Parenting is psychologically protective during graduate school

I'm not being very productive right now. I'm drinking coffee and refereeing TV turns between my three- year-old and 10 year old. I have a high-stakes interview tomorrow morning, 10 pounds of grading, and the online course I'm teaching starts at 12 am but instead of fretting about tomorrow, I'm  enjoying the gentle sounds of pretzel munching across the room. If I tried to be everything at once I would indeed be very stressed. Stress kills brain cells and depletes energy. I'll focus on tomorrow tomorrow.

Mis-Match

I interviewed at a great site yesterday. The current interns seem happy. I wouldn't have to move because it's less than an hour away. I would gain substantial experience working with adults and children who have PTSD...a diverse patient population...good pay..many wonderful things. It's painful when I think about it because I'm so sure I won't get it. According to a recent New York Times article, 24% of applicants don't match. Research done by APPIC shows that the strongest predictor of matching is the number of interviews an applicant gets.  I only have 3. I may also have an in at a site that isn't in the match. Another interviewee told me a minority of students and psychologists that have been advocating to do away with internship entirely. He explained that the burden of training would shift back to the graduate program. This guy had 13 interviews, but he was still bitter about the expense, stress and endless hoop jumping involved in the process.