LXXIII. A Dosage of This & Taking That in Stride -

I have just begun embarking on a career in journalism.

I wrote my first article that still has not been published yet, attended my first editorial meeting in which my editor conveniently failed to mention my article at all (did she even receive it?), had my first reporting experience, have set my first feature deadline, and am set to take off in two weeks, (that soon!), to make good on my long awaited desire mentioned in Post LXXI.

I feel incredibly appreciative.

I found myself grappling with not committing the same mistakes I made while at college and concluded that there are 2.

Professors, you are not off the hook;

College Academia Faults =

1% Reshmi + 99% Ideologically-biased professors hungry for infinite tenure.

Enter - 2 mistakes that encompass the 1%:

1. Live and do… in the present -

There have been many times at Penn when I felt like time was moving as slowly as the viscous silk hair serum left after multiple uses, that refuses to vacate it’s mostly empty bottle.

I think I would sometimes rush to finish something in an attempt to will the future’s presence, or conversely, take all the time in the world in an attempt to master an essay, only succeeding in handing in a heavily-edited and reflectively overworked piece.

Time will pass and then you’ll look back and realize that if you just had remembered that the future will come eventually, perhaps your craft and skills could have been honed.

2. Remember the end-product -

Anecdote: In chemistry lab in sophomore year, there was one lab where a solid precipitate had to be produced. This solid had to weigh within a range that only spanned, maybe 5 hundredths. All I remember was getting so caught up in the procedure and the corollary arithmetic that I forgot that what mattered in this ill-conceived lab was the end solid. My crystal could not fit in the vial we had to hand in and clearly, was completely out of range in weight.

What I mean to say is that at the end, you need what it is that you need; you cannot lose sight of this. Recommendations, accolade, and publication acquisition - you are forever on a conquest to retrieve what is rightfully yours.

It is not the first day of school for me. No, instead, it is the first of the firsts for me with regard to the professional realm. This is that “blank slate” that I always disregarded as being a defunct cliche.

Now is the time to construct, build, and design.

It is time to not only think long-term; It is also the time to act for the long-term.