Rock On

It’s been an awesome week, thanks to events like what I’m going to describe.

UW’s co-op system works likes this. There are two rounds of postings for jobs, with the first round of jobs consisting of far more desirable postings, and the second round of jobs being less so. First round jobs are posted in the first two months of each four month term, and second round jobs are posted after those two months. Every job receives a number of applications, which then get evaluated for interviews, and the candidates that are chosen are then ranked by the hiring company on a scale of 1-9, with 1 being a guaranteed offer to 9, which is the lowest possible score. It is also possible to get ‘not ranked’ from the hiring company, which takes you out of consideration for the job completely. First rounders get a number of perks, including rankings for jobs being released at the same time, so that candidates (now referred to as ‘keeners’) can pick and choose which jobs they want out of the ones they were interviewed for. Second rounders, generally get… shafted.

Guess which round I’ve been slumming around in for most of my jobs?

So this past week, I’ve been pretty anxious over multiple priorities, with one of the highest being my unemployed status. My housemates and other people in my program had mostly found jobs, so it was starting to become slightly stressful. However, I found myself blessed with three interviews early on in the week, so that gave me hope. I nailed the first interview on Wednesday, which was for a position as a coordinator at a tutoring centre. I got ranked first, meaning I got the job offer. Now, this was incredibly exciting in one way, since I could finally focus on my studies and do well on my exams, get good marks, get a good job and find fame and riches and glory from thereon. On the other hand, the job sounded like total crap. The offer would expire the next day, so I had one night to make my decision. There was a lot of pressure on this, because my next four months rested on this fateful decision.

What did I do?

I decided to start reading Bill Hybel’s Too Busy Not to Pray on a whim, while trying to fall asleep. I’ve stopped reading it for a while due to laziness, but that night I had absolutely nothing to do so I picked it up again. I then came across the following passage (emphasis mine):

“How do you pray a prayer so filled with faith that it can move a mountain? By shifting the focus from the size of your mountain to the sufficiency of the mountain mover, and by stepping forward with confidence. As you walk with God, your confidence will increase and your prayer will have power.”

I knew what I had to do from there. The next day, I rejected my offer for the tutoring placement, and placed my faith in God helping me to ace my next interview.

Lo and behold, I nailed it.

I’m going to be in downtown, working for RBC, starting September. BOO YEAH!

Loyalty, Trust, Faith and Desire

This weekend has been a great blessing for me. I’ve started to catch up with a lot of the readings that I’m behind on, gotten cracking (relatively) on assignments, and hang out with a lot of people near and dear to my heart. The overarching theme that has been instilled in me this weekend is the difference between good people and fundamentally good people. Let me explain.

We run into good people everywhere in our lives. They’re the people that you can get along with and have a good time. Your coworker that always get her work done, and has decent conversations with you, for example. But at the end of the day, the question of whether you can sacrifice everything for them, and whether they can do the same for you is still in doubt. I was having lunch with a friend, and she told me her experiences with her ex. They were both happy together until the relationship ended and the ex showed how selfish he actually was. When push came to shove, he simply had no good substance. Now, I’m not saying that all good people are actually conceited at heart, but the question of how morally low they can go is still there.

Contrast this with fundamentally good people. These are the people that wear their hearts on their sleeve. They do things without ulterior motives, and you’re completely at ease with them. You are comfortable asking them to give you a drive home, because you know they are 100% willing to help someone in need. Or they’ll even offer without you having to ask. They’re the ones that will be with you even when you don’t have the best planned events, when there are cooler things happening that you weren’t invited to. These are the people that we need to find, and stick to like glue, for the rest of our lives.

In the presence of so many fundamentally good people, I just felt completely recharged. It’s good to be home.

What the hell am I doing with my life

Procrastinators actively look for distractions, particularly ones that don’t take a lot of commitment on their part… They distract themselves as a way of regulating their emotions such as fear of failure.

-Psychology Today