Dear Wikipedia: do you come in audiobook form?

Okay, so the interview could have gone better.

Don’t get me wrong, I KILLED in the handshake and introductions section… it was when we segwayed into the “do you know anything relevant” section that things took a downward turn.

I pumped up all my program development and management experience from the projects I ran during law school, my grant-writing and fundraising experience from the condom casino (without actually mentioning the condom casino by name, of course), my writing and editing work for the int’l law journal, etc. They were nodding along. I felt pretty good.

And then they asked, “how long have you been in Egypt?” Um…. Okay, so this is my fourth day.

“What do you know about human rights in the Arab region?” they asked. Well, now that isn’t fair. Even if I knew everything there was to know about human rights in the Arab region, how does one go about answering that question?! So I sort of meandered around being familiar with the situation in Iraq through my work on contractors, having attended school in Yemen, etc.

Not good enough. “If we were to ask you to write a proposal for a project including several activities aimed at supporting the freedom of association in Egypt, and you were to sit down to begin your research on the issue, what would you do?”

Is there an intelligent way to say “I would type “Egypt” into Wikipedia”??

So conversation sort of ground to a halt around there. There was a little more chatting, an uncomfortable moment discussing salary (why does nobody believe that “I’m flexible” really means that I am flexible?!) and then the old “we’ll let you know soon.” But since I was told this morning that they would see me “soon,” and didn’t have my interview until 2:00, I’m not sure when I will find out if I have the job or not.