I needed a slight break from posting for a little bit while I collected myself and got some sleep.

There isn’t always a single reason why you need a break, right? I’ve come to realize that over time. Sometimes, life’s dust just builds up inside your mind and you don’t realize you need to clean it until you’re slipping on the dust bunnies just trying to get to the bathroom.

These posts don’t come together well unless I really get time to collect and analyze some thoughts over a period of a little bit, anyway.

Last time I posted, the thumbnail had this funky red light tunnel in it and I spent a lot of the post complaining about how difficult it was to start a career. It’s definitely difficult, but complaining doesn’t necessarily get me anywhere unless I have somebody really in-tune with me to listen to it while I spill. Another mark on the side of “know your audience” — I can vent like it’s a therapy session to my mom, but I should hold it in in public. And maybe also on the Internet.

Complaining or not, looking for fall internships hasn’t gotten any easier, so I’m still thinking about these things every day. I’ve made some headway in the past number of weeks, though.

The star of my stress for the past few weeks has had to do with a particularly fantastic opportunity through “IIPP”, the “International Internship Pilot Program” — it’s run by the National Science and Technology Council in Taiwan, something I regret not having heard about sooner.

It was unbelievable to me that a professor on the platform would choose me in the matchmaking process for the role that they had opened, but after an invite, seeing the listing, a formal invite, accepting, and the professor filling out the consent form, I got matched with a professor on the job-seeking platform. I couldn’t believe that — my luck is usually never so good to me. The role was as an intern in a biomedical engineering/research lab, something that I seem to have a growing interest in.

After the matchmaking finished, I found out the current state of the IIPP acceptance process — because of a high volume of matchmaking in the first five months, most of the roles were filled by mid-June. I first found out about the platform right after its closure, and had assumed I was too late.

The week that I was able to enter back into the website was the one week that they had reopened to fill a final round of about fifty openings: during this week, many people must have been making matches in the system. Definitely more than 50.

This final batch is going to have the acceptance of all its individual matchmaking pairs — professors and students — decided by committee. So, even though I was able to get a match made, I’m not clear just yet — and they’re choosing the people that they accept by nationality. They want diversity, but I’m from the US — I’d assume there’s already a lot of US students accepted into the program, so I’m not so sure that I have a good chance at making it.

But, I swear, if I do get accepted, I might be crying tears of joy. It’d be the day my career actually began — and I wouldn’t have to worry about another required internship until 2027.

I like to consider myself realistic, though, so I’m still applying for jobs that I might have a better chance at — actually, I recently contacted a friend about a role at a company he’s interning at right now in the fall. That’s near home, and at a company that is also doing biomedical engineering work (a field I’ve decided to take a try at understanding because it seems to be, again, the kind of interesting and legitimately-fulfilling work I was talking about trying to find in that last post).

Career plans aside, I’m regaining my sanity on my own time, too. I went back home for the July 4th weekend — a paid holiday, like Juneteenth — and my parents rent a campsite that I met them at. I had pancakes for breakfast on Friday morning — they were great, but they reminded me a little of scallion pancakes, the kind of Chinese food you can’t get at a restaurant in the United States. So, after returning back to Rochester, I set out finally trying to figure out how to make scallion pancakes.

After a short bit of research, it seems like they’re just flour, water, some seasoning and scallions (with some oil/butter/lard/whatever for goldenness). I assumed it couldn’t possibly be hard, so I bought some flour and gave it a try.

I’ve made one attempt so far (yesterday) and they came out decently after the first one, which was too thick. It’s basically like a tortilla, but with more sesame and onion. I overmade on the first practice run, but tomorrow morning I might have another go with a small bit of flour in a little food container to see how I go after about an hour of practice, some rest, and a little bit of remaining beginner’s luck. I don’t have a rolling pin, but then again, neither did the scallion pancake vendor that I visited in Da’an District.

They were decent, but not decent enough for me to share a photo and not be a little embarrassed. “The flavor was there”, I say.

But soon enough, I might be good enough at this to fly over to Taiwan and be my own employer — you know, frying up hot onion pancakes at five in the morning on a side-street making a few hundred NT an hour. A respectable profession to be sure, and definitely an excellent way to learn a language.

And aside from food, the other thing I said I’d do all those weeks ago flying back — “flying across the world with the power of stories” or something along those lines — has been going decently. I put down my Taiwan history reading obsession for a little while after finishing The Hell Screens by Alvin Lu — a really, … vibe-ful novel, to be sure — and after realizing that a lot of new editions of books that I enjoyed (even the famous Formosa Betrayed by George Kerr and A Pail of Oysters by Vern Sneider) were all published in their modern editions on Amazon by a single press that had recently gone under, I made sure to have physical hardcover copies of all the highlights.

I had, actually, already ordered them, so the validation was nice. I’m potentially overusing my newfound paycheck money for questionable means — then again, Wu Li-pei’s memoir is so thick with amazing storytelling it was a wonder it all fit in that epub in the first place. It feels much better as a solid, three-dimensional object sitting on my desk.

Two Countries, Wu Li-pei’s memoir, is the only one that’s come in so far. Once the rest are here, I’ll be able to start reading the new one I also bought — Heaven Lake by John Dalton — and I’ll be more than prepared for the Taiwan history book club of my dreams.

In all seriousness, these are neat stories that offer a neat perspective. I do think I understand the world a little better for having read them.

You know, the theme of the week seems to be preparedness. Last time I got paid, I put 80 percent of it in my savings account and then spent the rest of the week counting pennies. I worry about finding internships because I never have too many applications going anywhere at once. Going to work is a little uncomfortable when I feel wholly unprepared for whatever next thing I’ll have to do.

…and this was a lesson I’ve learned before. When I did well in my first job interview in April, I reminded myself that it wasn’t luck, it was because I was prepared. When I did a passable job at giving my business presentation in Mandarin during the trip in May, I reminded myself it was because I had gone over it so many times before. They say luck is a combination of chance and preparedness, right? So maybe I should just remember that, and even if I don’t see the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel”, I can at least let there be a little light in the tunnel.

And since I know I re-read my own blog posts, hopefully I’ll see this and remember in the future. It’s probably good to keep track of life lessons learned in some kind of physical format (maybe I should have a therapy notepad).

Learning life lessons aside, I can continue to be propelled forward by the absolute hit media that will be Heaven Lake when it arrives, and this Mavis Hee song I heard for the first time a few days ago.

When I sing, I like to replace “愛” with “請你讓我實習工作”.

See you in another little bit.