WHY AM I SO LAME?

So, we all know I’ve been on the hunt for an internship in the art department for a while now. I thought I found the one I wanted back in December when I interviewed for it but, as it turned out, the girl I was supposed to be replacing decided to stay and I didn’t vibe as well with the gallery director as I thought I would. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with her; the problem, of course, stems from me. I have horrible interviewing skills. HORRIBLE. Yes I have a good sense of humor and yes I can hold successful and interesting conversations with people and yes I can write well and yes I can apply all of those skills into one cohesive and relatively entertaining project like this website, but sit me in a chair in front of you and tell me to tell you why I think I’m worth your time and I turn into a complete moron.

Yesterday I had another interview for an internship position at an arts organization in San Francisco and I’m just going go ahead and admit that I want the job more than anything. In addition to gallery work they handle literary, dance, theatre and music programs as well. It’s like a smorgasbord of amazing things and there’s nothing more that I want than to build an artistic foundation with a place that treats creative outlets as something that’s just as life-sustaining as food and water, because that’s the way I feel about it. And it gets even better because the people that work there seem really cool. I didn’t get the weird vibe during the interview that I got with the last gallery and it was just a more pleasant experience overall.

However, getting back to that bad interviewing trait of mine, I’m going to keep my expectations low about the turnout of this one because when asked what I hoped to gain from the experience I think I replied with something in some inaudible dead sea language and then stuck my head up my own ass.

I wish I could just sit down and say something like, Hey people, my name is Chelsi, I love art and I want to dedicate my life to it and to helping others discover their love for it as well. I’m a hard worker, a great multi-tasker, and I’d be more passionate about helping you and being immersed in a community like this than anyone else I can think of because art is my life. –And then have them say in return, Chelsi, you’re hired.

Also, right after I thought I couldn’t turn into more of a rambling idiot than I already had, the interviewer asked, Do you have a website? To which I replied, Yes, to which she then asked, What is it? To which I then said something in Hebrew.

Website? WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME I WAS GOING TO BE ASKED IF I HAD A WEBSITE? I couldn’t possibly say, Yeah, it’s girlsarestrange dot com and if you’d like to find out what a complete freak of nature I am and then please visit it. Instead I paused, almost threw up and in my strange Hebrew-like mumbling, insisted that it wasn’t a site that exhibited my web-design skills (because it really doesn’t) and was just a simple, silly project.

As I practically ran out of the building, I called my friend Arwen and instructed her on how to make my entries private because I’m sure the likelihood of them googling me out of curiosity is pretty high. I mean, I’d do it if some weird girl came in and interviewed and turned into a gigantic sweating pig at the mention of her activities on the Internet. Can you imagine how horrifying it was to think of them finding this website and reading the entry I posted a while back about clam voyaging and oh, jesus christ. I should just crawl up into a cave and die, right now.

But here we are, back on track and public because, well, the thing is, a while back I asked one of my old teachers to write a recommendation letter for me, and the end goes like this:

"As I have followed Chelsi’s college career closely, I have seen that young woman struggle against a world in which the soul is so often left out. Through perseverance she has succeeded and now she wants nothing more than to surrender herself to her artistic impulses and show the world the kind of magic she’s capable of. When I speak to her I see a woman who sees things differently, and in many ways better, than the rest of us. I believe very much that she will provide an invaluable asset to the first organization willing to give her the chance."

I'd like to think that this is true and I want to keep it that way, so, GAS (which is in many ways, an expression of that very soul of mine) stays and hopefully I won't be blacklisted. We'll see.