So here I am, less than two days away from finding out my fate. As a reminder to those of you not intimiately familiar with the process, this Friday (Feb. 20), I’ll find out whether or not I matched to an internship site. No information about where I matched to will be learned at that time, however. If I find out on Friday that I did match, then on Monday morning, I’ll find out the site to which I matched. Unlike most situations in which you interview for positions, there is only one site to which you can be matched. A computer in the sky compares my rankings of sites and their rankings of me and will (hopefully) match me up. My choice in the matter was over with when I submitted my rankings – if I matched, I’m already contractually bound to the site I matched at, even though I don’t yet know where that is!
If I find out on Friday that I did not match, then I’ll spend the weekend getting ready to participate in the clearinghouse, which opens on Monday morning. Clearinghouse is a chaotic process through which sites that have unfilled slots attempt to fill their slots with unmatched applicants. It’s apparently a flurry of emails, faxes, cursory phone interviews, offers with incredibly short decision times, and generally agreeing to spend a year at a place essentially sight-unseen. Not an ideal situation, by any means, but it is definitely preferable to not matching at all and having to go through this whole process again next year. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that even after clearinghouse, there will still be several hundred more internship applicants than there are positions for internships. These are people who have a bachelors degree, likely a masters degree, and are a year away from doctorates in psychology, so obviously a lot of time, effort, and money have been devoted to getting to this capstone internship year. I can’t begin to imagine how devastating it would be to learn that it isn’t happening after all that.
Last week, I was feeling more anxious than anything and did a lot of complaining about how long it was until I found out the news. This week, I’m more excited than anxious. However, I had a hard time sleeping last night, and I’m sure that by tomorrow night, I’ll be a bundle of nerves. I think I’ll see if my mom will babysit after dinner and if Ramy wants to go to the movies Thursday night. The information about whether I matched or not will be emailed to me and will be posted on a secure website by 7:00 a.m. Friday morning. Rumor has it that sometimes the info comes through in the wee hours of the morning. So you can be that I’ll have my laptop in bed and will be continuously alternating between hitting the refresh button on the website and clicking send/receive on my email, since I don’t know which one might come through first.
Thank you for all of your prayers and positive thoughts for good news on Friday! For me, if I find out I matched on Friday, where I’m going is much less important. I’ll be equally happy with any of the top 6 sites I ranked. And frankly, any internship is okay with me since it means I’ll be graduating next year. The sooner I graduate, the sooner I can get out of California! I’m trusting that God is going to put me at the right place for the right reason, even if it doesn’t make much sense to me right now. However, I’ll admit that that takes little anxiety out of the equation! I’ll of course be texting and posting the breaking news as soon as it comes in. I’ll be interrupting all regularly scheduled programming to share, especially if it is good news. (And if it isn’t good news, then I’ll let you know to which hospital they’ll be involuntarily committing me).
In other news, Ramy had Lasik eye surgery on Monday morning! Oddly, they had me watch the whole procedure on a bigscreen monitor just outside the procedure room. I really could have done without seeing them cut open a flap of his eyeball and squish around the gelatinous goo in his eyeball, but maybe they think it helps us think we got our money’s worth. Everything went perfectly. He slept the rest of the day on Monday (thanks to the Darvocet, Lunesta, and Valium they gave him!) and had no pain or discomfort. As of yesterday, he had 20/25 vision in his left eye and better than 20/20 vision in his right eye. Pretty good for a guy who was legally blind just the morning before! Of course, he isn’t going to be completely satisfied unless it is perfect. A lot of healing and changes in vision take place for three months after the surgery, but obviously he had a great outcome from the procedure. Particularly as he ages, however, he may well need reading glasses, either fairly soon or at some point. It's a nice thing to not witness his staggering to the bathroom first thing in the morning, or trying to see his watch in front of his face when he wakes up!
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