So you've found my LJ! What up.

first_seventhe is not a Friends-Only journal; however, it is a Somewhat-Friends-Locked journal. I don't have any kind of "friending policy" - if you're here, you're free to comment on anything. If you can see an entry, it's free game. Here's how it usually breaks down:

• Unlocked - Fandom stuff; open entries about writing, art, photography, etc; general bitching; healthblogging and workout stuff in general; memes and photomemes


• Locked - More personal entries; healthblogging / workout stuff with specifics about me; anything that mentions other people not represented on LJ; entries about work or grad school; anything posted during the day (from work) with naughty language in it


• Filtered and locked - Personal entries with life details. I do have a set of filters based on how well I know someone. Don't be offended if you're not on one. Get to know me better.

I'm a friendly person. I like to communicate with people. On this particular LJ I come across like a hobo on speed, but underneath it all I'd like to think I'm keeping a fair bit of intelligence and life experience. I spend all day being smart and intelligible. I don't need to prove anything on my effing Livejournal.

Yes, I am in fandom. Yes, I write fanfiction. I'm old enough that I don't really feel like I have to hide that fact, or even justify it in any way. I'm not exactly trying to sit at the "cool table" any more (as a professional chemical engineer and a part-time graduate student in polymer science, I think they've already revoked my "cool table" license anyway). If the fandom parts bother you in some way, feel free to ignore, or de-friend, or leave me a comment to take you off of X or Y filter. However, if you're here from fandom, feel free to comment on non-fandom-related stuff if you want! Like I said: if you can see it, it's fair game.

I do love random friendings and random stalkers. If you friend me, I'll probably friend you back. If we end up not interacting much, I always reserve the right to take you off certain lists -- my F-List is mainly for my own reading purposes and shouldn't be used to gauge how much I like someone. I like lots of people! Everywhere! Except when I don't, because people suck.

If you're here because you've Googled my real name and followed the internet trail through my website to this journal, leave me a goddamn comment (on this entry) and let me know. Stalkers freak me out.

vincentvalentine is trying to pull together some resources to help younger graduates feel better about finding jobs and more confident about the things that they do! This is a(n) small LOL RIGHT essay I've pulled together to help share my own experiences with interviewing and hiring. I hope it helps someone!

The information here is a lot about me and my experiences. I come across as a really grumpy asshole. But guess what! That's who is interviewing you. I don't come to work to make BFFs, I come to get shit done. I recruit in the same way. Lots of other people do too. Here's the list of ~secret~ things we're really looking for, and how you can make even a grumpy buttface like me want to bring you into my company. SPOILER: They're not so secret.

( Some Information On Interviewing From The Other Side Of The Table, or: What Too Much Of Sev's Job Has Become and How You Can Hopefully Make My Life Easier When I'm Hiring. )

All of this advice can be boiled down to the following: We want to hire someone who wants to be hired by us for this specific job. We are not looking for people who want "a job", "any job". We're a puzzle piece looking for a piece that fits well, that improves us, not just any piece that's close enough. Your job is to use the interview time to determine whether or not you are a good fit, and if you are, to show me why you're the best puzzle piece out there. Because there are a lot of other puzzle pieces very similar to you, and if I don't see that tiny two-pixel difference between you and the last person I spoke to, I may throw you both into the "meh" pile.

I win at analogies forever.

Enjoy. And good luck. And if you have questions, or you want to hear the horror stories, just ask.



...Also I pick on Taco Bell a lot in this and I want to make it perfectly clear that it's just an example and I love me some shameful 3:30am TBell just like every other engineer in the world.

This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/311598.html, which has comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.

1. PLEASE TELL ME SOMEONE ELSE IS UP TO DATE ON KORRA BECAUSE LOOK I JUST NEED THINGS OKAY

2. AFTER OVER 5 MONTHS OF THE DESERTIEST DRY SPELL IN WRITING I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE, IT ISN'T FINAL FANTASY OR SHERLOCK OR EVEN ORIGINAL!FIC THAT GETS ME THINKING ABOUT STORIES AGAIN, IT IS:
( THIS )

KORRA AND THE BROTHERS: APPARENTLY IT'S THE GODDAMN QUENCHIEST

This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/311317.html, which has comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.

Um wow, okay, so I am absolutely not condoning anything going on here: this is my city, I have driven on that fucking bridge, that's right near a close coworker's home, these are events I go to: these men are absolute assholes

but would you like to tell me what's wrong with this article within reading the first goddamn sentence

http://www.ohio.com/news/5-men-charged-in-plot-to-blow-up-bridge-other-targets-discussed-1.304109

"sports a striking black Mohawk haircut"

um

because obviously poor hairstyle choices = horrible person, bomber of awesome places to live, filth on the shiny operating surface of society

HE HAD A MOHAWK HOW DID YOU ALL MISS THIS OBVIOUSLY HE IS A GODDAMN BOMBER ASSHOLE

I am not entirely sure why this one sentence makes me so angry

do not make me defend someone who was going to blow up a bridge
please don't


(After a more in-depth reading: these guys are probably the dumbest bombers of all time. Brecksville wasn't really in danger, the FBI has been all over it from day one, they actually sold these dumbasses fake bombs, and hilariously, that's the same FBI guy who was involved in the [other thing]. This whole thing is just weird)

This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/310587.html, which has comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.

a random positive post, to make up for all the bullshittery i've been wailing about lately:

• I'd forgotten how much I like my actual *job* -- I mean working my reactor, running batches, synthesizing polymer, the job I've been doing for 7 years now. I was just out in the lab prepping bottles for new chemicals and I realized I was humming to myself, just a little, and I actually stopped with the bottle still in my hand and realized how content I was at that moment, how satisfying it was to be doing things with my hands again, to be testing a new chemical myself. It was surprising, because it's a very mundane part of the entire polymerization process - chemical prep - and it's boring and a well-trained monkey could actually do it; I've been impatient with it before. But now, it was like a little moment of zen.
  
  Unfortunately, my job now isn't the job I've had for the last 7 years. Things change. Bitches get promoted. And today has definitely not been anywhere near a great day at work. But it was nice to have a moment of, "hey, this isn't actually the fifth level of hell."


• WHY IS BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE SO FREAKING GOOD????? delicious new afternoon snack: 1 package mozzarella balls, 1 package sliced bitty tomatoes, absolutely drowned in 1 tpsb olive oil and 2 tbsp balsamic. Keep telling self: this has to last me three days, this has to last me three days...


• I very randomly this afternoon was - very ridiculously, very hard - pinged for Beacon, the original story-world I'm creating/writing with my brother. I haven't touched it in over a year, but I was doing something completely unrelated in a thesaurus and I had the most absolutely amazing idea and now all I want to do is leave work immediately and go home and start pouring out words.
  
  I haven't been actually *inspired* to write since, I am pretty sure, January.
  
  :)
  
  

This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/310447.html, which has comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.

It is probably time for an entry that doesn't suck. So can we talk about Parks and Recreation?

( i'm going to go make out with him. on his face )

This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/310227.html, which has comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.

I love the fact that this is officially the last week of my twenties and I haven't done a single thing about that because I've been too busy and tired to even acknowledge the last few months of my twenties and hey, too late now, right? I literally spent all morning today at work organizing my desk - because I haven't had time to do anything other than "throw paper in folder and pray is correct folder" and that method is slowly but surely backfiring all over my face - and writing my to-do list. The fact that my work to-do list is currently a four-page document with six different sections and tons of bullet points in something that started out as color-coding two weeks ago? The fact that there is so much on it and so many things about it constantly changing that I literally have to take actually significant amounts of time on Mondays to properly arrange it, prioritize everything, communicate those priorities to a dozen people, make sure they're okay, coordinate changes, make a weekly plan of attack?

UGH

This is not what turning 30 was supposed to be like .__.

I had a lot of things I was going to do with this year, including finishing my fucking degree/thesis, among other things of various levels of importance. Instead I've spent all of 2012 so far doing the following:

1. Losing lots of time, energy, and fucks to my job


2. Spending more time, energy, and fucks being supportive to other people


3. Coming home and using my last remaining fuck to make dinner and a drink

I really just do not believe that it's already May tomorrow. I really honestly fucking don't. I have no idea what happened to this year but I would like so much of it back. I need to take control of all of this soon -- which is basically impossible since my job came with 400 new responsibilities and -0.1 new authority -- but if work really wants me to finish this degree they are going to have to stop making me work late, making me come in on Fridays, sending me to the plant, and also stop working me so hard that I sleep all weekend from exhaustion.


...is it sad that my "dream 30th birthday" vacation is me alone in a cabin somewhere with a couple bottles of wine where I could sleep and write and then sleep more and then write more? God.

This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/309999.html, which has comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.

lassarina and I have been playing this game over email for almost a day now, where we give each other prompts and have to respond with only six words. It's easy enough that I have the brains to do it throughout the work day, but it feels a tiny bit like writing, and for someone who hasn't written a single fiction-esque word since the Kiss Battle (and before that, December; I actually checked) that's significant.

(I miss writing. I miss having time to do it, but more than that - I miss having the energy. Because I could make time if I had any inspiration, but I'm so out of fucks to give right now. And I miss it.)

So let's play. You leave me prompts: characters, pairings, a theme if you want, but not required. Because I am Seventhe Dragomire, I am going to give you seven words in return.

Any fandom you know I've touched is game. IDGAF.

This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/309581.html, which has comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.

I love when I log onto DW to catch up and I have a bunch of posts that basically read "man I am so drunk" or "I did this when I was drunk"

it makes me feel better about all of my life choices >.>

speaking of which..... [BEER]


ALSO: 62% DONE WITH DOINK MATCHING, AND STILL ROLLING... for the record, I'm sitting outside on my patio in the nice weather, with a beer, doing the matching on my laptop while cats yell at me through the open window. It's amazing how much more relaxed I am now, away from work - just comparing this to yesterday or any other day this week (although I actually had to go to work today for a meeting and to help give a tour; one thing I wouldn't have bothered to go in for but since there were two I gave up and agreed) I am in a much better mood overall, even though 2012 Matching is actually being really difficult and stressful. This stress is the good kind; I feel all determined and buckled-down and challenged. This week has been the awful soul-crushing energy-busting fuck-your-face type stress. (Yes, I realize that fandom vs real job isn't really a fair comparison in terms of stress but I actually do take DOINK very seriously >.> )

I've got 3.5 hours left on my battery and some lights on the patio and I am ready to go.

Although I could still use a shoulder rub.

Sigh.

This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/309207.html, which has comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.