As an aside,

My old phone has been pretty useless ever since it got run over by a firetruck.

Until it became a physical manifestation of my rage; a vessel for all that incenses me.

Whenever I get very mad now, I take it outside and stand in the middle of the street, and throw it as hard as I can. I listen to the heavy whiff of wind and the clattering of plastic as it bounces a few times across the pavement. Then I walk over and pick it up, put it in my pocket, walk back inside and write the date and the event that so infuriated me onto a page in one of my miscellaneous notebooks. If I had the back cover to my phone, I would fold the paper up and put it where the battery used to be, but I lost that in the Colorado woods the first time I threw it, immediately after it was first crushed.

I have four entries now.

---

After this most recent one, I feverishly filled out six applications for positions at Oakwood Hospital--mom says our plumber's wife works Human Resources there and to use her as a reference--and one for a paid internship with a Rouge River environmental education project courtesy of Leeann. I also filled out an application for a spring internship with NPR in D.C., who curiously only accepts applications by mail. I suspect it may be the first of a few hoops they have applicants jump through, a sort of first test that you're committed enough to work there. Funny, though-- it seems a rather inefficient way to sift through candidates, given the ease of an electronic database.

I really want a corkboard to put near my door, so I can post little motivational reminders and to-do lists. I feel like this small step might help decongest my headspace.

Curse missed opportunities.

So I received some very bittersweet news today. I was awoken by a phone call from an unknown number, and as I've been hunting for jobs I took a second to slap myself properly awake and coherent before answering. They kept calling themselves the U.S. Mission, and I couldn't tell precisely who they were at first, but I played along hoping they'd say.

It was the United Nations, calling to ask if I wanted an internship in their Records and Research department. They told me that it was more behind-the-scenes and that it involved access to an enormous library of any sort of publication imaginable, and that the nature of the job was to compile reports that policy-makers in Washington, D.C. would use. I could also develop my own research project and sit in on a couple of meetings a week if I wanted. They also admitted that one of their big endeavors right now was a data entry project, switching from index cards to digital, and that everyone-- even the department chief I was talking to-- was working on it in their spare time, but he had no intentions of forcing an intern to do that eight hours a day, five days a week. He asked if I had any questions, and I asked a few and then thanked him before he transferred me back to an Indian girl curiously named Sheila who worked out the logistics behind the interns and their hiring.

I asked if there were any positions in Washington, D.C. available, confessing I hadn't looked at a single school in the NYC area and would it be possible to get back to her before accepting? She seemed irritated, saying that I had until Monday at the latest but she understood, and that I was set on going to D.C. instead. She noted that I should have been aware that the opportunity was in the NYC area, but that I could always apply again in the future. And that was that.

My mother was thrilled; she's been telling people for months now, purely coincidentally, that "my son's going to work for the United Nations one day"; my brother gave his typical blasé response.

Jobber.

I guess I didn't do as well on my Dearborn Inn interview as I'd thought: I made a follow-up call a week after the interview, and the front desk transferred me to whoever I needed to speak to for that-- a manager, I think, instead of the girls who interviewed me-- and I got an answering machine. I left a message and haven't heard back since. It's been two weeks since my interview, now. I've not heard anything since.

On the plus side, I've gotten some volunteer opportunities from Kat's mom in the form of a comment left on my last entry. I didn't even know she still read this! Hi Ms. Selby. On the one hand I want to stop by and say hi, but on the other hand Kat makes fun of me every time I come to visit with her mother.

On another plus side, I visited with long-lost friend Leeann last week and we had dinner, made cookies, and talked for about eight hours. It was a blast and she insists on exposing me to all these parts of Detroit I've never seen-- mostly because any time I've been there, I've been accompanying my older brother for work, photographing abandoned houses in the ghetto. So admittedly I've got a less-than-stellar opinion of the metro Detroit area as a whole. But! Leeann is looking to change that.

She's also letting me borrow her Arabic textbooks, which I'm loving flipping through and having a hard time devoting big blocks of time to. I need to re-trigger this sense of commitment I had somehow, and I think it starts with not staying up until 5am every night like I am now without meaning to.