Progress Makes Perfect

I went home last weekend for some family events and started talking to my mom about the whole “future” thing. To my utter surprise, she said to me, “Cait, of course I want you to have a cookie-cutter life: get married, buy a house, have kids. But I know now that that’s my life, not yours. So go to the city, try out some things, travel while you can. I’m excited for you.” Who is this woman who claims she’s my mother?
So after that little boost of encouragement, I’ve been furiously searching for jobs and internships on different career sites. I figured I’ll take paid internships in exchange for experience. Yesterday, I applied to three different places:
1) A temporary position with an agency that edits documents for companies that have outsourced their editing to the agency. Lots of experience, lots of exposure to different types of publications.
2) A grassroots movement internship to be a campaign assistant. Lets me get to know the city better and I have the opportunity to speak Spanish. Sounds like fun.
3) A not-for-profit focusing on the Latino community and education. Combines a lot of my interests and I will definitely have to communicate in Spanish. Very exciting.
I’m also finding that everyone on this blog that says that job searching is a job is so right. I woke up yesterday morning and spent hours at my computer, looking up jobs and internships, researching companies and writing up cover letters. I had to force myself to go to class, only with the incentive that I have to go to class to pass and graduate. And even in class, I was thinking about jobs, Washington, housing, companies to look up when I got home. Balancing school and job searching is, well, not fun.