Cigarette Networking
Another year, another summer of being a bum. Despite my best efforts, I did not land an internship. "Are you legally authorized to work in the United States", my eyes glimmer with hope. "Yes", I mutter under my breath. "Do you now or in the future require visa sponsorship", the hopeful glimmer wells into sorrowful tears, "Yes", I click on the checkbox. The odds that I manage to find a job and won't be deported after
graduating are looking grim. So, dear reader, what did I do? Did I fuck off to a trip to Italy with my bourgeois international friends from highschool, stopping at Maranello for the Ferrari factory tour? No. I did fuck all in "research" with a "professor". At least I got paid $16 an hour to converse with Claude (oh how I love her). When I was done with work, I'd rot away in bed, occasionally jerk off, and catch up on the Youtube series Tip 2 Tip: China by Youtuber Ludwig Ahgren, having missed out on it from being fucked raw by hit class 15410 Operating Systems.
In the series, guilao Ludwig offered an old Chinese grandpa a cigarette, and the old man graciously gave him directions to the nearest motel. After this interaction, these facts became clear to me: (1) All Chinese people smoke cigarettes; (2) Offering a Chinese person cigarettes is a guaranteed way to gain their favor; (3) There are lots of Chinese PhD students at CMU with academic and industry connections.
My course has been charted; I will smuggle in various Chinese cigarettes, find myself a Chinese computer science PhD gege, offer him a soft pack of Zhongguó, perhaps get in bed with him if necessary. Finally, I'll ask him for a referral to work at Meta-Amazon- Nvidia-Google-Apple-Palantir-OpenAI- Roblox-Netflix.
Here's the progress report on this amazing plan: Where the fuck do people smoke on campus? I've heard CS PhD students often go on smoke breaks, but I have yet to see this; in fact, I barely see anyone smoking, period. I've also heard that Drama kids hit the occasional cancer stick outside of Purnell, but they remain elusive, and frankly I don't want to socialize with a theater kid, even if their parents are grotesquely rich (I'm joking, if your dad works at a big company exploiting the lowlifes of the global south, hit me up). This once, I exited Newell Simon, deflated after being rejected by another smoking hot TA, and found three Hunan Express guys smoking. I thought about offering them one of my Nánjing's, but decided against it: I want to network with the elites, not some low-class rabble. Occasionally, I spot cigarette butts on the ground, so clearly people do smoke at CMU, but I will only catch what remains of the wisps of tobacco smoke.
So, if you're a PhD student who would like to talk over a few cigarettes, reach out to me. I am begging. My new addiction to lung darts better be worth it.