Being investigated:

I'm currently in the process of a background investigation just a bit more stringent than my investigation for the State Department (which involved making sure that I wasn't wanted in any felonies, having a credit check, and talking to a background investigator for about 15 minutes). The current background investigators have talked my friends on campus, my RH's, my professors, my boss, my former bosses, my roommates, and my neighbors in Atlanta.

This means a couple of things. First, that I'm not doing anything remotely illegal or subversive for ScavHunt (not that I would have anyway. Hi). Second, that I get emails like this one from my mother:

"Mr A [a neighbor in Atlanta] stopped me today and said he didn't know you went to the University of Chicago. He thinks it is a great school. I said what brought that on and he said the feds had been to see him. You are getting quite a reputation around here."

and this one from my former roommate:

"Dont worry, I think everything went well with the investigator. We met for about 5 minutes and i'll give you a recap of our conversation:
mr investigator: does she drink?
me: um, rarely, socially
mr investigator: what does she drink?
me: mixed drinks. sometimes beer at pubs.
mr investigator: how many drinks does she usually have?
me: 1 or 2 max
mr investigator: have you ever seen her intoxicated?
me: NO! NO!
and so on...."

It's all a little bit weird. I mean, I'm pretty ordinary. The kind of bad stuff that I've done is the kind of bad stuff that almost everyone who went to college did. I don't drink much, I don't do drugs, I'm responsible with my credit and my roommates, overall I think that there's no reason I should be cleared. But then there's someone who wants to know all this crap about your background, and it is very uncomfortable.

I mean, it's worth it to me because I want the job, but then sometimes you start thinking there's this, there's a polygraph, there's a psych exam, and at the end of the day, I may not get the job anyway. Uggh.