So I managed to take the tram back and forth to campus yesterday. In both cases I had to wait for over an hour. Everyone else seemed to be walking (or driving, bastards) to campus, but I wanted to take the tram because I wanted to figure out when it comes, where it goes, how it works, etc. In the afternoon, I waited over an hour, then finally gave up and walked. It turns out it’s only like an eight minute walk, but they recommend you take the tram after dark if you’re worried about crime, though so far it seems that my odds of being mugged are much higher standing around on the sidewalk for 75 minutes rather than walking for 8 minutes. Supposedly once class starts, the tram runs every 15 minutes. We’ll see.
I tried going to two job fairs on campus yesterday. I spent an hour wandering around and around a dorm looking for the “back courtyard.” It turns out that it’s through a locked, unmarked gate that they didn’t open until minutes before the event started. The turnout was me and 18 Indian guys. Even though I was the first one in line, everyone else clearly knew the drill and they all bum rushed me as soon as the gate opened in order to get to the sign-in sheet before me, which kind of irritated me. As a “job fair,” I was expecting there to be some information about various jobs on campus. There wasn’t. The first and only step was to fill out an application for whatever job you wanted and then line up for an interview. When I asked the woman if there was any information available about what the duties, hours, and pay were for any of the jobs, she looked at me like I was insane. I decided that before I interviewed to work at, for example, the bookstore, I’d like to at least be able to find the bookstore, and cut out feeling very frustrated. Later, as I walked by the bookstore, I was handed a flyer for another job fair. The flyer said, “Need a job on campus? It’s not too late! Job fair today.” I was like, “WTF? ‘Not too late’? Yesterday was the first day I was allowed to move into my apartment. How can it be almost too late to get a job?” And anyway, that job fair turned out to be all jobs for work study, which I don’t have. Argh.
Though, amazingly, the USC campus bookstore currently stocks three copies of the All the Rage This Year anthology, which includes my story “Veil of Ignorance,” so that went a long way toward rehabilitating my mood.
In the evening, there was a reception for MPW students, which was great. There were about 40 people there, and everyone seemed fun and friendly. And I came home to find that Fictionwise has processed my stories. I read over them all this morning and just sent them back, so they should be going up on the site fairly shortly.
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