Fear of not doing well

It is always 'been a while since I last blogged'. I think I have been playing fb games too often to distract myself from all the piling work which unfortunately will never decrease. Of course, there were times when I want to blog but was just too tired like 2 wks ago when I was running short on sleep again and I realised that as I grew older, the lack of sleep makes me more snappy. I remembered it wasn't this bad last time because my friend once asked me if I will be grouchy when I suffered from the lack of food or sleep and I replied none of the above - she wanted to make sure I don't snap at her when we went backpacking haha. But I guess now one of them has won the contest. [2 weeks ago I was on a super tight schedule to prepare lecture notes, a mini-lecture, marking tutorials & practicals and trying to get out of the holiday inertia which actually wasn't much of one since I doing marking 5 out of 7 days. I don't know why this year the marking felt so endless. geez.] Anyway I did snap a little when someone fooled around in lab that week. I think my brain wasn't functioning that well then so for the first time, I took off and left the lab. Standing outside the lab, I was trying to decide if I should blow my top or if the sense of irritation was due to the lack of sleep and so I shouldn't really scold the kid. Ok, in the end I didn't when I walked back in.

So why this entry anyway? Because I wrote a mail to my CT class recently and I think I would like to share the message with all my ex-students. Something for you to ponder over:

As many of us prepare for interview, be it for next wk's medicine, for some scholarship or a post down the line in the future, it is very easy to get carried away with the fear of not doing well and so our faces crunch up during interview as we tried to think of the most intelligent or even witty answers.

RELAX

Truth is, no matter how good you think your answers may be or even how good you are, there is no reason to worry to hit the bull-eye, philosophically-speaking.

Each batch of interview or each year, the assessors may look for something different in a cohort. For medicine, there are years when they want sportsman to spice up the faculty or they want people heavily involved in community etc because they want diversity to jazz up this community that is getting homogenous. Then another year, they may feel that there are too many sportsman so they go back to choosing academically strong students and it goes on. Thus to a certain extent, some choices were pre-determined. And this scenario is applicable to all communities and faculties as the world progresses these days.
So why worry?

An interview is a face-on assessment, to see in real life the person who did the writing and to determine (hopefully) if the material written has been blown out of proportion. But the key thing, esp for medicine, is still the smile and sincerity. In those minutes, you will be like seeing a patient, so be compassionate. It is the first impression of a patient as seen from the eyes of the interviewers. Anyway, please pity them :) cos they are sitting in the whole day or days dealing with young fellows like you , sometimes irritating sometimes CMI and most of all, some of them were made to go down to conduct the interviews when they prefer to stay in their offices...mmmm... maybe playing farmville? Or one of current fav of Zooworld!! :)
So don't worry! :) I guess during the intermission period when interviewees come in and out, they may just whip out their iphones and start playing these games and feed their animals hahah.

In a recent book I read by a renowed education fellow, he noted that it was wrong to assess one based on an interview whereby the candidates are supposed to come up with a super witty or good model answer spontaneously or within a given time-frame (some interviews are like that)- and that was the impression given to us by tv programms.
why is it wrong is because all of us come with differently personalities (Myers-Briggs yah?) . Some of us preferred style is to consider the scenario carefully while others tend to be more impulsive and dive in. Of cos there are others who are really superb. this kind of tests does no justice to people who like to contemplate and look at things from all perspectives who are equally important in an organisation.
Anyway, there is no need to be pressured to come up with a super-fast response for I have learnt too (or rather because I am not quick-minded haha) , to take my time to consider my responses and be sincere and truthfully about it.

So what I am saying is that an interview is no indication of your ability and the many wonderful qualities you have as a person.
There are many times when we simply could not figure out why some people pass an interview and others dun so the selection is really dependent on the candidates in the year, projected future based on current global progress and even wimps and fancies of the interviewers. So many variables which we cannot control. so why worry hahah.

To prepare yourself, I ask you to take some time to consider again why you want the interview, the scholarship, the post.
this is very impt: only when you look deeply into what you want and why you do certain things, can you convince others of your dreams and purposes.
only when you believe in yourself can you convince others to believe in you.

And if it helps, think of zooworld when you go for interviews