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[AugustWest]

Today I'm gonna scratch my arm a bunch because I got poison ivy clearing brush out of a fencerow.

Poison Ivy sucks.  I never got it until about 6 or 7 years or so, but now I do.  That sucks.

[wombat]

Today I'm gonna miss the good old days of the internet when we just had a messageboard like this one with a thread called Today I'm Gonna. In those days I never had to think about stuff like this: How come for the last few weeks I have been getting one or two new "likes" nearly every day on the Facebook page for my book The Sloth's Eye, when from my Kindle sales figures it doesn't actually look like any of those people are buying my books?

[AugustWest]

Today I'm gonna miss the good old days of the internet when we just had a messageboard like this one with a thread called Today I'm Gonna.

Me too. 

[wombat]

Today I'm gonna have that feeling you get when you stumble across a video of someone you knew in college giving a TED talk. Not that I want to give a TED talk, but still.

[theinevitable]

Interview went very well. The interviewers were two guys around my age who were very friendly and talked a lot about how fun it is to work there, how cool their projects are, etc. I did not feel like they asked me any tough questions. I will hear whether I got to round 2 next week. Yikes.

I had to turn in a research proposal, and one of the interviewers was grinning because my proposal matched up with his plans for the next step on his current project.

On the way there I took the wrong train, I guess, and ended up wandering lost on Wall Street. I gave myself 2 hours to get there, assuming that was a crazy buffer, but still got there barely on time. Hopefully if I get the job the daily commute wouldn't be that bad...

[Carlos del Vaca]

Yeah, kids these days tend to be fairly jaded. I know mine are. We must have had this conversation a half-dozen times at Disney World--at fuck*ng DISNEY WORLD:

Me: We want to go on [attraction that's not a roller coaster].
Oldest kid: What's that?
Me: [describes as best I can]
Her: Sounds boring.
Me: Well, it's right here, there's no wait, and we're going on it.

And EVERY SINGLE TIME she enjoyed whatever it was. Eventually you think she'd pick up on the pattern and stop calling everything boring before she experienced it.

So yeah, you're doing fine, and hopefully someday he'll appreciate it. And odds are good if he actually GOES to summer camp he'll have a great time.

[theinevitable]

Ash, as a former camp counselor, I am going to say if your kid wants to go to camp for the whole summer you are doing something really right. Most kids at that are terrified of the thought of being away from home all summer. You are clearly teaching that kid self-reliance and that is really awesome. The employees of the camp who experienced older generations (as in, even my wimpy generation) said this level of parent-reliance is a new thing.

The jaded thing is very real. I think for me there was a problem with the difference between adult fun and kid fun. Or even normal-person fun and weird-nerdy-kid fun. My parents always took us on fancy, expensive trips to places that I found completely boring as a pre-teen and teen. The vacations I loved were going to see our cousins, or going to a town with cool museums. I still love those, but now that I have seen the working world reading on a beach and having a guy bring me drinks seems pretty appealing.

Damn I miss the beach. Maybe I'll go to the shore this summer?

Just bought my plane ticket to go to my friend's wedding in St Louis next month. So that's pretty exciting.

Just got an email for an interview with another internship I applied to. This one is unpaid, but the older people I know who worked for this agency got jobs out of it. The trick is going to be keeping the plates spinning so I can hold out until I hear about the paid position.

[theinevitable]

One roommate is graduating and moving out, so he's trying to sublet his room through the end of our lease. Other roommate's friend is moving in but isn't available until the start of the next lease. Somehow this keeps getting more complicated, to the point that the guy who's moving out feels like 3rd roomie is purposely fuck*ng with him. It is less obvious to me which link in this chain is being an inconsiderate flake. But I have suspicions.

[theinevitable]

More interviews next week, but no news from the one I just had (which is my first choice both by interest and $$$$).

Meanwhile, friend in Brooklyn is subletting her place for the summer for a cost that works out if I calculate how much going into the city 5 days a week all summer will cost (ie, saved transportation costs would balance out the rent being twice as much). If it weren't the beginning of Hectic Hell End of Semester Time I would maybe try to figure that out. But trying to find a subletter while doing all this other work AND doing interviews is a no-go. Still gonna fantasize about Bushwick Summer though.

[theinevitable]

Is this thread dead now?

Realizing in full the amount of shit I need to turn in next week. Yesterday I relaxed after turning in a huge paper and that was an error. Meanwhile internships are still not getting back to me, and if I have to go into NYC multiple times next week for interviews I am going to be so pissed. I applied to all this stuff months ago with the idea that I could get it done before crunch time.

I have an interview somewhere in Manhattan tomorrow and they have not gotten back to me about where they are. There is no result on google for their manhattan office (it shows me their offices in Boston and Chicago) and their website only lists the two main offices. I double checked and the job listing definitely says NYC Branch Office but I can't figure out where i am supposed to go.

Meanwhile, internet is down for the entire Rutgers campus because of a DDOS attack and so I can't use the computers at school that have the programs I need. So I'm poking around trying to find all the map files I need to download so I can put them on a flash drive. Ungh.

I know I will get this all done, and after that I will get to relax (or just focus on freaking out about jobs). It's just the usual aggravation of every single thing being due during the first week of exams, and nothing due the second week.

[theinevitable]

I just got an email about another interview later this week and I changed my mind. I am not pissed, I am happy. Please give me the job, nice people who want me to come in for a second interview. I am glad you took the extra time to think hard about who to pick, now that I know that you picked me as a finalist.

I also just found out my last thing isn't due next thursday. There's one more long homework assignment for my GIS Mapping class that is all about database frameworks that is due the next week. For some reason I am happy about that-- one last chill assignment where I get to learn cool computer stuff. I am much happier about that being my last work due, instead of this inventory of historic buildings in my neighborhood that I am going to half-ass. Or even quarter-ass.

[wombat]

Did you find out where the mystery interview location is? Or is finding it part of the test?

[theinevitable]

I still can't find it. I am going to call their head office first thing tomorrow. Also while I am in the city I am going to buy a dress shirt or two so I don't have to keep wearing the same one every time I wear a suit. I did some internet searches and found a company that other skinny tall guys said seems to stock a lot of skinny neck /long-arm shirts.

(also got an OkCupid message back from a cute Jersey girl who likes linguistics and cooking and guitar music, whoa whoa whoa)

[pmcd9]

Did you find out where the mystery interview location is? Or is finding it part of the test?

Is this like Ray with the magic shoe hiding the money in the lawn and the delivery guys have to fight over it?

[theinevitable]

It was not a test, those people just don't have their shit together.

1. I had to call 3 different offices before someone answered the phone to tell me where their NYC location is.
2. I got to the building and there was a security guard who wouldn't let me go upstairs. He was not familiar with the organization or the woman I was supposed to meet (their NYC office is very small).
3. The woman I was supposed to meet wasn't there. So I met with some very nice junior guys, who asked if I was sure I'm not interested in a full-time position. I joked that I could drop out now if they'd hire me with half a master's degree.

The interview went well, apart from all that. The job sounds much more like being a receptionist/administrator than I would prefer, but it's paid and I am running low on options. I also finally got a response from my backup plan, an unpaid job with the city, saying that the position has been filled but they are forwarding my resume to other sections of the department.

The fancy shirt store was the best place I have ever shopped. It is this company that makes really great simple traditional men's shirts and the office was staffed by pretty Japanese women. They measured me and brought a stack of shirts in my size, gave suggestions about what looked good, etc. Maybe I got better customer service than I am used to because I walked in in a suit.