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Work Week’s Got Me Beat

Manda — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:03:25 +0000

When the earliest I can get home on any given day of the working week is 5p.m. (on a Friday!), it is very telling just how all-consuming my class/work/internship schedule is. Needless to say, I’m beat from this week. It’s almost 6p.m. on a Friday evening and I’m sitting on my couch in my PJ’s watching reruns of NCIS like an old lady. Not gonna lie, it’s kind of nice that I have absolutely nothing planned for tonight but to relax and unwind. Oh, and maybe tackle some of my readings…

I know I’ve talked about how busy I am on this blog before and it might seem like I’m complaining but I’m not, honestly. My schedule is something I chose and I’m happy with all the things that I’m doing. I just think it’s kind of scary how fast I went from being a freshman with a handful of classes and a schedule that was wide open in terms of free time to a totally jam-packed schedule where I’m juggling sixteen things at once. How did I grow up so fast? Where did the time go? Am I really expected to be an Adult in the Real World come graduation next year?!

(Oh, and in news I meant to post earlier but I completely forgot to and now it’s kind of late and outdated: I survived both the DC earthquake and Hurricane Irene last week without incident, minus the 24 hours or so I lost power due to Irene. My area was incredibly lucky as others were not as fortunate with either, or both, of the natural disasters.)

I Got My Dream Internship

Manda — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:01:40 +0000

Remember how I talked about how I was waiting to hear back about a fall internship? Well, I was offered my dream internship!! I will be a media relations intern at a prominent international organization. I’m really excited as this position will allow me to dive head-first into my field of study and gain valuable experience. I also strongly believe in this organization’s mission statement, which was one of the reasons why I wanted so badly to intern at this organization.

I will have a full day of orientation in exactly two weeks. After that, I’ll begin interning part-time throughout the whole semester. I’m so excited! :D

The Waiting Game

Manda — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:46:42 +0000

I’ve spent the last week interviewing for internships. I had one in-person interview and two phone interviews, and I find out about the status of all of them early next week. Am I nervous? Yes. Am I impatient? Yes. But there’s nothing I can do but wait.

In my unguarded moments, I find myself fantasizing about what it would be like if I am the successful candidate for the one I want the most ouf of the three internships I interviewed for. Because seriously, it would be such a sweet internship; it’d be everything I’d want out of an internship experience. But then I quickly quash those fantasies because honestly, that will just make it all the more harder if I find out I wasn’t the successful candidate.

Hopefully I’ll have landed at least one of the internships. (Ideally, I’d have my pick of the three, but of course life is never ideal.) And if I’m not successful for any, I guess it’s back to the drawing board…

(This has pretty much been my life last week – interview after interview after interview. Hence the lack of entries. I’m sure life will get more exciting in the coming weeks :P)

What I Have In Store, Career-wise

Manda — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:07:03 +0000

CNBC compiled a list of the 10 Most Stressful Jobs. Ranking at #2 on the list is the position of a public relations executive:

2. Public Relations Executive
Stress score: 47.60
Average annual salary: $101,850
Hours per day: 9

Public relations executives are “completely at the mercy of their clients and buyers,” says Tony Lee, noting that their success or failure depends on the actions and decisions of clients, creating a stressful situation because their performance is in many ways out of their hands.

They also bear the burden of being connected constantly to social media while also managing small details of several campaigns at once.

It’s good to know what I have to look forward to if my career path does leads me down the road of corporate PR :P

How Everything But Travel Fell Through For My Summer

Manda — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 02:39:00 +0000

This summer, apart from traveling, I was going to intern in Beijing and teach English in Shanghai. Initially, I struggled between which employment option to choose: interning, or teaching. Then, I found some magical way to incorporate both into my summer by interning the first half and teaching the second half. And then… complications arose and the whole plan fell apart. Except for the travel component, thank GOD, or else I would have had nothing to show for my summer besides lazing about and not using my hard-earned Mandarin skills.

Interning fell through not because I wasn’t a viable candidate or anything like that. In fact, I had pretty much secured the position, which was no small feat seeing as it was at a world-class PR company’s office in Beijing. However, the issues that arose were not to do with me, but with my Chinese visa and housing. I had contacted the company expressing my interest in interning through my study abroad program in Beijing, who conveniently forgot to mention that 1) I would require a student visa to intern, 2) They would not be providing me papers to renew my student visa, and 3) They also would not offer me any housing. So, thanks to no student visa and no housing, I had to decline the internship opportunity. Frustrated doesn’t even begin to cover how I felt when things came crashing down.

Teaching fell through for a myriad of little reasons, unlike interning. The school was incredibly vague on how much I would get paid, and how much of my working hours would be paid (last official thing I heard was that I would be paid three hours per day, but expected to be at the school and work for a minimum of six). They also wouldn’t cover any visa or visa travel-related expenses (a Chinese visa costs around $140USD for an American citizen, and to “renew” a double-entry or multiple-entry visa one must leave the country). Getting in touch with the school officials to confirm anything about the job was like pulling teeth – at times, it was altogether impossible. Not exactly the most promising work environment. Also, since the teaching gig was at the very tailend of my summer in China, I would have to piece together alternative living arrangements for the rest of the summer since the internship fell through.

In the end, I’m simply going to be traveling with family in China until mid-July. Then, I return home to Chicago for two weeks to pack up my things and move out permanently to my apartment in Washington, DC. After I celebrate my 21st (August 23rd!), I kick off my final year of my undergraduate degree. Needless to say, there are a lot of major changes coming up in my life…

It’s That Time of Year Again

Manda — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:17:30 +0000

It’s that time of year again… The time where the end of the spring semester sends my stress levels skyrocketing and I am perpetually almost at breaking point.

This year, I’m freaking out over final exams, final papers, making a summer travel itinerary (and organizing everything that comes with a self-planned trip in southeast Asia), trying to coordinate a summer internship, preparing for my summer employment opportunity, figuring out if I have places to live… The list goes on. And to top it all off, my beloved MacBook gave out on me, so I am currently computerless.

Till my computer gets fixed (I have a Genius Bar appointment tomorrow and I’m hoping it’s not a big issue, so it should be fixed soon) I’m going to be scarce. I’m relying on my roommate’s spare netbook and my iTouch for my computer/Internet fix, but neither are ideal for blogging, unfortunately!

I Should Be a Travel Agent

Manda — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:06:06 +0000

(Was going to post the next installment of my much-overdue travel recaps but the notoriously unreliable Internet in China is not letting me upload photos. So this post will have to do instead :P)

I’ve become a pro at planning out the logistics of traveling within China. Trains, buses, flights, hostels, public transport – I’ve got that all figured out.

My trip to Huangshan last fall was my first crash course in getting accustomed to how the train system works in China. Traveling throughout southern China taught me all I needed to know about using buses, trains, and more questionable forms of transport (like hitching a ride on the back of a rickshaw) to travel between cities and remote towns. And my most recent trips to Tianjin and Nanjing a few weeks ago have cemented my belief that when it comes to planning travel in China, I am worth my weight in gold.

I realize this is a pretty dull read for anyone that isn’t a total travel nerd or has had experience traveling on their own in China, but there’s something to be said about being more confident planning out travel logistics in a foreign country than in a home country. It’s just so much easier and cheaper to travel in China. Every city is connected to another city somehow, and it doesn’t cost an arm and leg to get from Point A to Point B!

Employment Options for the Summer

Manda — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 03:02:05 +0000

In a remarkable change to my summer unemployment dilemma of 2009, I have two very excellent employment options for this summer. The only problem is that I have to choose which one I want; due to the location of each position I can’t do both.

As I would say in Chinese, 怎么办？(“What’s to be done?”)

Option #1: Interning at a PR firm in Beijing
Internships are obviously a great thing to have listed on a resume, and interning at a first-class PR firm in Beijing would be pretty damn amazing. I’d get tons of work experience in my field and also get to know what the industry is like in another country, and how PR strategies and such differ from country to country. As a full-time intern, I’d be fully immersed in my work environment and would have awesome opportunities to improve and expand my skill set. This internship would be the most related to my field out of all the work experience I’ve had so far.

But there are cons, of course. I’d be an unpaid intern, and I’d have to cover living expenses out of pocket. I also wouldn’t be able to use much, if any, of my Chinese at my internship because of the nature of the company and my position. Yes, I would still be able to use my Chinese in daily life, but not being able to use it (or improve it) in a professional setting is a little discouraging.

Option #2: Teaching English just outside Shanghai
I have never taught English before, but I would make bank doing so in China. The teaching gig I’m looking at is a pretty sweet deal, too. I would get paid to teach and receive free room and board as well as free Chinese lessons. Three of my friends are also considering this employment opportunity, so it would be all of us working at the same school this summer.

My issue with this is that it is not in Beijing, a city I have grown to love. It isn’t even in Shanghai either, but right outside it. I like everything that a big city in China has to offer, so I am a little skeptical of how well I would adjust to not living in the city.

I have to decide between one of the two soon, and I have no idea how I am going to be able to make this decision. Input, anyone?

Sophomore Year is Over

Manda — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:24:54 +0000

As of today, I have officially finished my second year of college¹. It’s been a very interesting year, with extreme highs and lows. On a whole, though, it’s been a good year. I’ve definitely learned a lot academically and even more socially, both friends-wise and relationship-wise. I’ve gained a plethora of work experience and have a much more impressive resume to show for it.

Academically, I’ve taken a full course load both semesters and have excelled in my classes. I’ve now taken classes that have begun to really get at the heart of my studies and I now know for sure that I am choosing the right academic path. I worked really hard fall semester and early spring semester on my scholarship application and was fortunate enough to be chosen to receive it.

Work-wise, I’ve held what might possibly be my favorite position, ever. I also had my first internship, which was a huge learning experience and gave me great insight into the workplace in my field of study. I made some great contacts through both my job and internship, and I am hoping to maintain them throughout the next few years. I also worked at a prominent museum for a brief interim last semester, and that most definitely taught me everything I ever cared to know about standing on my feet for hours on end!

Socially, I think I’ve learned more this year than in any other year of my life. I lost a best friend; I drifted apart from some of my old high school friends. I made a vow to detoxify my life from the “poison” that was in it. I also became so much closer to my core group of friends and met some absolutely fantastic people this year. In a nutshell, I learned who my real friends were and became a stronger person because of it.

There were some great memories from the year, as well as some pretty low ones. Last semester, I had a tendency to focus too much on the negative. (To be fair, the majority of the negative stuff from this year happened in the fall.) But this semester, I’m taking away all of the positives and running with it. These are the memories that will last me for my year abroad; these are the memories that will make me want to come back after being away for so long.

Throughout this entire year, I’ve been so eager for the school year to end so that I can clear off and go abroad next year. Now that it’s ended, though, I find it to be a very bittersweet ending. I am still as excited as ever to go abroad and am beginning to make more extensive and detailed plans for my adventures in Beijing. But there’s a lot I am leaving behind, and I’ll miss so many people. Still, everything will still be here, when I get back, right?

I would say I’ve officially finished sophomore year, but credits-wise, I’m somewhere in the murky area between a junior and a senior.

A Professional Digital Identity

Manda — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 18:56:34 +0000

Last summer, I registered my name as a .com domain. I made a half-hearted attempt at housing my creative writings at that domain, but that quickly ended when school began and I had little time to write and even less desire to deal with an online writing portfolio. I ended up deleting the writing portfolio, but I still retained the domain name.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about using the domain as an extension of my “professional” identity. You know, so that I’d have my own little niche of the World Wide Web devoted to, well, me as a professional. I’ve been seeing more of these professional-type domains popping up amongst my peers; it seems as though creating and maintaining a professional digital identity is the next big thing in the career world. Even if it isn’t, I don’t think having one would hurt.

I’m not a graphic nor a web design student, so it’s not like I could (or should) use the domain to showcase examples of my digital work and/or expertise. I am a communications student; therefore, I have writing samples and a list of links to articles and/or web pages where I’m quoted or featured. I also have a pretty solid resume. These are all things I could put on the domain. That’s a start, right?