All packed for Lund and I'm leaving nothing to chance!

I count on this to insure I make
friends on the airport!

• Laptop Check
• Kindle Check
• Kindle with full batteries DoubleCheck
• Valid passport and printed plane tickets Check
• Spare clothes Check
• An umbrella Check
• A power cord for making friends at the airport Check

I have been hoping for a dry day,
the forecast changed on the last minute.

You are probably thinking something along the lines "What? Is he moving to Sweden already? I thought that was months away!" So let me reassure you right now: I'm only visiting Lund for a day, I'm just leaving nothing to chance.

Have I forgotten anything? This is the list I've come up with and I can't think of anything else I might need for my epic trip to Lund.

I'm leaving home tomorrow very early and depart at 7 AM from Ljubljana's airport. I suspect it will be a mad dash across Frankfurt's airport to catch the 9:30 flight to Copenhagen. All I need to do there is find the train to Lund and then sailing should be smooth all until I start making the return trip at around 17:00 - this time a lot more relaxed since history will already have been made!

If your path tomorrow is by any chance crossing mine please say hi!

I expect I won't have any spare time in Lund to meet with anyone but Nokia, however I'd love to have someone to chat to on the airports and/or flights. If you are travelling tomorrow drop me an email and let's see if our paths intersect!

In other news Radio Sweden has aired their interview with me from a couple of weeks ago. Here is the link to the episode and here is the direct link to the mp3 file. My short bit starts at 21:40 and lasts for about five minutes. While not exactly thrilled by my performance I think I did all right for a first radio appearance.

Related articles

• Actually visiting Lund for the first time! (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Planning: Visiting Lund for the first time (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• The game is on! (helpmemovetosweden.com)

Can one get good at phone interviews?

On Thursday I had two job interviews and even though I think they both went reasonably well, I have a much better feeling about one. And the main difference? One was in person, the other was a phone interview over Skype (no video).

Not only did I have a phone interview, I had my first phone interview. That may strike you as odd, but according to my experiences phone interviews aren't really popular in Slovenia and I haven't worked for a company abroad before. All that is of course changing now when I'm looking for a job in Sweden.

I don't think that the interview went badly, but I couldn't get in the zone, I wasn't properly focused and I even caught myself making long sentences that must have confused my interlocutor. If I summarise: I just couldn't be myself.

I'm usually quite good at interviews, there is just something about talking about myself for an hour that I enjoy... And I often feel like I made a connection during the interview, not unlike the feeling you get when you've made a new friend.

Nothing pleasant like that happened this time though. And even though I know it is possible that it just didn't go as well as I've expected it too, I can't help but suspect the phone is to blame here. I felt annoyed during the pauses my interviewee made to write things down, and I couldn't shake the impression he was just following a script. It didn't feel like a real conversation.

Even though I never appreciated the idea of a video call, I'm quite sure it would make a world of difference this time.

Am I'm over-thinking this and is this just what the phone interviews are like? Are phone interviews just worse different than in-person ones? Do you feel you are a good phone interviewee? Any tips? Please respond in the comments!