Sunday, May 9, 2010

The immigrants are stealing your low-paid internships.

Hello all! I’m back at work and hopefully back at blogging!

I’ve been away from the blogging pretty much since getting back from Rwanda, other than a few random posts, but I’m going to try to start doing it regularly again. Ironically, I had plenty of time to write while I was unemployed and yet did very little of it. Now that I have a job and much less time, I decided to restart the blog. Not sure I understand myself sometimes.

First main point: I have a job! Hooray! Actually, I ended up getting three interviews all around the same time and ended up getting offered all three jobs! When it rains, eh? Fortunately, one of the jobs starts in September, doing after-school enrichment programs, so I accepted that one. I had to decide between an hourly job at Te House of Tea and a short-term internship at the Student Conservation Association (SCA). After taking everyone’s advice into account, I decided to go with the internship, mostly because it seemed like less of a downgrade than serving tea, even if the pay was worse. After two weeks, I still believe I made the right choice, especially since there could be a slight chance of it turning into longer-term, better-paid employment.

The SCA is an environmental non-profit that has been around since the 1950s placing people in internships at national parks and the like to do conservation work (habitat restoration, trail building, invasive species removal, population studies, environmental education, etc). In the last decade, it has also expanded to programs that get urban youth involved in conservation efforts. My job is to recruit people for internships in and around Houston (including Galveston), or as a friend put it, a non-corporate headhunter. I’ll also be helping to build partnerships with other organizations, running the intern program for the summer and helping out with the high school summer program. So far, so good!

That’s all for now, but I hope to post again in the near future. Keep an eye out for posts on my attempts at becoming more environmentally friendly, an awesome immigration rally we attended and our recent infestations of fruit flies and millipedes. (Alisha found an ingenious way to annihilate most of the fruit flies, but does anyone know how to get rid of large numbers of millipedes?)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I think a boot would work, not even a large boot, any size should do.

I was going to comment on you posting more now that you have a job but you beat me to it, well played sir.

Best of luck with your new job and let me know if you're still available for some part time consulting (to be paid with beer?) if someone you know decides to run for some sort of political office...

Anonymous said...

Some info on millipedes and the such.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/housingandclothing/DK1023.html

Wall Street Journal had an article on natural pesticides. I've heard of mint oil being used, as listed in the article's title. PBS showed one of Hawaii's universities using it to control yellow jackets and wasps, which have no natural predators on the islands.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204563304574318231044370704.html

Sara Janes said...

Cats will eat just about anything.

Kimberlee Stiens said...

Excellent taking of MY advice, there, Andy. I know you trust me more than actual friends that you know and stuff. I appreciate the nod. :)

The jobber sounds awesome as well. But promise me that you're really going to work to get at the truly disadvantaged youth... It is far too easy in this economy to find someone industrious and talented, but I hope you will seek out those who aren't looking to be found by someone like you. Good luck!