I'm impatient

I'm doing an animal study for a new device of mine today. It will be myself, a tech, and one PhD student in a hospital lab. As I'm sitting in the waiting room (I finished my setup rather early, so I'm drinking coffee and eating yogurt) I realized again how much I hate waiting. As humans, we wait. We are social creatures that need interactions to survive. Whether this interaction is meeting up with a friend for lunch, or waiting for a doctor's appointment to look at a mole, timing never works out and someone is always left waiting. I'm sure some statistics guru out there has published something on the probability that two people given a specific meetup time will be there at the exact same time. My guess is it's less than 5% of the time you arrive within 10 seconds of one another. 

This particular study is an interesting one because I am the sole person responsible for this product. I was allowed to deviate from the industry-team concept and pursue this myself. If I had no idea how to cut-down an animal then I would probably even do the animal part of this myself. It's an interesting project because it reminded me more of grad school in terms of how solo I've been. The solo nature of the project is why I'm doing the study right now when no one is back at the home-lab.  I've gotten this project done very quickly because of the solo-nature, as well. This animal study is the only waiting I've had to do other than parts from vendors. And waiting for these hospital personnel to get here is so damn frustrating.

Waiting right now also reminds me of waiting for faculty search committees to get back to me. And because I'm an impatient butt, I can't bear the waiting!  I've been told my impatience is my biggest personality flaw, but have been told that it's also an asset because it allows me to get things done quickly. Unfortunately, there are so many things out of my control. So I'm stuck waiting. And I definitely don't have the patience to learn patience. And as the holiday season approaches fewer things will get done. The one thing I've learned to do is occupy myself. If I didn't have a smartphone, laptop, book, etc, waiting would destroy me. With the holidays coming up, my mind will also be occupied with tidings of joy, and relatives I can't stand talking to. 

Now if I had some annoying relatives to talk to in this damn hospital lobby. 

Waiting: A tragedy of MASSIVE proportions

I was trying to think of a movie to make an analogy of the post-applying waiting process to (yay! Ending a sentence with a preposition...although is it still ended in a preposition if I have this long parened statement afterword?).  I couldn't think of any film where you spend the whole movie wondering "what am I doing here" then you get an incredibly happy or crushing ending.  So, I just threw up Waiting.  I didn't like this film at all, so it's similar to my search process.  And during the movie, I remember getting a little anxious about when it would end because I just wanted out.  Some faculty from other colleges have told me the earliest I'll hear back is mid-December, and the waiting is killing me.

When I was applying for industrial jobs, I went through a similar process.  Getting my cover letter and resume, submitting them online, and waiting.  The core difference is that I was able to keep applying to keep my mind off of the applications that I first submitted.  Industrial positions come up all the time regardless of the academic cycle.  Academic application cycles all end late-fall, and from what I've heard, committees don't look at it until the end of the semester.  For my industry search, I typically forgot about most of the positions since I was constantly applying.  Even during my interview stage, I kept applying, which also helped me forget about the waiting.

Right now, the application season for the universities I'm interested in has ended (28 schools...I know, if I was this selective with mates, I would have been married A LOT sooner).  All the apps are submitted and there are no more I can apply for.  This also makes the academic application process stressful since if it doesn't work this year, then there's a whole another year of waiting for the next application cycle.  More waiting.  And who knows if there will be just as many, or fewer, positions open for people like me.

Nothing ever bothers me.  The worst reviewer comments, my parents horrible comments, getting yelled at at work, nothing gets to me...except waiting.  I'm insanely impatient, and I want satisfaction now.  So here's what I've been doing since I can't occupy myself with applying for more jobs:

1.  Two new video games have come out these past couple of weeks
2.  Reading a couple new books
3.  Working a little extra
4.  Drinking
5.  Petting my incredible dog
6.  Thinking about next year.

I mention the last comment because I didn't have as much time as I would have wanted during this application cycle.  I feel it looks pretty strong, and have been told so from other people, but there are things I wish I could have done.  So I'm actually rewriting portions of my statements.  It's going to be bittersweet if I get a job offer.  Maybe I should just keep to the Xbox/PS3 and not focus on next year...and staring angrily at the slow-boiling water on the stove.

Edit 11/11/13: My old advisor is very confident I will get interviews so he told me to add #7 to the list: prepare job talks. :P