Kid’s story: New Priorities
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Timeline: Tuesday morning
I see: snow
I hear: Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F
I smell: good :)
I feel: like I have a lot of time available today
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School was canceled today due to the snow storm, but I assume plenty has been or will be posted about it, so I won’t dwell on that. We are on a level 2 storm watch, which means “drive only if strictly necessary”, and which I understand as “be smart and just stay home”.
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I haven’t posted of late since my priorities have somewhat shifted for this quarter. During autumn, my top priority was definitely keeping up with the topics that were taught and to have enough free time to do extracurricular stuff outdoors (by outdoors I simply mean elsewhere other than my house; a bar counts as outdoors for me). During winter, those two things have been stuck in the very bottom of the pile, giving way to my internship search and some research of my own. I have eliminated my outdoor activities almost completely given three facts:
- Most of my outdoor activities take place at night and they imply that I don’t drive, but I really don’t want to spend money on cabs. Also, I’ve been a little bit out of the loop for carpooling or sharing a cab for some reason.
- I’m getting old, definitely. I used to be able to be outdoors Wednesday evening to Sunday morning nonstop; now I generally feel too tired to actually go outside.
- The weather is not too welcoming either, and going out implies big jacket, scarf, gloves, sweater, and so on; which become bulky at a bar or club.
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So I’ve searched for a summer internship. The main problem is that I’m an international student and it’s legal for companies to discriminate based on employment eligibility. Now, you might know that we don’t need visa sponsorship for an internship, but since companies offer internships hoping to transform them into full-time employment offers, they will simply shut us out without even looking at our curricula vitae. As I said, this is perfectly legal, unlike other forms of discrimination. Naturally, the Office of Career Management can do (and actually does) little more than say “keep your hopes up”.
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Of course, you may look for an internship with the government, which I have, but they will not pay the internships. It would seem that an MBA is thought of as something that pays the rent and food and costs nothing in itself, but that’s definitely not my case, so those are not viable options.
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Despite all this, there are several promising opportunities, and I must say that dedicating time and effort to it has been at least partially rewarding. As of right now, I have received no offers, but the outlook seems less bleak every day.
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In other news, I have an engineering project going on this quarter, which I’m very pleased with despite all the complaints from our faculty adviser about how we have no idea what we’re doing. Also, I start teaching again next Saturday, and I’m really looking forward to it. I will try to go back to my weekly posting routine during Lent, which starts tomorrow.
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Below are some pictures of what it looks like outside today. I made them really small so that this thing didn't cut them off but they're still getting cut off. Oh, well. Enjoy.
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“Did you miss me? Be honest!” – the Genie.