Livy's blog
Class of 2008, English Major, from Fridley, MN

So, what they’ve been telling us about the internet turns out to be true: Employers DO use it to do their dirty work…or to see what dirty work we have been up to.

Last week I had a phone interview with an organization that offers study-abroad programs to youth across the globe. Because the position I was applying for required study aboard experience, I was prepared to talk about my semester in Ecuador. What I was not prepared for was the response I got:

“We have to confess,” one of the four people on the other line began, “We saw your Flickr account and your pictures do an excellent job showing what you have just described.”

A million thoughts rushed through my head:

They saw my Flickr account? Okay, well at least they liked what they saw, that’s good.

But wait, how would they have known I had a Flickr account?

I only have it linked from my Facebook account.

Facebook.

That means they looked at my profile.

Oh God, what’s my profile picture right now? No, I just changed it, should be okay.

I hope.

But what did Eric just write on my wall? Crap I think he wrote about….no, that’s alright.

I think.

But my pictures? Okay, no, that should be okay, too. Thank God I went through them all last semester.

Thank God I listened to Mandy.

But still….what did they think of the other pictures?

Of me?

While all of these thoughts are racing through my head I hear the woman quoting off the titles to my shots and I am somehow able to meekly resply, “Ah…thanks, I’m glad you got the chance to look at them.”

No I’m not! That’s creepy. Well, no, not really. I ALLOWED it to happen. And it turned out to be oddly flattering and thankfully only worked towards my advantage. (At least as far as I know.) But still….sort of creepy.

I nearly ran home after I hung up the phone. I had to double check my Facebook, make sure there was nothing incriminating on it. And then it hits me, I am friends with someone working for this job, was it him that showed my potential employers my account? Lame!

I e-mail him a “joking” message about it, “Seriously? You showed them my FACEBOOK??!!!??!!”

He writes back, “No, it wasn’t me. But you should really fix your privacy settings so people can’t do that.”

No really!? But I already did this….so how did it happen? My roommate tells me to Google my name, maybe that’s how they got to my pictures.

Sure enough, I Google myself and a page and a half shows up with different links related to me. Livy Traczyk. Career Services: Student Profile. Sigma Tau Delta Member. Student Life Award. Campus Ministry Directory. T.R..I.P.S. Leaders. Flickr Account.

There it is!

Phew. Okay, so maybe that’s how they got there. Maybe.

Or maybe they really did hack into my Facebook, I will never know. ( In class the next day someone says her dad works in Human Resources for a company in Appleton and they have a company code that logs them into Facebook…and they use it all the time.)

All I do know is that I was caught in the net of technology and while it worked with me this time, who’s to say it always will—or that I even want it to? I realize I signed myself up for this, but still, I think we all have to admit, it’s a bit uncomfortable if not altogether creepy.

The moral of the story? Make sure you know what sort of prequel the internet tells about you before you’re able to tell your own story!

“You have LOTS to blog about!” Mandy laughs as she says this. Even though I have well-exceeded my hour-long appointment, my feet are still firmly planted on the floor. I can’t leave yet.

“Like what, how not too be so stressed out senior year?!” I cry back.

Literally, cry back. There are tears in my eyes. And there has been for the past week.

After spending an amazing five days in Kentucky for the Sigma Tau Delta convention (the National English Honor Society), I came back to class Monday morning crying.

I cried at the TRIPS Send-Off last night.

I cried at Luna yesterday, and all I was doing was Facebooking!

What is wrong with me? I am not a crier!

And, I should be happy to be so close to graduation. I am over this whole classroom thing. I am ready for something more.

I am ready to graduate. I am ready to make money (or at least be on the path to making money). I am ready to have that apartment in that city where everything will suddenly come together and make sense. I am ready. I am ready. I am......

Not ready at all. Who am I kidding? Sure, I don’t want to sit through hours of class and then go to the library and spend even more hours doing homework, but I’ve been thinking that way since Freshman year.

What I really want, I tell Mandy, is to not be so stressed. And to say this without sounding obnoxious. I am twenty-two years old. I am in college. I just came back from Kentucky and will be in San Francisco over Spring Break—both trips costing me virtually nothing (thanks to hours spent fundraising and student-travel funds). What right do I have to complain about anything?

But Mandy validates my rant. In fact, she tells me that it is normal.

Normal? Yeah right! This can’t be normal!

I should be enjoying my LAST year at St. Norbert. I should still be wearing sweatpants to class, taking naps at two in the afternoon and going to house parties on the weekends. That is normal. Not this stressing about meetings, internships, and finding a “real” job. And I should definitely not be crying every other second. No way.

But, as I have said in my very first blog, finding a job is a full-time job. Mandy reiterates this, telling me that seniors commonly underestimate the time it takes to apply for jobs, internships, graduate school, volunteer corps, what have you.

And the older you get, she tells me, the longer the process. Yup, the more qualified you become, the harder it is to find a job that matches your level of experience. Apparently, it takes someone searching for entry level jobs (a.k.a. me) an estimated three to six months, and after that, at least six months.

Three to six months? I have two left. Great.

Mandy laughs again. You are fine, she tells me, I give you permission to take a break from job hunting and just be a student for awhile again. (But not too long, just a week or so.)

Take a deep breath. Wipe the eyes. Put my backpack back on.

Okay, just a student. I can do that.

But how do I do that without being too stressed out? Well, the reality is, life is stressful. Sometimes more-so than others. It’s okay. It just means there are things that we care about in life. And while those things are indeed the source of our grief and anxiety, they are also, in the end, the very things worth waiting and working for.

At least that is what I am telling myself. For today anyway.

Okay, great. Now where’s my iPod? It’s time to hit up the Reflection Lounge, maybe take nap....