Get Down With The SIKness

My Job Description

A lot of people have told me that they know I have a job, but they don’t know what it is.  I should explain.

Starting Monday, I am going to be working for Publishing Technology, an international company that deals with online publishing.  Within that company, I am working for Publishers Communication Group, essentially the branch company that helps market scholarly article databases.  My official title is “Account Executive,” but I’m essentially the North American Sales Manager, says my supervisor.  I will lead a team to make calls to colleges and libraries across North America to see if they would be interested in subscriptions to our databases. In addition, I will help write for the company blog and twitter accounts.

The folks at PCG were also excited that I’m proficient in Mandarin Chinese and can help them with their very new expansion to Beijing.  We’ll see where that will lead…

Graduation

Couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day to graduate. 

Is it weird to be done? Yeah, it is.  But I’m ready for an exciting new schedule, one that I decide, one that doesn’t have to revolve around Saturdays and maybe Thursdays. And I don’t have to take my work home with me anymore. I can go back to writing, video games, and maybe some planting on our balcony in the new apartment.  I would LOVE to get a window box for flowers.  And reading?  Guys, we can read for fun again!  

And I’m excited for all the new people I’ll meet.  Maybe there’s love out there in a world outside of Conn and its closet cases. 

And coupon cutting and shopping for myself…adventures, guys, adventures!

Packing with my Father: a poem

What is that shit?

How do you get all this shit?

Gimme that shit.

I can carry down more shit.

Pass me that shit over there.

Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go.

The end of a four year era

I haven’t really felt much of a sense of moving on when it comes to graduation until now.  I just came back from the East Asian Studies Department party, and it was beautiful.  There was good food, but best of all, there were good people.  There isn’t one person in the department I don’t like; each one of them outdoes the next when it comes to working hard, and all are so easy to get along with.  Most of us have shared at least one class together, and if we haven’t, we still know each other.  

I’m so glad I stuck with Chinese for four years.  There were many times I thought seriously about quitting, given my difficulties with spoken language as it is, but it has become a part of me and is something that I will never stop learning.  

We got stoles today for graduation.  They are beautiful, white with the red sun for the Japanese concentration students, and red with the yellow stars of the Chinese flag for Chinese concentration studies.  No one on this campus deserves language stoles more than the students who slaved away for hours every week in their Chinese and Japanese books, who put up with the toughest of teachers and the toughest of standards to learn two of the most difficult languages there is to learn.

I’m so proud of us.  What, at graduation, will be red and white, black and beautiful all over?  The East Asian Studies Department.

Finally

While eating in Mystic with Ben and Tanaha, got a call that I thought was my dad.  I looked down, saw that the area code was 617, realized that this was my potential employer.

“Hey Sarah, after meeting you in person, we decided that you would be a great fit for our company, and we would like to offer you the position.  Are you still interested?”

A thousand times yes.