. Nice to meet you!" "shake hands firmly!" the 2nd reminder coming from my mind. I did that, fortunately, I warmed my hands before coming into the room in front of a heater. The nerve and the cold weather made my hands ice cold early on.

Then the interview started, the rest is history. What we talked about was a little bit economics, and then a little bit more economics, and then a little bit more, and more, etc. The environment wasn't as intimidating as I predicted, in fact the interview was anything but a bad experience. The panel was friendly, soft-spoken, prompted. However, the questions were challenging, deeply involved with govt policy and regulations. (I won't talk about the questions in detail here, because past experience told me that no one here is really interested economic discussions.) I have to say that I was stuck on one of method of funding questions, but with one of the interviewers' little direction, I was able to turn it around, and it ended up with something less than a disaster.

I think my overall performance was OK given it was my first ever interview. I am content about it. Given said that, I also see there is a large space for improvement, which I can hopefully get better as if I have the chances to gradually earn more and more experiences.
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