It’s nice to feel wanted
 
I always feel turning down a job interview is somehow close to suicidal, yet I’ve been doing a bit of it recently.
 
As a result of a mad spate of applying for advertised jobs before news about PhD funding came through, I made interview with a federal government department and my undergraduate university (the ANU). I also had a tentative e-mail from an outfit I'd seriously like to work for in response to an unsolicited CV and cover letter.
 
And I’ve bitten the bullet, been honest, and said I’m not available.
 
My only twinge on this point is - the wheels of Cambridge bureaucracy grinding slower than the mills of god - I’ve not yet had 100% iron-clad acceptance for the PhD place. I have the money and the marks, which is all I need to be confirmed, but I don’t have a letter yet saying “Yup, you’re officially good to go.”
 
That may not arrive until September, and this is nothing unusual.
 
(Bizarrely, what is holding things up is that the Board of Graduate Studies does not, a month after graduation, have official notice of my marks in the LLM. I guess this is their busiest time of year, and I suspect the hold-up is at the law faculty’s end … )
 
I suspect the sensible thing to do would have been to do the interviews or ask to be kept in consideration, but in at least one case this would involve setting up a videoconference and preparing a seminar in the middle of my travel plans.

Also, I think, better to preserve a reputation for being scrupulously up front with people you may want to approach for work in a few years’ time. 
  
Still, being presented with other (possible) options always injects a little niggling doubt into your plans, doesn’t it?

... Nah. I'm a born academic, this is so what I'm meant to be doing.
 
Back in Cambridge at present, and also realising anew that I have a social life here. Within hours of returning from Prague I bumped into half a dozen people and pretty much had my free nights before the parents arrive booked up.

 All round, it’s nice to feel wanted.