The second round took place the weekend before I went skiing. I worked with 2 other girls and together we interviewed 15 applicants in 2 days, which is quite a performance, but besides this having been difficult in terms of concentration, it was also exhausting due to the personal involvement you experience. Regardless of the fact that I interview people every day, I found it very taxing because I had to do a very different type of interviewing. You also have to have your expectations right and think about what a 17-year-old can/should know about the world. It's not easy. Try and think about it.
I think I had many pleasant and unpleasant surprises that weekend and we also experienced many funny but also some strange moments. At times, I was wondering how someone from a very difficult background can be so well informed about politics, social and environmental issues and how others with a very balanced background can be so blind to what is happening around them. We talked to someone who failed to notice the BP oil spill, had no idea that something was happening in Egypt and Lybia and also thought that there aren't any social issues in Hungary that should be addressed. She lives in a wonderful world - too bad it's not real.
The next step of the selection will be the assessment center next weekend - we usually call it Csillebérc, because that is where it takes place. A two-day camp for the best 16 applicants, full of games and exercises and fun. We had a preparation meeting this morning (there will be 6 organizers and 12 observers/decision makers for 16 candidates...) and the atmosphere was already great. We started with a game. Each of us had to find a partner, so I paired up with Dani. We received one sheet of paper and one pen. We had to imagine a house, a tree and a dog and we were not allowed to talk to discuss our ideas. We had to hold the pen together and draw the house, the tree and the dog that we imagined. You can see the result below:
As you can see, the drawing skills of the two of us added up to the skills of a 6-year-old :) We signalled to each other that we should start with the house and that was mostly Dani's drawing, or so I thought, but at the end, he told me he let me draw a lot. For example, the horizontal lines and the round window were guided by my hand, or at least that's what he felt. I thought that's what he wanted. I asked him what the thingy on top of the roof was: it's not a boat. I was the one who put the squirrel on our pine tree and I draw our wonderfully cute puli dog with the curly fur and Dani added the poo - with the help of my hand, of course. When we had to give a title to our picture, we looked at each other and Dani tried to form letters with his hands but he was so fast that I couldn't catch it. Then, I opened a book and I tried to show him that he should point at the letters so that I could read what he thought of, but he didn't understand that. Eventually, we pointed at a random word; so that's our title :)I'm very much looking forward to next weekend. It's going to be tiring but it's going to be oh-so-good.
