Things continue to be rough. I continue to hear nothing on the job front, which is incredibly distressing. I went to the office of public interest advising and found it less than useless. The only advisor there who seems to be helpful in any way is the part-time conservative/libertarian advisor. I haven't even seen her because I can't find an appointment for her, but there was a conservative/libertarian public interest job search lunch talk and dang that woman is on fire. I'm probably going to email her and see if I can get an after-hours appointment, which she stated at the lunch she was willing to do for any conservative or libertarian students. My private sector advisor continues to be good, but we're really in a "wait and see" position with those applications.
The only good news with regard to the job search is that I have found a non-profit firm that does only religious liberty issues in my home region. It is, quite literally, my dream job. I'm very nervous about applying because I know they want very high-achieving students, even from top schools. My grades are fine but they're not top of the class. In every other respect, I'm an ideal candidate for them: I am in a top school, have taken a seminar on religious liberty with a top scholar on the issue, aced said seminar, contributed to a Supreme Court brief on First Amendment issues, am extremely passionate about the topic, and I have a seminary background which means I have have been in the trenches on multiple fronts. And it just blows my mind that they are also in my home region in reasonable commute distance from my parents. Not DC. Not the capital. Home. I am going to probably email my private sector advisor to get her help for a cover letter and see how I can touch base with a couple of potential connections I have there (one of the attorneys is an HLS grad and another is a mutual LinkedIn connection with an attorney I connected with in October). I need serious prayer for this. It seems like a dream come true, but I'm sure they're very selective.
The bedbug bites have reduced but not completely disappeared. Can't find any evidence, though. Exterminator comes for followup treatment next week (and checking next door). I do not like living out of hefty bags. It makes me feel like I have no control over my life at home in addition to no control over my work. It's very hard to feel so helpless.
Administration at school does not understand. They hyperfocus on something like my hip pain (almost 100% certain it's related to my sciatic nerve, and with stretching and heat the pain has significantly reduced like I knew it would, but DOS wanted me to go to the doctor so I could get "accommodations" for it; I don't need medical accommodations and I know this from experience) or they tell me to go to health services with the implication it's for the counselors there. I'm sure the counselors there are lovely and help a lot of people, but at the end of the day they're secular counselors and they don't get me. I'd much rather talk to my priest, but Harvard admin obviously doesn't understand that; if I mention that they'll often be like "oh ok but..." I'm also just frustrated because I know how to do CBT on my own, which is probably what a counselor would do with me and I'm pretty good at working out why I feel the way I feel. So if I need counseling, I would much prefer a religious counselor who gets my worldview and isn't about to suggest something stupid like "mindfulness," which is a catchall term for anything from harmless deep breathing exercises (never have found those helpful at all) to more suspect meditation. And what tends to make things worse is that these admins will get that kind of "oh no she's crying, must treat with kid gloves" attitude when I start crying, even though I'm crying because I'm frustrated, not sad. Even if I try to explain to them that I also cry when I'm frustrated or angry and sometimes for no reason at all, they still have that weird tone of voice that I don't like.
I'm just sick of a lot of this.
The only good news with regard to the job search is that I have found a non-profit firm that does only religious liberty issues in my home region. It is, quite literally, my dream job. I'm very nervous about applying because I know they want very high-achieving students, even from top schools. My grades are fine but they're not top of the class. In every other respect, I'm an ideal candidate for them: I am in a top school, have taken a seminar on religious liberty with a top scholar on the issue, aced said seminar, contributed to a Supreme Court brief on First Amendment issues, am extremely passionate about the topic, and I have a seminary background which means I have have been in the trenches on multiple fronts. And it just blows my mind that they are also in my home region in reasonable commute distance from my parents. Not DC. Not the capital. Home. I am going to probably email my private sector advisor to get her help for a cover letter and see how I can touch base with a couple of potential connections I have there (one of the attorneys is an HLS grad and another is a mutual LinkedIn connection with an attorney I connected with in October). I need serious prayer for this. It seems like a dream come true, but I'm sure they're very selective.
The bedbug bites have reduced but not completely disappeared. Can't find any evidence, though. Exterminator comes for followup treatment next week (and checking next door). I do not like living out of hefty bags. It makes me feel like I have no control over my life at home in addition to no control over my work. It's very hard to feel so helpless.
Administration at school does not understand. They hyperfocus on something like my hip pain (almost 100% certain it's related to my sciatic nerve, and with stretching and heat the pain has significantly reduced like I knew it would, but DOS wanted me to go to the doctor so I could get "accommodations" for it; I don't need medical accommodations and I know this from experience) or they tell me to go to health services with the implication it's for the counselors there. I'm sure the counselors there are lovely and help a lot of people, but at the end of the day they're secular counselors and they don't get me. I'd much rather talk to my priest, but Harvard admin obviously doesn't understand that; if I mention that they'll often be like "oh ok but..." I'm also just frustrated because I know how to do CBT on my own, which is probably what a counselor would do with me and I'm pretty good at working out why I feel the way I feel. So if I need counseling, I would much prefer a religious counselor who gets my worldview and isn't about to suggest something stupid like "mindfulness," which is a catchall term for anything from harmless deep breathing exercises (never have found those helpful at all) to more suspect meditation. And what tends to make things worse is that these admins will get that kind of "oh no she's crying, must treat with kid gloves" attitude when I start crying, even though I'm crying because I'm frustrated, not sad. Even if I try to explain to them that I also cry when I'm frustrated or angry and sometimes for no reason at all, they still have that weird tone of voice that I don't like.
I'm just sick of a lot of this.
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