I know there isn't some burning demand to know my whereabouts and doodles (except for maybe, like, five people?), but why not. So here they are.
I thought I ought to provide a brief summary of the past few months for context.
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May 2014:
Some stuff happened a few weeks before J-school graduation:
My defense mechanism was to pretend like I was okay.
I think it worked, somewhat. Maybe.
June-July 2014:
I miraculously got an (unpaid) internship, after being rejected from all of them during J-school. I went to it.
Applied to more internships for the fall, but was rejected from all of them.
I also got very sick one day, so I took a day off and could not move for most of the day.
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| (Which I promptly threw up the next day.) |
But when I recovered physically, I found that I have not recovered mentally.
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| (I would like to add that I also went to bathrooms and showered like a civilized human being.) |
When it became clear that my mental state was not temporary and also affecting my work, I called Columbia's mental health counselling.
August 2014:
I went to counselling and was told I was displaying some symptoms of depression. I agreed with the counselor.
I also started getting panic attacks.
If you've never had panic attacks before, this is how it kind of feels:
I decided to go home.
Everything just became too much. Landing internships are difficult, even more so as an international student. I was also mentally unwell. Maybe I could have tried for longer, but I felt like I was literally, seriously going insane. I needed a break.
There were many days in NYC where I met with friends and had a lovely time. It was just that they were outweighed by my problems.
September~November 2014:
Prague. Home. I rested and tried to recover.
I also took a short internship at the Prague Post (also unpaid).
Then I heard that a Korean newspaper company I was interested in were looking for new hires, so I applied, which you can find out here:
Journalism Hunger Games + Life part 1
Journalism Hunger Games + Life part 2
December 2014
LOL FAILED THE HUNGER GAMES.
But a few weeks later, it turned out they were looking for paid interns as well.
But I decided to apply, mainly due to this:
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| (Can you tell I had a comic blog planned months ago that I never followed through until now?) |
And also:
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| The most important reason. |
So I re-applied despite feeling silly, and got the 6-month paid internship!
I spent the last few days with family and saying goodbye to Prague, which was home to me for twelve years (!)
This turned out a lot longer than I thought, so I'll talk about stuff that happened in 2015 next time!
