Opportunity Rant: 1/4 Life Crisis

This past reading week while my family and I were in the Dominican Republic we met an interesting man. This man was a salesmen who walked up and down the miles of beach in front of the resorts selling his trinkets to tourists like us. There were many people doing this, but this guy really stood out. He called himself "Opportunity"- and having learned english simply by speaking to tourists, this name made a lot of sense. Everyday we would hear him shouting his sales pitch to the guests up and down the beach, getting to know famliar faces and making deals -"OPPORTUNITY! VERY NICE! EVERY COLOUR! EXCELLENT QUALITY!" And hey, it worked, my whole family bought stuff from him!
I've been thinking a lot about Opportunity lately. This guy made something from nothing, which I thought was pretty amazing. 
These days I am trying to do the same thing. I feel like I don't have to explain to all of you about Canada's terrible job market.. most of you are students, you already know. So we all get out of school with our bachelor degrees but without the "2-5 years experience" that every job seems to call for. Plus more..ahem.. senior position holders are refusing to retire to make room for us young folks with degrees! This is why I stayed in school to pursue my Masters. Who could pass up a trip to Australia? And it was a great way to pass the time and wait for the job market to get better.
However, I'm a forward thinking person and I HATE to pass up opportunities. Since I've arrived in Australia less than 2 months ago I've already attended 3 public lectures, an International Student Orientation and The Australian Institute of International Affairs- International Career Conference. These opportunities all got me thinking that I need to start thinking about what I'm going to do when I get out of here. 
Although I'm miles away, I'm still checking in on the Canadian job market and seeing if there are any jobs out there that I could apply for once I have my Master's... the results do not seem promising. 
Thus, I spent all day today enduring a "quarter-life-crisis" in which I did the following despite my panicked state:

• emailed my professor about finishing my thesis in Canada (I'm currently in a coursework program, but being able to write a thesis would put me a leg up if I wanted to get into a PhD program- which eventually I'd love to do). 
• I also applied for 2 internships with the United Nations Public Information and External Relations department (as a social media intern). These would start over my summer break (Canadian Christmastime) and are located in New York City working on social media development and relation campaigns. 
• Then began the application to the International Telecommunications Union (my dream jobs lie in this industry, which is an association of the United Nations), however, they are not presently looking for interns.
• I looked at writing the United Nations Secretariat Young Professionals qualifying exam in December in New York. If I passed I would be offered an opportunity to work at any office in which there was a need for me.
• And finally I researched programs at universities back in Canada that I could enroll in to learn more french (the second official language of the UN)

These are ways to get my foot in the door for future employment as well as some life experience. However! Millions of people apply so who knows if I will get anything.


Today has dealt me some big questions and serious life thinking. Do I want to have a big international career where everyone knows my name?? OF COURSE! But is that going to be realistic? I don't know. It certainly seems to include a lot of moving around and a lot of money (sorry mom and dad!) I thought that if I paid all this money for a rolled up piece of paper I'd at least have someone that appreciated it in the job market... 
The point to all this? I guess even if you take all the right steps, study hard, you still have to be open and strive for opportunities... and do a lot of waiting. 


So that is my rant about the situation that I, and I'm sure many others, are experiencing at the moment. To compensate for this complaining and irritable post here is an enjoyable photo of a peacock and of the beach on which I met opportunity.

And a flamingo