The best part of New Year's Eve as a child was staying up til midnight and drinking Martinelli's cider from plastic champagne glasses.

I don't remember at what age Mom let us finally stay up all night, but boy, was it an occasion. Mom painted my fingernails for the first time with a sparkly, pink polish, and we got ice cream too. The television in the living room was on to ABC and we would watch in awe at the thousands of people in Times Square throwing confetti and cheering as the camera panned over them. The night looked fun, and Dick Clark was there to emcee it all: the bands, the interviews, the look back at the highlights of the year.

The next year, Na and I decided to host our own New Year's Eve special at the stairwell landing in our house. We spent weeks preparing it: choosing music from our favorite cassettes and "auditioning" Beanie Babies and Barbie dolls. Dad would take out an old camcorder that didn't work anymore and set it up for us to use before he left for work that night, and after dinner and showers, we would begin our show. I don't remember how many years we did this, but we always had impeccable timing because, right before midnight, we would rush to the living room and join Mom on the couch with our plastic flutes, pick up the cordless phone to call Dad at work, and get ready to toast to the new year.

Even as we got older and stopped our faux New Year's Eve specials, and even for the New Year's Eves I spent away from home, we always made sure we were in front of the TV before the Times Square Ball dropped, ready to listen to Dick Clark countdown with the crowd: "10...9...8..."

When Clark suffered a stroke and didn't host in 2004, we still watched, but with heavy hearts. It wasn't the same. Something felt weird about kissing each other on the cheek without also seeing him kiss his wife.

Earlier today, I had just got back to my desk from a coffee run when an update on my Twitter feed caught my eye: people were saying that TMZ was reporting Dick Clark's deaths. A few minutes later, it was confirmed, and I was listening to Martin Bashir announce, with sadness, "The legendary entertainer and producer, Dick Clark, has died."

As the obit reel rolled and I texted my mom the news, I thought back to those nights spent as a child on the carpeted stairs of my home, reading index cards as if I were Dick Clark and counting down what Na and I thought were highlights of the year, and dreaming about the day I might get to see the Times Square Ball in person.

Every morning now, as I walk to work, I peek over at Times Square and the crowd of tourists all looking upwards with their cameras and phones in hand, and I know the six-year-old me with my sparkly pink nails and plastic flute of Martinelli's would be really excited.


Dick Clark brought music, diversity, optimism into American homes for decades. Of his incredible American Bandstand, he said, "It's hard to explain how a silly little dance show with a guy playing records and kids dancing could have any significance."

Oh, but it did. That's the thing about legends, about icons and heroes: they inspire, they excite, and they leave a lasting impression on culture and the society that they will one day leave.

On the weekends, MTV2 airs Boy Meets World for hours at a time. What better way to spend the morning than reliving one of the greatest television shows ever?

I'm sure that point is arguable (but I've yet to meet a Boy Meets World hater), but sitting through these weekly marathons is more than just an amusing way to spend the day; I feel like I'm reliving my childhood as well. Na and I didn't have cable growing up (my parents still don't have cable), but who needed cable when ABC aired some of the greatest blocks of programming ever? TGIF nights were always an event. We would rush to finish our dinners and piano practice (or we'd make sure Mom set the VCR to record those shows if we weren't home) just in time for 8 p.m., when America's Funniest Home Videos would roll its credits and the "TGIF" graphics would splash across the screen. Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Boy Meets World, You Wish, and Teen Angel was the best lineup, of course (when MTV2 played the Boy Meets World time ball episode last week, I immediately searched Twitter for other watchers who remembered the context of that episode and the TGIF arc that involved Salem trotting through two hours of shows), but there were other great shows that cycled through those time slots: Full House, Step by Step, Family Matters, Clueless.

Basically, Friday nights were the greatest for that reason. In between shows and commercial breaks, ABC would air cute "behind the scenes" packages, and we got to indulge in our favorite TV teen celebrities' real lives. This was, of course, before the age of the internet, when we would get our celebrity gossip from J-14 and Tiger Beat magazines, and the most scandalous thing we could learn was that so-and-so actually hated his/her outfit on that one episode we loved.

These were the kinds of shows I grew up on, and I think they definitely had an effect on my own values and the things I thought about or tried to emulate. I wanted to be as smart as Topanga (post early-series hippie phase) and as quirky as Sabrina. I wanted to grow up in a house full of people and feel sometimes too suffocated (though my own large family was unique too, and I know I sometimes didn't always see that while growing up, especially because as the youngest I didn't see too many of my older cousins). I wanted to have the "typical teenage experience" I saw on TV.

As I watch reruns of these shows in syndication or online, I'm struck by how different they are from the "teen shows" that are on air today. The Disney Channel offers shows geared toward a different kind of "young audience" and its stars seem different than the ones I grew up with. Perhaps it's this internet culture in which you can discover every side to Selena Gomez or Miley Cyrus--the good and the bad. Or perhaps the idea of those shows existing on the Disney Channel turns off the tweens and teens who don't want that "wholesome" Disney image because they'd rather live in a world full of Twilight-esque drama or whatever's going on on ABC Family and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In the face of all that, I can't think of many 10 year olds who would find Boy Meets World engaging today.

I think my favorite thing about these shows was that I really did learn something from them, and I think that's one of the reasons my mom encouraged Na and me to watch them too. I still remember the Step by Step episode where Al went on a date with a boy who tried to force her to have sex with him and she said no, but the next day he told everyone they'd slept together and all of the boys at school thought she was easy. It took her sister standing up for her to get everyone to see the truth. Or that Boy Meets World episode where that college professor hit on Topanga, and then Cory hit the professor when he found out and almost got expelled. There was also that story arc where Shawn's father died, and he had to deal with death in a way that I'm sure many kids don't really think about. Or there was that Sabrina episode with the Backstreet Boys--okay, that didn't have a moral lesson in it; it was just fun.

"Just get a job."

I'm sure every twentysomething is familiar with those four words, and I'm sure most of them hear it from their parents. I know I have.

Let's be real: it is hard these days to be a college graduate. I would argue this fact is undeniable, but when you're up against an older, stubborn generation who insists it's not hard, arguing is exhausting. Jobs are rare to come by. Paid internships are hard to obtain. You could sit in front of your computer and send out three applications a day for a month, and sometimes you won't hear anything in response. And the more you try to tell you parents this, the more they don't understand. "I don't understand why you can't just get a job," they cry.

The most recent New York Times Magazine had an interesting feature about this subject. They followed a group from the class of 2011 at Drew University to see what they were doing. The sample size is fairly accurate of the people I know myself: there are those who are working their asses off and still not even getting a rejection letter; they're just being ignored. There are those who are just hanging out, and barely trying...just being "comfortable" with reliving college. There are those who refuse to apply for anything but a job in their field. There are those who've lucked out and found jobs or paid internships in their field.

I recognize that I am one of the very, very, very, very lucky ones. The path was not easy, and it definitely was not met with understanding from my parents--as well-intentioned and supportive as they may have been. I finished a quarter early before walking at commencement with the intention of job searching and finding something so I wouldn't have a hiatus in the summer. I wanted to go straight into an internship, a job, something. I had Mengfei as a model for the path I should consider taking. Between March and May, I sent out cover letters and resumes regularly, while still working at the School of the Arts and New U, and freelancing on the side. I gave myself some breaks, looked at it as my own summer vacation since I didn't intend to have a "summer" come June.

I got two potential interviews out of my efforts--one I didn't get offered, but had counted on, and one I got offered, but turned it down because it was unpaid. Both were in D.C. and both strung me along for nearly a month.

I ended up heading back to Sacramento for about a month, and forced myself to apply for at least one job a day. I sent out multiple cover letters to everywhere I could find--internships, jobs, temporary work. I looked in San Francisco, Sacramento, D.C., New York. I got two interviews in San Francisco for internships that had nothing to do with my major. I got rejected from one, and the other never even responded after my interview and follow-up emails.

When I finally got a phone interview with Education Week, I was starting to give up. I got the internship offer on Fourth of July while up in Portland, and nearly fainted. It was a step in the "right" direction--to the east coast, in a field I was interested in. But moving was a headache and stressful, particularly with the questions and the "Are you sure you really thought this through?" probing from my parents. "Why can't you just get a job here?" they asked. Take a look in my "sent" folder in my inbox! Tell the dozens of employers who never even responded to me to tell me something!

Me and Jenny at the NPR News Desk hub.

After a month at Education Week, I ended up at NPR and it was a dream come true. I worked with amazing interns and gained the experience I was dying for in the "real world." But as my time at NPR began ticking to an end, I went back to sending out cover letters and resumes twice a day, and praying somebody would throw me a line.

Like before, of the dozens and dozens, I only heard from three places: one rejected me, two wanted me.  I looked at my fellow NPR interns--they were all so much more talented than me, and so many of them are still left hanging. What does it take for someone to offer us a position...anywhere? I told everyone who asked me that it was 90% luck, and 10% who you know. I'm sure my NPR application wouldn't have been looked at if the woman who interviewed me (who actually wasn't my supervisor) hadn't known one of my references personally. With Education Week and MSNBC, I feel like I really lucked out and just happened to apply at the right time. But I worked damn hard, and sometimes it's as if the older generations don't see that in the youth.
It's not uncommon to jump from internship to internship these days, which is impossible to explain as well. And it's also not uncommon to not be hired after an internship. "Why can't they just hire you?" my parents have asked on multiple occasions. Well, it doesn't work that way anymore.

Also...enough with the "unpaid internships" already, would-be employers! You could at least offer something...or call it what it really is: a volunteer position. Oh, and "entry level" doesn't mean "3-5 years of experience"...c'mon. And the least you could do is send a generic rejection letter to people who've applied or that you've interviewed. And you could do it in a timely fashion--not a month later, which is how long some people I know have waited to hear back after an interview.

"There are plenty of jobs!" some will say, pointing to coffee shops and restaurants. I don't want to disparage those industries. Yes, "someone needs to work those jobs," but it's so discouraging to go through four years of competitive undergraduate courses, and work toward one field, one career, and then be told you're not good enough for it. Also, most service industries won't hire you if they look at your resume and see you've been training for something else. Why would they want to hire someone who will just leave as soon as they get the opportunity they're "really" looking for?



To answer that, I know plenty of people who have various versions of their resume: one for those coffee shop and restaurant jobs, one for secretary work, and one for the career they really want.

So...this is my really long way of answering that all-too-familiar request of "just getting a job."