The Cheek Pinch Part II

It's been about 6 months since I first complained about security blanket phrases. While I don't have a full time job, I do have an internship at Curbed.com, which is a real estate blog. Curbed also owns two other sites, Racked and Eater, about shopping and restaurants respectively.

So on Mondays and Wednesdays from 11 to 5 I go into the city now. It's not always what I imagined myself doing. Some days I travel all around town to pick up cupcakes, other days I get to research where JFK dined in Boston for a blog post on places where famous people ate. The highlight so far has been an event I was offered to cover last April at Barnard College. The Racked site does a themed post every now and then called Party Bites, in which they go to an event and ask all the attendees a question related to the event. My event was hosted by Glamour magazine and featured a panel of successful women talking about how they got to where they are today. The event was also celebrating 10 college women from all over the country who had done remarkable work. Talk about making me question what I'm doing with my life!

I was to ask all the guests what advice they would give their freshman self. The guests ranged from random people who were invited, the college honorees, and the panel guests, which included Jessica Williams from The Daily Show, Anna Chlumsky from Veep (and My Girl with Macaulay Culkin!) and the founder of Teach For America Wendy Kopp. Though I had a lot of fun, I was so nervous that when I tried to take a picture of one of the guests, I dropped the phone because my hand was shaking so badly. I got all of my interviews but I was so nervwracked about making sure I did it right that by the time I was finished, I wanted to laugh and burst into tears at the same time.

While I'm on the search for my dream job, I've also started working at a tea place, which is really wonderful. I met the owner through the local farmer's market near my house. She sells loose tea that she imports from India and this past winter, she decided to open her own tea shop. All of the wood inside is reclaimed and she only used organic materials. It's a small, cozy spot that's perfect for relaxing and disconnecting from the world for a bit.

I'm also working at a clothing store, which is a chain but a very nice one at that. Having never worked in retail, this was a completely new experience for me when I started last June. It's not a career I'm looking to go further in, but I make good money and enjoy all of the people I work with.  I do have to say that retail is extremely hard work-long hours, demanding of your time, and the need to be nice to everyone-and I mean EVERYONE! Sidenote, people will be rude to you, just put on a happy face. One time I was wrapping a woman's purchases and she asked me to redo it, saying, "If I wanted it to be ugly, I would have done it myself."
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I know it's going to be a long road and I'm still searching for jobs, but I have more hope than I did. My low days aren't so low and aren't so frequent. Worst comes to worst, I don't have a job focusing on what I studied. I could be a poetry teacher or a freelance writer or a dog walker! It's not the end of the world as long as I enjoy what I do.