Hello Sasha

There are two dogs in the office now. Chloe is a black lab-shepherd mix and Sasha is an odd-looking black dog of some sort. Sasha is approximately 400 years old and extremely weird looking. She's not ugly, per se. She is very round with a very pointy face and pointy tail. It's kind of like you took a fat black pencil and sharpened it at both ends. Being 400 years old, she doesn't do much. She mostly just lies on her football beanbag and makes Chloe jealous by existing.

Today I had my phone interview with Notre Dame. I think it went pretty well. I mostly just talked about what the organization ReUse Works does. I spend about 20 hours a week repeating that schpeil, so I sound pretty good when I do so. I also explained about the National Science Foundation and what they do. Luckily, I had just looked them up, so I knew several random facts, like they fund 20% of university research and the MRI was created using grants from the NSF. It was weird having a phone interview. I know that I wasn't very coherent on a couple of the more general questions, and I wonder if that comes off worse over the phone than it would have in person. I know that I use a lot of hand gestures and facial expressions and body language when I talk, and that doesn't come across on the phone too well. However, I spent three years getting people to give money via a call, so I think that I have a pretty good phone presence. Some body language (especially facial expression) comes across through your voice, so if you normally use a lot of physical expression when you talk, you should use it on the phone. I'm pretty entertaining to watch talk on the phone. Anyway, hopefully I'll get in to Notre Dame, so I will have some options. Even more hopefully, I will get in and they will give me lots of money. I will give some of this money to Kelly Jean.

My interview was at 2 pm EST, or 11 AM Pacific. So I woke up at 9:45, took a shower, and ate some breakfast so I would sound nice and awake on the phone. During breakfast, I watched the first game of the Big East Championship, Villanova vs. Syracuse. I feel like March Madness is going to be really bad for my tv viewing habits. I'd watch at the gym while I work out, but I tend to yell at the tv, which is kind of embarassing. One of my favorite parts of watching basketball, is when the commentators say the same things that my dad would be saying, like, "You gotta find a white jersey, you gotta make contact, you gotta box him out," in that old man basketball kind of way. It's great.

I've decided that instead of just wasting time when I'm bored at work, I am going to learn things. In keeping with the March Madness theme, I have learned about mid-majors and RPI. I also studied video regarding how to do a flip turn while swimming. Next I am going to memorize all of the countries in Africa.