MEETING ALUM #1

i met an alum yesterday for lunch at her apartment around primose hill. she had two friends over, a couple, so it was them, her, her partner, and me. she works for saatchi and saatchi, a multi-national advertising firm that i only know of because salman rushdie worked for it. and her partner is from south africa. they were mostly young professionals, except for the woman of the couple who works at a nonprofit? united international college? she had spent a summer volunteering at an orphange in kenya. anyway, they all seem to live pretty easy lives. lunch was a bit stressful for me b/c of the race, class and age differences and i was so concerned about making a good impression. i suspect i was also a bit uncomfortable in light of all the reading i've been doing on colonialism in africa in my classes. anyway, i really liked jane, the alum. incredibly intelligent, enthusiastic, genuine. she offered to look into the internship i want at saatchi and saatchi for the summer. my dad's been pushing me to go corporate b/c he respects the professionalism, but i'd like to stay away from bad politics, massive egos, and opportunistic people for as long as i can.