The Furious Job Hunter

A quote from Da Vinci soothes my anger while on this job hunt:

…People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

Maybe there’s some hope for me.

For the past two weeks, I have been ‘throwing darts in cyber space.’ It’s the process of submitting applications via e-mail to recent full-time job openings. 19 applications, to be exact.

There’s a big problem, though. My patience is about the size of a cashew in comparison to the average circumference of a basketball. In other words, I have little patience.

I wonder how many employers have actually read my cover letter and resume. Out of THAT percentage, how many intend on replying even if they reject me? Probably few.

So I peruse more job openings.

I think back when people were judged on their initial physical appearance. Now, to pass the first round is appearing exceptional in writing. The second round is owning up to your documented and cyber-self in the flesh. I’m waiting, not so patiently, to pass the first round.

Even so, an invisible slap on the back hits me as I click ‘Submit Application.’ I’m getting somewhere, or at least my cyber-self is.

So what’s with all the moping and depression and aggravation?

Maybe it’s the feeling of throwing darts online. Perhaps I would feel reassured about my status if I had met these employers face-to-face. Many companies don’t even want applicants to ask if their application was received.

I asked family to pray to the “Job Gods” for me that I get a call or e-mail inviting me to an interview within two weeks.

I’m motivated to get a job soon, because I am still living in my parents’ house. I’m working as a server for their restaurant, too. Although I am grateful to have a job and my parent’s support, I despise the job and dependence. The frustration of food service fuels my motivation to job hunt. The privilege of eating for free at my job makes me feel guilty when I complain about hating the job. What a terrible person I must be, I think. Many college graduates would be ecstatic to work as a server and eat for free!

It makes job hunting seem less of an obligation and more of a solution.

So I will continue to go out and “happen to things” until the Job Gods have blessed me with their powers.

Now What?

Graduating college is both liberating and disorienting. It is reaching a milestone that has me feeling unstoppable, credentialed, and like I have no freaking clue what to do next, who I will become or what jobs I’m qualified for.

I’m the girl who overly plans everything. Trust me, you don’t want to see that side of me. For your sake, I will keep that Amanda at bay… But I will tell you that I sat down a week ago and mapped out a five-year diagram, starting from this summer into 2020. I found myself making two diverging roads: graduate school or the job market route. If you have been following me on Facebook or speaking to me in person, you know that this is something I have been battling with even before graduation. I received a ton of positive feedback and encouragement from you all, and I can hardly voice my gratitude.

Alas, I am still standing at a crossroads.

When the map was completed, I realized that this summer would be about job applications, submitting writing samples, resumes, and aiming for interviews. A part of me doesn’t want to leave Riverside, the place I am most comfortable living in. I still want to find jobs that I am capable of working from the place in which I am surrounded by the people I love. That would make me happy.

What if August rolls around and I receive only rejection letters? Or worse, what if I hear not a single word from editors or employers? I hate “what if” scenarios, but they are entirely necessary in pre-planning stages. I need to think objectively and consider the alternative as much as it pains me to imagine leaving Southern California.

Journalism is an evermore growing competitive field. Though I am confident in my social networking strategies, I have doubts about my worth on paper. A bachelor’s degree in English doesn’t guarantee an entry-level position, despite my editorial experience at a student literary journal and LA YOGA Magazine. An M.A degree in journalism from a prestigious east coast university seems like a no-brainer. Editors of large companies don’t give a damn about a bachelor’s. They look for the graduates who have gone above and beyond their basic college education. When hiring assistants, editors expect years of education, experience in editorial, and specializations in a specific area. I have merely dipped my toes in all three.

Visiting Boston and Northeastern University, the graduate school I have been accepted into, ignited a fiery ambition that I haven’t felt since starting my undergrad. The beautiful campus, and its rich history – the college of journalism, and its prolific, individualized training – the city and all of its glory. I’ll stop rambling, but you understand how major this would be. Enrolling next year in 2016 and living in Boston on my own would be the steepest uphill battle, but I cannot negate my love for a good challenge.

Which road do I choose, you ask?

I choose to take it one step at a time. There are certain things I cannot control – like whether my resume gets reviewed or tossed into a pile of hundred other applicants and never sees the light of day. I can only control the steps I take in order to reach a job and live in a place that makes me happy.

If college has taught me one thing about myself, it’s that I’m an organized, well-prepared and proactive thinker. I can imagine that this post-graduation phase will teach me great patience, open-mindedness, and autonomy. A five-year plan seems almost silly to me realizing that I, Amanda Ridder, create my own journey.

I didn’t even touch upon the other deep desire of mine which is marriage and children. I know that women are resisting the traditional road and seeking more and more independence, but will that truly bring them happiness? I am a daughter to an American middle-class Christian mother and (Atheist) father who have modeled a beautiful, long and healthy marriage. They have imprinted the idea of long-lasting trust and commitment upon me that I am so thankful for. I can only hope that I can be as devoted and caring to my future husband as my mother has been to hers.

Concluding thoughts about destiny, I have never believed in a higher power or practiced any sort of religion throughout my life. Even though my mother attended church on occasion and read the Bible, the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism appealed to me the most. I accept all types of higher powers, but I mainly accept my own inner power. The choices I make are my responsibility and I leave it to no deity or idol. Not to offend my fellow believers, but in my opinion, to say that “God has a plan for me” seems like a cop-out for personal obligation. Nobody else needs to make a plan for me; I got that part covered. Much obliged.

I need to believe in myself, trust the decisions I make and follow through with them.

To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.

-E.E Cummings

I think you and the moon and Neptune got it right.

In a moment of completely opening up, I gazed into his eyes.

I smiled and kissed him. I felt transported to a time when gods and goddesses roamed the universe. Beauty and bliss wrapped-up in this cloak of a single moment, wishing I could savor it and preserve it somehow.

“I love you too, baby,” I whispered breathlessly. I could hear bells ringing and magic bursting in my bones. Every fabric of my being ached with love, joy and happiness in his arms. I think I saw stars through the walls and beyond the ceiling above us. I felt lightning in my veins and the heat of fire so green and magnetic in his eyes. I prayed that my words, never more honest, were believable.

We had reached a place so high and beautiful that I didn’t know how I was going to come back to Earth. But I did. I woke up in my own bed wishing it were ours. And now I’m glowing.

Love.

Love is so powerful and hypnotic. It reaches far below the conscious mind and strikes a chord so deep in the soul that not even our biological chemicals understand this level of freedom. Our politics, our technology, our scientific advancements can’t begin to fathom this buried emotion of love. It is powerful when uncovered and appreciated.

Honestly, I feel incredible and empowered by this strong, intangible feeling of love.

I dedicate this to him.

“Bright” by Echosmith

I think the universe is on my side
Heaven and Earth have finally aligned
Days are good and that’s the way it should be

You sprinkle star dust on my pillow case
It’s like a moonbeam brushed across my face
Nights are good and that’s the way it should be

You make me sing oh, la, la, La
You make a girl go oh oh
I’m in love, love

Did you see that shooting star tonight?
Were you dazzled by the same constellation?
Did you and Jupiter conspire to get me?
I think you and the Moon and Neptune got it right
‘Cause now I’m shining bright, so bright
Bright, so bright

That’s the plan…

Alliance for Women in Media Selfie

The Editor of LA YOGA Magazine encouraged me to sign up and attend a speed mentoring event today in Studio City. I am incredibly thankful she did. The event modeled the speed-dating format where I sat down with a person and talked to them for five minutes. When five minutes was up, I moved down the conveyor belt to the next person. I spoke to about fifteen professional women in the media industry. Every five minutes, I connected with a completely different person and learned so much that it is almost overwhelming. Good thing I took notes and received their business cards.

Now that I am done with the internship with LA YOGA Magazine, I have been looking for more writing opportunities in Southern California to build my portfolio of published work. Also, I spoke to a middle school newspaper class about journalism and aspects of the profession they can look forward to, based off of my internship experience and aspirations. I also received an e-mail from Vanessa Franko, features editor with The Press-Enterprise, saying she would like to give me freelance writing assignments for the local newspaper. I am incredibly excited to start that project.

I want to continue with these somewhat sporadic and extraordinary events before I head to Boston next year and pursue my master’s degree in journalism. The next extraordinary event coming up for me is the Willa Cather Conference in Red Cloud, Nebraska June 5th-7th. I can’t believe in just little over a month I will be giving a paper on the author to a panel of scholars and writers. My hope is that my paper will be accepted for publication in the 2015 conference volume of academic essays. By the time graduate school comes around, my stack of published work will be a little higher (hopefully). That’s the plan…

 After the speed mentoring event, I took away a lot of advice and developed a ton of ideas. This blog, for instance, might change because I learned that, in order to build a stronger following, you need to build a stronger brand; your blog is like your brand. It’s what people are digesting and learning from. I might focus this blog more on a documentary of my Boston travels and try to gain a specific traveler following. Once I have built this following, then I could get in touch with a travel magazine company and reach out to a specific business for an entry-level job. Across the board, nearly every professional who works in media that I met today said continue blogging. At least I know for certain I’m doing one thing right!

(When) Will Cell Phones, Computers and Video Chat Become a Thing of the Past?

I’m taking this really interesting course where we study the human race in the future and how technology is either advancing society, or completely dominating it. This aligns perfectly with the book I want to continue writing (unfortunately, with all of the things going on right now, it’s been put on the back burner). My book is called “Openbook: The Next Generation,” which is about the next form of social media that allows humans to use their social media page as a way to replicate themselves and have their clone complete a specified task. My protagonist, for example, has her “Replachine” completing her bartending shift at the restaurant so she could work more hours at the psychiatric hospital. Interesting things are at work with those two separate spheres: a robot working in an environment meant to serve human the energy they ask for, and a human functioning in an environment to help those who have suffered mental disability. On top of that, it all stems from social media, or “Openbook,” an online interaction among humans.

Today in class, we talked about cyborgs. This appealed to me as I’m coming to understand theories of human evolution in conjunction to technological science. Technology is becoming embedded into the physical body. Experiments have been done with microchips implanted into the skin. The human would move his hand, sending signals to a receptor, that would then trigger a robotic hand to move as well. Such has also been done between two humans, where one human received feedback or neurological “pulses” from the other. We also saw an example with “Star Wars” when Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, a dramatic and painful moment when he transformed from human to cyborg.

We were asked to write and post a response on Blackboard (the class online discussion board), answering the posed question about a man who viewed the human body as a raw piece of material that can be reinvented and restructured using technology:

What are the implications for us, if our understanding of the body changes in the way someone like Stelaric seems to expect? What else would change about the way we live if we share what Stelaric represents became everyday / ordinary?

Here’s my lengthy answer that I think is worth sharing:

“Humans would be turned in controllable species. We would ultimately become the “RoboRoaches” [cockroaches were once tested to be controlled by a machine] in which we would be controlled by a machine, rather than be the controllers. Like the cyborg woman who had a bar code implanted on her breasts, people would cease to make decisions about their bodies and how they function. We would no longer have a conscience or mind of our own. We would also not be human anymore. We would be a different creature, altogether, like the spider-like exoskeleton from Stelaric’s performance. This would change how we live and function, because we would be using a different part of our new, evolved self. “The” body would not be “our” body.

Perhaps Stelaric’s artistic expression was meant to show that we do have control over the body and how the structure is altered. But I am taking the Singularity argument, imagining that the exponential rate of change would completely dominate the human race. Thus, robotics and machines will be capable of fulfilling tasks that humans can, including social interaction. Facebook, for example, an online social interaction became a competitive medium for humans to stay connected through technology, and therefore, advancing in a digital social system. Social media is constantly evolving and dictating human life. Perhaps this evolutionary change means that cyborbs would become the elitist society of the human race, and humans who choose not to assimilate into that technological discourse or culture would fall to a lower socioeconomic status.

With that said, my question is: What is the connection between cyborgs and social media? A more ontological approach: to what extent do humans allow social media to dominate their everyday lives? If humans were to become cyborgs, would they no longer need online social interaction, since they will have the technology embedded into their physical body?

A possible prediction: Like Warwick’s experiement with his wife, cyborgs would be sending radio signals to one another through a neural transmitter and perhaps exchange feedback that way. Cell phones, computers, and video chat would be a thing of the past.”

Warwick’s experiment with neurotransmitter and electrical feedback.

The Natural Products Expo

Journal No. 14

Attending the Natural Products Expo in Anaheim on Friday March 6th was overwhelming and amazing. At 7:30am, Felicia and I joined many other yogis in an outdoor yoga class. Mats were provided by Gaiam and sound was hosted by MC Yogi and DJ Drez. Not only did we do yoga and meditation, we danced.

We grabbed breakfast, changed out of our yoga clothes (I wish I had brought something a little more professional… Lesson learned!), and we headed into the convention center, armed with business cards and magazines.

 

Anaheim Convention Center: Natural Products Expo West

 

We spent most of the day networking, introducing ourselves to companies promoting health, and meeting new people. We focused on reaching out to PR and marketing managers who would possibly be interested in buying our products. I’m still not quite sure what this means, because I didn’t see much of anything happen beyond meeting managers and notable faces. For those who work in LA YOGA, I met Avani and Emily, our marketing assistants. I also met Jessica, the model on the cover of our magazine, as well as the photographer, Jeff. I was able to load up on a ton of protein bars, organic snacks, and reusable bags.

I attended a talk lead by Professor Alex Richardson from Oxford University about Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, informing me that I need to consume more fish and seafood in order to ingest these nutrients. Unfortunately, since I was extremely exhausted from lack of sleep, I ended up closing my eyes through half of the talk. Second lesson learned: Get enough sleep the night before a health expo!

The third thing I learned from this whole expo is the value of connecting with people. Meeting people face to face is way more valuable than meeting them online or through the phone. Shaking their hand, looking at them in the eye, and exchanging business cards is such an effective way to market products and build lasting relationships with companies. Felicia did a beautiful job of explaining our product, the magazine, and what we represent in the community. I tried to soak in as much information as possible to be able to explain to other people the history of LA YOGA Magazine.

The internship is coming to a close with these two final weeks of school, meaning that I will be assembling my portfolio and final draft in the next issue. I can’t say what’s in store for me with LA YOGA Magazine, but I could definitely say that I would love to attend more of these events and meet more people. I strongly believe that this magazine is doing wonders for the yoga community in Los Angeles, and I want to be a part of that magic.

 

LA YOGA Magazine March Issue and Press Badge

Thanks for reading!

A Learning Process

Journal No. 13

Being an Editorial Assistant for LA YOGA Magazine has been a learning process. Looking back on the past 12 journals, every entry tells a story about a new experience I had that contributed to my engagement with writing for a magazine. I’m actually quite proud of how far I’ve come in only 48 days of this internship. I plan on recapping every journal entry in March towards the end of the quarter to track my development and research.

February 2015 Issue of LA YOGA Magazine.

As for this entry, I want to catch you up on yesterday’s meeting with the Editor-in-Chief. We only had an hour and a half to get updated before I had to return to Riverside for class, so I wrote a to-do list of things for us to discuss in order to stay on task. Once we had our coffee and breakfast, Felicia handed me the drafts and Table of Contents for the March issue which will be coming out next Tuesday, March 3rd. I learned what exactly she meant by “going to press” with the articles and the importance of finding the right size for photographs. All pictures need to be 300 DPI (Digital Pixels per Inch), meaning that they need to be a sufficient pixel dimension to appear clear in print. For websites, the DPI is about 72.

Trend Offset Printing – Los Alamitos, California.

Another cool thing I learned about the magazine is the printing company that creates LA YOGA Magazine. Trend Offset Printing produces our magazines from cover to cover in a timely fashion with high-quality and detailed care. PDF files are uploaded to the printer server and go to press in Los Alamitos. Zoe Kors, the managing editor, packages the files. It’s pretty cool learning about how the print is actually produced and how it gets distributed around Southern California to yoga studios and other businesses. I believe Felicia had said that 50,000 copies are distributed from Los Alamitos to Glendale. She also provided me with the digital printing company that handles our online apps. MAZ is a company primarily comprised of technological experts who have previously worked for Adobe and Apple, making LA YOGA Magazine accessible through mobile devices and computers.

February 2015 Issue of LA YOGA Magazine

After learning about the interesting things about the printing process and reviewing the March drafts, we talked about the final article for the April edition. For myself, I had to write down one sentence describing what my article is basically talking about. Using the following sentence will help me maintain a focus in my final draft and truly find out if whatever I write serves the story:

Yoga therapy is a powerful tool for aiding in the recovery of trauma of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Felicia and I looked over the rough draft which needs plenty of editing, and found specifics that need to change. For example, less background on the people I interviewed which doesn’t serve the story. I also must write more clearly, especially with narration and citation.

As a final take-away, the editor advised me to have two portfolios for the future: one with all of my published works and a separate one with unedited drafts where I cover things I absolutely love. Editorial jobs that I will be applying for after I graduate in the summer will ask for either one, so it’d be safe to have both ready for review.

There is much more to learn in the next month before the internship is over. Once the article goes to print for the April issue, I plan on revising the article and figuring out how to submit it to newspapers in the Inland Empire such as The Press-Enterprise and The Los Angeles Times to spread awareness about human trafficking and yoga therapy.

Joan of Arc Armor

Journal No. 12

Today, I internalized the stories of trauma I heard about at UpRising Yoga teacher training without emotional or psychological armor. Their raw and honest stories of incarceration and human trafficking flooded the forefront of my mind. I was speaking to my mom about the event and suddenly began crying. I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the waterworks and get to work without looking like a total wreck. She lovingly guided me towards personal detachment, despite my habit of constantly reflecting on what I had heard as I went about my shift at the restaurant.

Yesterday, I listened to the story of a 19-year old girl who said she was one of the youth instructed to do yoga while in jail. “Doing yoga,” she said, “was one of the only things I had done right in my life.” Both parents in jail. I don’t know the rest of her story. But being close to her age, I reflected on my own parents and my own childhood. Her story literally hit home.

I saw the redevelopment of an impoverished community in Wilmington, California. The people had torn out a vacant parking lot where trash was thrown into, and they built a garden of fruits, vegetables and flowers. Volunteers tend to the garden beds and keep the soil fresh. Every Saturday, a farmer’s market is held here. Whatever produce is leftover is donated back to the community. The value of this project kept Wilmington nourished and unified. I saw my own neighborhood in conjunction with Wilmington, remembering my neighbors who provide our family with fresh oranges from their backyard trees. Another story that reminded me of home, a place that shaped who I am.

Jill Ippolito, Founder of UpRising Yoga, and I standing in front of the community garden.

A beautiful bed of lettuce planted by the community members.

A yoga instructor opened the teacher training with a 15-minute meditation, and through this meditation, I visualized the image of a brown box with a travel tag. This is the “gift” she told us to see. It’s the gift that we possess as well as give back to people. As a journalist, I envision giving the gift of story-telling and news.

Back to this morning and my unanticipated meltdown, my mother helped remind me to build a shield around my heart. She said to me that as a journalist, I need to create some distance between myself and the stories I cover, especially since I’m emotionally invested in issues of gender. My mother made a point that journalists who take on serious projects like these can potentially end up with PTSD from their job. I’m seeking to build an emotional and subconscious armor, some protection against my repressed memories, my most secret thoughts, my dreams.

I don’t believe this guard can be manufactured in a day, in a month or in a year. Maybe I call it my Joan of Arc armor. Whenever I pick up a pen or sit at my laptop with emotional and mental investment, I put on this armor. And if I need to strip off the armor in order to go there — go to that place of truly connecting with another person through journalism, fighting my own demons — I choose to have that option.

It’s risky opening up myself completely and I might not be as functional for awhile afterwards. But I care. I’m human. I am a person who also has a story. Being a journalist doesn’t make me a hero or someone with more authority or power. It doesn’t make me better than anybody else. I am who I choose to be. I am what I give back. Above all, I choose to fight being a victim of my own mind.

Heroes of Our Time

Journal No. 11

For my human trafficking research, I have been directed to an organization called Unlikely Heroes. I just want to share with you a little about what they do, and why you should know about it.

You should know about these statistics they have on their website, because I don’t believe people in the U.S actually understand the gravity of the situation:

27 MILLION PEOPLE

TRAPPED IN SLAVERY TODAY. THIS IS MORE THAN DOUBLE THE NUMBER OF AFRICANS ENSLAVED DURING THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE.

$28 BILLION

IS GENERATED FROM COMMERCIAL SEXUAL EXPLOITATION MAKING IT THE 2ND MOST LUCRATIVE CRIME IN THE WORLD.

100,000 CHILDREN

ARE PROSTITUTED IN THE U.S. PER YEAR.

How can we change these numbers? How can ordinary people living ordinary, healthy and safe lives make a difference in exploited victim’s lives?

Unlikely Heroes steps in to lead the nation in abolishing the modern slavery. They’re not just ordinary people, though. They are truly contemporary heroes who are on the ground rescuing children and women from captivity, and from being bought and sold into sexual slavery. These heroes provide shelter to those who have been stripped of their families, homes and bright futures. Above all, Unlikely Heroes spreads awareness and training through education to thousands of people.

Erica Greve founded the organization and has traveled abroad to third world countries, offering personal aid to women and children. Her team of highly educated individuals, including a survivor of sexual slavery and public speaker, builds strength in numbers of devoted advocates.

It is an honor to feature Unlikely Heroes in LA YOGA Magazine. I will be learning more about activities they do for rehabilitation, and if yoga is among them.

For my next post, I will be telling you about my trip to Los Angeles this Saturday as a guest for a training at a juvenile hall. Speakers such as survivor, D’Lita Miller, and founder of UpRising Yoga, Jill Ippolito, will be there talking about yoga offered to incarcerated youth and survivors of sexual exploitation. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading!

P.S- for more information on Unlikely Heroes, visit: http://unlikelyheroes.com.

Latest Internship Journal

Journal No. 9

Monday February 2nd, 2015

Today was another beautiful day at Tiato in Santa Monica with editor-in-chief Felicia Tomasko. Even though we spoke for an hour and thirty minutes, we covered a lot of ground. Felicia helped me set up a conference call recording device on my phone for future interviews. The recording device will be useful when I need to hold phone interviews. Plus, she was able to get my new digital Sony camera set up to take pictures. The camera will be devoted strictly to journalism projects and LA YOGA Magazine “behind the scenes” work.

As an intern for the magazine, I wanted to see what the issue calendar looks like and was given the link to the website editorial page (

Click to access 2015_LAYOGA_MediaKit.pdf

). On Page 5, the public has a glimpse of themes used for every edition that gets published monthly. I was excited to see this, because it allows me to understand how articles are selected and implemented into each magazine. Talking more about theme selection, Felicia suggested I watch The September Issue which is about the editor of Vogue. The September Issue seems like a documentary version of The Devil Wears Prada, only real. And possibly better… (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq4wo4JYy2s).

Felicia invited me to two exciting events coming up in March. On Monday March 2nd, I have the opportunity to go behind the scenes of their photo-shoot, take pictures and document the process of story-boarding for April’s fashion issue. On Friday March 6th, Felicia also invited me to the Anaheim Convention Center as her assistant and secretary as well as a spectator for the largest whole food trade show in the country. Two incredible events to look forward to!

We started getting down to the human trafficking article and deadline specifics. If I want this article to be published in the March issue, I have until Friday February 13th to get my final draft submitted…. Yikes! Since I still need to conduct a few interviews and write the draft, I have a feeling that my article will be postponed until the April issue. This is fine, because Felicia loaned me a book to write a short 200-word review to have published in March. The book review article will allow me to have something printed for my internship portfolio. The book titled The iRest Program for Healing PTSD by Richard Miller, PhD., will be very insightful for my research, as well. Miller had also invited me to a conference on March 21st where he will be talking more about iRest.

On the road to Santa Monica

Exciting stuff is happening!

Thanks for reading.