A little under two months. That’s how long I’ve got left. I say that but I know I’ll just take a full time job with them and keep doing what I’m doing. And I’ll do it for years.
Guess my mentor said fuck me. He talked about a connection to a company that is hiring. A company that rejected me. That’d be big to have an in like that. But he never got back to me. After weeks of pestering him and agreeing when to follow up, silence. I tired one last time today asking for the contact’s info so I could introduce myself without him. Haven’t heard anything. Not going to try to push it anymore. Just got to accept that’s a dead end. And it’s not like I can blame him. I was a shit intern. Failed at building a test rig and wrote a shit report. Everyone thought so. So what motivation does he have to help me? He already wrote a recommendation for some fellowship that went nowhere. Didn’t want to write a recommendation for my PhD application. Said I wasn’t ready. Glad he was honest with me for that one. Like I said it’s give and take. Used up any and all goodwill I had with him so now he’s just ignoring me. It would have been cool if he never told me about the connection to begin with though. Getting my hopes up like that wasn’t really necessary.
Had Easter dinner with my estranged aunt and her family. Her and my mom hate each other. All those siblings basically couldn’t agree on how to take care of my dying grandparents. The strain basically pushed everyone apart. They’re a bunch of evangelical conservatives. Like real jesus freak types. So I was kinda expecting some uncomfortable talks about my relationship with God or who I’d be voting for in the fall. But it was just a nice dinner. Awkward conversations with my talkative cousin, but overall nothing really big. A part of me kinda wanted to get into an argument with them. Talk about how fucked over I was by this administration. How it ruined my future and ripped my one chance away from me. Give them the finger for voting for that orange cocksucker. Mainly I just wanted to let it out on someone finally. This intense hatred and bitterness that’s welled up inside me for months. Finally vomit my vitriol on someone. But instead they treated me to a nice steak dinner and some ice cream. I don’t hate them, but I need to let it out on someone. And my family is kinda the prime target for it.
My uncle talked about my cousin. He wasn’t there since he was away for work. We used to be close when we were kids, but drifted apart by the time I hit high school. Like how it always is. Anyways he was telling me about he bought a house recently. He’s younger than me by a year. It’s great honestly. He worked hard for it. He’s an oil field worker. Goes across the state to work for two weeks straight and living on site. Then comes home for two weeks and chills. 15 hour days and stuff like that. Probably 1000 times more demanding than the stuff I do. But he gets paid a lot. Saved up 100 grand and bought a house. Has two trucks. And apparently he loves it. The exact type of life that would drive me fucking insane and he’s thriving in it. That repetitive grueling work for a bunch of money and a bunch of stuff. I never really thought about buying a house. The small efficiency I have now is perfect honestly. Don’t need much. Just need my old shitty truck my parents loan me to get around. Don’t need nothing fancy. And before when I was living in Massachusetts, I liked taking the bus and train to get to places. Except for my job. I definitely needed a car then. But I don’t really need much. Not to say I don’t like nice things. Got a fancy expensive computer I bought with my internship money and MtG cards. Not to mention my shamefull addiction to online materials. But honestly, I don’t need much. Money to pay bills and subscriptions and one or two hundred every week for going out to eat and going to the movies. Buy a game or two. And I especially can’t stand the thought of doing the type of mind numbing work I’m doing now to buy a bunch of pointless bullshit. The type of work my cousin does or my mom does. Not necessarily about the physical aspect of it cause my mom is a community college teacher, but I’m talking about the work where I see no meaning in. I need to be working towards this great big thing like I think robotics research is. As dumb as it sounds, “the greater good” “For mankind” etc. And especially (and maybe even more so) to see how far you can push the field. But my cousin found meaning in his work. It’s crazy how exact opposites we are. Even when we were kids we kinda were opposites. Funny how that’s still the case.
Remember put on a happy face