Like Cash Donated by Abramoff...

...I'm outta here.

I still have to finish packing to get to Acorn. The Silo Hotel (as I'm calling it) does appear to have wi-fi, but I hope I don't get sucked into looking at lovely sunrise photos on Flick'r as usual while I'm supposed to be getting some sleep before my interviews tomorrow morning.

Had the second one yesterday, with three people on a speakerphone. It turns out to be more difficult to interview over the phone than in person. (And not only because we lost the connection once and I had no idea at what point in my description of a treatment plan it had been lost.)

I decided this difficulty is mainly because I had no cues when to stop, so I ended up feeling that I hadn't given enough information. As I recall it, they asked for a 5-7 minute reply to each case scenario, and I think mine were a lot shorter. I have this problem when I'm writing, too. I get very impatient spelling out remedial details that I know my expert listener already knows: it feels like I'm talking down to them. Like I'm making us both stupider.

This tendency of mine to telegraph ideas was only made worse by the complete lack of any kind of conversational cues. Since it was a speakerphone, I couldn't even hear anyone breathing, or hear any of that "space" you can hear on the other end in a normal conversation.

All I could hear was my own voice. It was too hard to go on and on in an echoing vacuum. (Never mind the scientific contradiction in that statement.) Especially after I lost the connection once and went on and on to no one at all for a while. After that I literally felt like I was talking to myself during the answer segments, and how long can I do that? (Not long.)