Upon realizing it was my blogiversary, I took a look at the ol' archives to see what I was like three years ago. I seem so young and fresh - not my old, jaded, cantankerous and senile current self. And yet...

26.10.01

I've decided I'm going to be a graphic designer, or whatever you call a person who designs CD labels and cases, movie posters, etc. Yeah... about that... Some art training might have been useful.

Wish I hadn't spent all that time thinking I was going to be a librarian, because I might have made some effort to look into other opportunities - or maybe an additional major.

Last year at this time I was thinking 'I have so many marketable skills - people are going to be knocking down the door to get ahold of me.' Huh?

Dear srah-of-2001,

No art training required! Simply be hired as a web designer and emphasize and stress that you do not have any graphic design training and suddenly people will be knocking your door down, trying to get you to design posters. I suspect that all I do these days is design posters.

Three years later, concern about setting your cap on librarianship becomes concern about setting your cap on HCI and considering librarianship instead. And then realizing that I don't have a library education.

As to your concerns about being employable: You are not. And one degree later... you still probably aren't. Sorry. Enjoy living in a cardboard box, dear.

Love,
srah2004

Why the hell am I getting a package from Google? I wonder. Do I know someone who works there? Are they still sending me presents to make up for discontinuing Blogger Pro?

*open open*

"Thank you for applying to Google's summer engineering intern program. We received over 2000 applications for about 75 positions, and unfortunately we were unable to accept several excellent candidates such as yourself. Thank you for your interest in Google and please keep us in mind for future intern and full-time employment opportunities.

Please accept this gift of appreciation for considering Google, and have a great summer!

Google University Programs Team"

I put on my suit and blow-dried my hair, mascaraed and lipsticked myself and put on the new shoes I bought just this weekend in preparation for my interview. I looked in the mirror and there was a grown-up in there. I don't know who she was.

The interview went well and it looks like I may soon have an offer and I may spend part of the summer in France. They asked a lot of the usual interview questions, but there were still a few that threw me. "Tell us about a problem that you've had that you weren't able to solve," for example.

Who goes around just leaving problems unsolved? I solve my problems and if I can't solve them myself, I farm them out to other people to solve. I outsource. Problems are for solving. I couldn't come up with an example, so I told them that I was pretty sure I just solved my problems. I guess that was an acceptable answer.

Have you ever had any zingers in a job interview?

I have an interview tomorrow with a study/work-abroad organization that may be able to find me a summer HCI internship in France. Any interview recommendations? Any advice on how not to come across as desperate and clinging pathetically to this one last hope for relevant, credit-worthy summer employment?

I have a phone interview tomorrow afternoon.

Why do I feel like I need to dress up?

More than 15 internship-related emails just this week. Do you know how hard it is to remember to write out Sarah and the last name and all when you are used to signing your emails "SRAH"?

I hope you don't. Why are you signing your emails with my name, creep?

-----
* Actually, it's only two rejections, but that doesn't sound anything like Four Weddings and a Funeral, whereas this sort of does. On Planet Crazy.

When you are a student, you have to do research and write reports during the weekends and your free time and at night, after your classes and the jobs you have to work to survive and to pay for your tuition.

When you are in the Real World*, you have to do research and write reports during the day and that’s all you have to do. And you get paid for it.

I suppose I am in school for a reason, and that’s so that I can do my research and write my reports and eventually get paid more for it than I would without all that book-learnin’. I am looking forward to the Real World, I think.

-----
* Not The Real World, but the other one that I don’t talk about as frequently.

Should it be my ambition to look for an internship in some great company that I will be proud to work for? Or shall I just shoot for a piece of crap that I won't feel bad accidentally destroying from the inside, or which is so bad I can't possibly make it any worse?

Because any dealings with the AT&T Wireless website make me think that they've got monkeys maintaining it... and I have to be better than monkeys, right? Right?

*crickets chirping*

Shut up!

I have heard tell of
a mythical job making
websites for IC.

I have emailed the
guy who hires folks. What, oh what
will be the verdict?

Have just realized am going to be unemployed in fifteen minutes.

Help. Panic.

Today... I still don't want to be an archivist.

Thanks for asking.

To celebrate Becky's birthday, we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean again. Watching all of the credits like a true member of my family, I found my calling: pirate dialect coach. Not a dialect coach for pirates in movies, of course, nor dialect coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates. I'll sail the seven seas, teaching novice pirates to sound more authentic.

In other news, I decided I was tired because I was dehydrated, so I've been drinking vast (avast!) amounts of water today. It hasn't helped so far, so I've decided that since I can't remember the last time I had anything citrus-related, I have scurvy instead. Much more pirate-appropriate, anyway.

I'd like to be a real ambassador, but I sometimes get the feeling it's all about schmoozing and using the right forks, rather than actual diplomacy or cultural exchange. Plus, I don't have adorable ringlets.

I am at a point in my life (and perhaps a point in the year) where I have to start looking for a Real Job With Benefits. I am rather sad because there are a bunch of Summer Jobs that I will probably never do now. I won't be able to make fudge on Mackinac Island or be a tour guide for French tourists at Colonial Williamsburg or Disney World or something. Not that I would have done any of those this summer - because I don't want to have to pay for housing - but it's the principle of the thing: I am sad that now I have to settle down into something a bit more permanent and be Grown Up.

What would you like to do for one summer only?

My lycée sent me a packet with a big picture of the school on the front. It looks very lovely. It was only built in 1997. Inside, the packet has details about each of the fields of study (it's all Greek to me - I can't tell the difference between a BEP carrières sanitaires et sociales and a BAC sciences médico-sociales) and, more importantly, leads on accomodations. So I should be pretty set by the time I get there. Now all I have to worry about it how to lug my millions of pairs of shoes (that's what's going to weigh down the suitcase) all over France. Glorious.

The other day, one of the English teachers emailed me and mentioned that she'd visited my site and that they'd have to recruit me to use my web-skills, too. As Mr Burns would say, eeeeexcellennnnnnnt. I hope they would pay me extra. That would probably look good on, say, a graduate school application.

Spacebus (local band) should have a website. And when I say "Spacebus should have a website", I mean "Spacebus should pay me money to make them a website".

I admire education majors because they know THAT they want to teach and they know WHAT they want to teach by the time they graduate. Way to make decisions, folks. Now stop making my life miserable in English Language class with your whining about how you *have* to take the class. Some of us are big geeks and are taking it for fun.

Roommate and I (after an exhaustive search of the Michigan Sex Offender's list by zip code - looking for familiar names - and a trip to the FBI's Most Wanted page), decided we need to find nice cushy government jobs. Or not-so-cushy ones.

So she's going to get a non-gun job for the FBI and I'm going to work for the CIA. It's frightening how appropriate the CIA's language positions sound for me. They're looking for language people. But I have two questions the Employment FAQ doesn't answer... Will I be able to tell anyone what I do, and will I ever be able to get out of it? I mean, if I'm just like a translator or something and not a supersecret Alias-esque operative, do I still have to be all covert and undercover?

Suppose I should send out my resume...?

Where does Roommate find these random websites? How does her brain work? Should I be any more worried about the sex offenders list than about Create a Fart?

I lied. Have not gone to nap yet. Followed my link to Roommate's online journal and started reading it the way I always do - looking for mention of me. Mwah ha. Not that I am in the least egocentric. She says "Yesterday my roomie went to zoo." I wonder if this lack of article is a typo or if it is in the English style, à la "My mum had to go to hospital."

She was also talking about thinking, which I didn't read in-depth because it wasn't about me, but it reminded me of the thought I came up with the other day, that I REALLY like to think things over and look at them from all the angles, but I REALLY don't like to come to conclusions. I think I seriously have a problem with it. I'm never going to get a job at this rate.

Why don't we call this journal "Srah talks about words and whines about how she's never going to get a job"?

How sad is it that I spent a big part of my day making a website that I'm never going to put up on the web? Time waster time waster time waster. I could have been searching for everyday idioms, or doing research on René Magritte.

I am so proud of myself - I skipped Spanish today and it turned out to be the day they went out into the cold cold snow and dark to take pictures in the Nature Center - and they didn't even get breakfast out of it! Yes! I was tucked away in warm Seaton studying for my English Language test, which turned out to be infinitely more valuable.

I've decided I'm going to be a graphic designer, or whatever you call a person who designs CD labels and cases, movie posters, etc. Yeah... about that... Some art training might have been useful.

Wish I hadn't spent all that time thinking I was going to be a librarian, because I might have made some effort to look into other opportunities - or maybe an additional major.

Last year at this time I was thinking 'I have so many marketable skills - people are going to be knocking down the door to get ahold of me.' Huh?

Off I go to Roommate's concert. On the go...