A Second Job

I've just been hired for a second job. Makes me very happy. I can keep my first job as a designer at The Reporter, working Mondays and Tuesdays (press days), I get to be up at Santa Fe Institute on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Fridays are free, or flex for whoever needs me. I like both jobs. The Reporter is a fun and lively place to work, where I learn lots of valuable life lessons that a school would be sued if they taught, especially if it was in such a blunt manner. I love the atmosphere of SFI, and the people I get to work with there. I've already learned a lot from them (been involved for a while), and I expect to learn a lot more. :D Like learning how to edit video on Wednesday, which was my first day.

I find it interesting that both came out of connections I already had. I started at the Reporter as an unpaid intern. I'd heard about the position through my mother, who had worked with Ariana (my boss) in the past. My only motivation was to relieve my boredom after a few months of being a dropout. After a year, I was hired as part-time help in favor over someone just out of design school.
My first project with Irene, the person who just hired me at SFI, was in 2005. And that came out of knowing her daughter and ending up living at her house for days at a time. The first project, Power Users of ICT, didn't go over so well and didn't continue. But last year I got involved with the Supercomputing Challenge as a Home School student with Irene as my sponsor. That project was, in my eyes, more successful than I could have hoped or anticipated, not having any prior knowledge of what I was getting myself into. Doing the Challenge, and getting through all the challenges that came with it, led into various other related projects. Recently the Challenge cycle started over, and I'm getting to see it from the facilitators' perspective this time. And I just got hired for the SCC's sister project, GUTS (Growing Up Thinking Scientifically), masterminded by Irene.

All in all, I think I like the system of making myself useful of my own free will, and then getting hired. It means that I can pick and choose who I work with without obligation and without money as a factor, and Only if I'm happy enough with them and useful enough to them do I get anything more than something to keep me busy.