Stuck in the Middle

My internship’s over. It’s been over for a week now. I’m home. Surprisingly, I feel less of a failure than I thought I would if I returned. Life is funny like that I suppose, gives me bouts of optimism for things that matter.
Career-wise, my summer was great despite leaving with only a promise of a job offer. My internship went really well and I tried my hand at something I knew very little about. I gained experience in federal government and I know that it’s the place to be, where I want to be.

Leaving D.C. didn’t feel permanent a week ago, and still doesn’t right now. On my flight back to El Paso I remembered when I first arrived in D.C. last year. It was a strange city, I had never visited before, and I was alone. For two and a half months I would be in this strange place with strange people, alone.
I remember sitting there in the cab on my way to my ‘new’ apartment, feeling tiny. Afraid. I was in this strange place everyone warned me about. “Be careful” that was the first voicemail i heard as soon as i switched my phone on in the airport. I was literally dropped in the center of this huge city. The capital of the country I grew up in. A city i knew nothing about aside from the obvious. It was exciting.
Being a part of the media pool, although I didn’t go all out and cause a stir, is crazy fun in D.C. You’re literally in the center of it all, feeding voters who are not in Washington, the information they need. News happens at all hours of the day there and , though the media outlet where I interned may disagree,all of it is relevant. Small movements in Washington have the potential to reverberate all the way to the west coast and everywhere in between. I was in the middle of that.
Being an intern twice in Washington in two different fields challenged me in more ways than one.

The city’s tough on country bumpkins, you know! But Washington was a monster I conquered then and I own now. Haha not really, but I’m not afraid of picking up and leaving to where I’m supposed to be.
And so, I’ve returned. Job-hunting is such a hassle and so uninspiring. I feel bad for my parents: So proud to finally have a child with a college degree…still living at home, and jobless. They’re probably not proud about the later, but I’m working on it. It’d be one thing for me to stay in, eat their food and watch soaps all day…although all that studying and missing out on summer vacation does make that sound appealing…

In the meantime I’m focusing on three things: 1. getting a job 2. studying for the GRE 3. getting ready for the foreign service exam

The State Dept.’s exam is something I wanted to take since earlier in the year. Someone told me it was hard, but all that made me is want to take it even more and see for myself. The internship program I participated in this summer, set up a few events with the State Department. I had the opportunity to meet with a few of the officers who were really encouraging and interested because 98% of us were of Latino or Hispanic descent.
So right now I have to keep that level of optimism high, use my time wisely and realize that life works in funny ways. Nothing’s supposed to be easy, which has been hard for me to understand at times. We’ll see how long my ‘visit’ to El Paso lasts.

Six Days from Now…..?

I’m on the brink of the last week of my internship. This is what will make or break the tempo of the coming year. Will I be working in a professional setting? A non-profit? A government agency? The private sector? D.C. or El Paso? Eight to five? Graveyard? Or the dreaded “paper or plastic?”
This past week has had it’s breakthroughs. I met some interesting people with interesting tips and ideas. I had a coffee date with a peruvian lady that works for an international agency. An loan officer at the VA  inquired about my interests and goals for my career, and said he had a friend who could help me in my job search! She was really nice, really insightful  and despite only having met me this one time, she was genuinely interested in what I want to do with my education. We spoke of our backgrounds (in spanish, of course!) and all the while, she dropped names of people she thought might be helpful or organizations that are looking for writers.
I expressed my desire to learn how to write grants, and she gave me the name of a foundation here in D.C. that offers seminars. Tomorrow I’ll be heading to one of those seminars and hopefully be a grant-writing machine!! whoo
I’m getting ready for whatever my fate may be after this week. I would love to stay here, but if I go back, you can bet I’ll be working towards another quick exit.
I can only wait although my new friend warned  “the government takes a long time.” But I don’t have a lot of that… and my patience is being tested.
This summer has gone by really fast, and I feel like I’ve accomplished a good amount, but there’s also some guilt on the side. I feel like I lost some focus there for a bit and got distracted, but that’s life!
There’s a potpourri of excitement, fear, nerves, and anxiety circling around me.
What comes next….?

viewer discretion advised

These are the last two weeks of my time here in D.C. and the job hunt seems to be heading in a different position than I expected. There are no job offers yet, well….there were a few (one unpaid, and completely short-sighted). It’s a bad time and skimping on pay is not something I can afford or have worked this hard for. Hypothetically now’s the time I’m supposed to step up and uplift my parents, and buy them each a house or something like that. Well… I did say hypothetically speaking. Right now they can’t see me struggling to find a job, but if I were to go back to El Paso, I think they’d expect me to be uber-successful. They’ll probably be disappointed and express their discontent in the form of pity. This is a lot of pressure, but I am ready to do what it takes, whether it’s here or in El Paso.
Now that I’m on the job-searching subject, let me touch on the nature of job fairs: THEY’RE RIDICULOUS!
Last week I went to three job fairs. The first, a public service one, was unbelievably packed but had many booths–promising. I went to the first agency on my list, which I’m quite familiar with, and was thoroughly disappointed when I approached the booth and within 30 seconds found out they were hiring for only one position…in Long beach! Uhhhh….aren’t we in D.C. ??? And you’re paying three people to work the crowd for ONE position that’s not even here!!?? Are you kidding me?
The next day, I waited in line for two hours….TWO HOURS!…to go into a career fair hosted by the Washington Post. Now this one was classic, I didn’t think anything would top the previous day’s public service fair where jobseekers could walk in and out as they pleased. Instead, at this fair, everyone would proceed in a line to the whopping FOUR BOOTHS! Four booths, one of which was a military recruiter and the rest were also not worth the time it took me to get ready, not to mention the time I took from my internship to wait in line.
The last career fair was one specifically for interns from my program…this one I was more psyched about, because at least I knew ahead of time who would be setting up booths there and was assured that the agencies present at this fair were aware of the fact that we were all interns and either students or graduates. For me, unfortunately, they should have saved me the trouble and placed a big fluorescent pink sign that said “NO LIBERAL ARTS DEGREES.”
All-around it was bad news. I’ve always hated job fairs, and now even more so. No one wants a reporter…booooo.
I’m working with the public affairs office where I intern for an opportunity. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and ears open.
Also this past week, I took advantage of working a few blocks from George Washington University and went on a grad school tour. It ended up being more of a campus tour and less of a grad school tour, so I’m trying to squeeze in a visit to the public affairs school advisor.
There are a lot of things I need to get done and a lot of soul-searching I need to do. Although I have a general idea of what I want to do and be now, “to be great and do something that will change me and the world around me” is too broad and vague.
I want to see the world and write about it. And now I’m getting on-camera experience which has been unbelievably fun. I’m getting closer to the Globe Trekker dream I’ve had ever since I first saw the show on PBS.
I’m looking into Foreign Service opportunities as well as domestic ones, and although I would love to be a reporter, I’m exploring options in other areas where my media experience is relevant.
The theme of this internship has been about my career and education, while last year’s was about learning the nature of Washington’s press, the election, and that complicated, puzzling, and messy place lovingly referred to as “The Hill.”
There’s a lot of uncertainty but I’m resilient and despite the risk of sounding cliché (again), one door closing will open another.
Next week I’ll be working on another script and one of the pieces I wrote for the Public Affairs office’s daily online newsletter. And the newscast I co hosted for VA News This Week was well-received and aired all last week on the VA and Pentagon Channel. The link, unfortunately continued to have issues so not very many people were able to get access online.
More to come…..

And on a side note, I saw Kalpenn Modi near the Whitehouse. Known for playing Kumar on the Harold and Kumar Hollywood movies, I am more familiar with him from playing “Gogol” in Mira Nair’s  The Namesake. He is really, really ridiculously good-looking and well-dressed in person.
And this past Thursday I saw the Whitehouse guards blocking off the crowds of tourists for security purposes. You know have to make sure the prez is safe while he has a beer with the victim and victimizer of racial profiling..
Oh and let me say…Obama had a Bud Light?? What the eff….really? Bud Light tops my list of grody beers that I only order when I’m trying to be polite if someone’s buying or when I only have a few bucks to spend at a bar. But I suppose he was trying to be neutral, and if he would’ve chosen something extravagant, people would accuse him of not being considerate the current economic state and recession, and if he would’ve chosen something foreign (although Budweiser is now Belgian-owned), he would of been “unpatriotic.” Currently his choice has been called “American,” “classic,” “unpretentious” or in my eyes “safe and cheap.” Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.
And yesterday evening I went to an intern summit in which Hilary Clinton was the keynote speaker. I was thoroughly disappointed that she only spoke for two minutes, because when she went to El Paso, I didn’t want to see her and she spoke for about 20 minutes. But then again, she was schmoozing for votes back then.
Alright, back to life, and note-taking… New entry when I can break away.