Thursday, January 31, 2008

"some sort of incubating period for when i really come around"


I could start this post one of several ways. I could say,

I am an asshole. I cannot even begin to fathom the karmic consequences that will result from my latest cowardice. I don't believe in fate. I believe we control our own destiny (which isn't good, because I'm pretty lazy.) But Karma, yeah, that always seems to kick my ass. I still haven't called back 33-year-old divorcee to let him down easy, which is terrible because it's the exact thing that countless people have done to me (see previously mentioned rant) and therefore should vow never to leave anyone hanging. But I'm, as they say, a yellow-belly, and would rather gouge out my eyes with a spork than have that conversation. So...I'll just let him down hard.

Or I could begin thusly:

Multiple Choice: You know it's not going to be a good day when:
A) by 12pm you're already thinking "I need a f-ing beer." And then you have one. Luckily with someone who's really good at life pep-talks.
B) You actually reach for the "101 Poems That Could Save Your Life" book on your shelf for self-help
C) You're 2 minutes late to your first "real" interview and the Nazi career center lady is melodramatically on the phone when you walk in and says, exasperatedly, "Are you Laurel? I was JUST calling you." and then gives you the look of death. More on that later.
D) You learn to sing and play a song called "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" and then pass out for 3 hours in the afternoon
E) All of the above.

If you chose E, you are absolutely correct! Congratulations.
Back to option C. This lady in the career center (let's call her....M(r?)s. Blowy) has GOT to be kidding me. Granted I'm a young, unexperienced, oft times ingenuous graduate student, but this woman takes her job WAY too seriously. I once RSVP'd for a lunch time talk on cover letters or something and when I didn't show up, received a scathing email telling me this atrocious no-show was going on my "permanent record." Really lady? Permanent record? Do they permanently record your draconian nitpicking? Additionally, I understand that my punctuality is somewhat sub-par. (Ok, that's an understatement...I've been told I operate on "L__ time") BUT, this was an 8:30am (which is just an ungodly hour, people) on-campus screening interview to make sure I wasn't, you know, insane or anything, with a woman who it turns out hadn't even read the writing sample I sent in. The opening was for an analyst position that requires a ton of writing. There were 4 interview slots. I bet I can make a pretty accurate guess as to how many people applied. But I digress. I would like to know, Ms. Blowy, what it is YOU do that warrants your continued vituperations aimed at lowly grad students. Here's what you did for me this morning: you walked me the five feet from your desk to the conference room where the pleasant, intelligent HR person was waiting for me, not ticked off, and equally tired as I was. That's what you did. You escorted me to a room that I'm pretty sure a blind, mentally disabled person would have been capable of finding. That's your JOB. And I'm trusting you for career advice? No thank you.

Moving on. The highlight of my day:
I came across this sentence in my reading for class today: "One would aim to assess the reciprocal interpenetration of factors at different levels of organization, over both the life course of the individual and the history of populations." Uhhh...I'm sorry....reciprocal interpenetration? bwahahaha <---I promptly highlighted it and wrote exactly that in the margin.

(The picture is what came up when I googled "reciprocal interpenetration." It was on a website that was too dense for me to read through, but it had to do with schizophrenic thought and had these paintings throughout, which is really weird b/c my roommate was looking for art drawn by schizophrenics earlier tonight, but it's not clear whether these are related to the website or if they're just random abstract paintings they chose. Either way, I love it when that kind of full-circle stuff happens!)

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