Shalini was trying to work out the tangle that she faced with her school schedule. For all her fabled prowess in root cause analysis she always felt a knot tighten in her stomach whenever she had to reconcile with choices that she made with less than 100% clarity, while facing a time crunch.
High school had been a fun ride so far. Even though she had signed up for three more courses than needed she felt confident it would pay rich dividends when in two years she had to progress into college. They were all tangentially related. Math and econometrics still had some things in common with sociology and ML. And now this music internship that she impulsively signed up for is threatening to upset the applecart!
The internship topics all sound good (the internship itself is called Sound’s Good lol). The trouble she was facing was not with choosing one among six topics - she was a born writer and Songwriting was one of the options, perfect! The trouble was how to begin work in earnest. Without a clear idea of how much time she will need to set aside daily/weekly/monthly the internship just felt a bit quixotic. So what if she completes it, makes a presentation, submits a report, wheedles a certificate and adds it as a bullet in a college app.. She was not even a musician, just that she wanted to dabble in some aspect of music and this seemed like an easy enough opportunity.
Was the question that was nagging her then, what is it worth? Music seems like so much fun when one creates it - in a band with friends, having a good time. Some of the kids she knew commanded cult followings in insta and youtube making covers and even originals but insta fame wasn’t Shalini’s thing. Even in something as short-term as a 8 week music internship she wanted to discover something of herself, learn a new skill, get to know her classmates better... Yes, that's it! If she could even get a little mileage on these three fronts - self discovery, skill building, peer relationships- then it might be worth the time and effort.
She was slipping into a reverie as she twiddled her phone and began to think more about it. If only Beyond 8 would entrust her with the task of organizing the music internship she would transform it, make it all about fun and games oh yes! Shalini was no musician or math whiz unlike some kids in the internship program who were one or both and this ‘deficiency’ was what bothered her all along. Slowly a solution lighted up her mind, like a sunbeam entering a dark room, a mini revelation. This has happened to her before, a few times before.
She would create a new token (like bitcoin but without all the crypto muck) and use it to buy/sell services! She would start everyone with 100 b8 credits. She’ll create an advertisement - “Power your internship with Shalini’s visuals for just ten b8 bucks”. She was kickass at visualizing and writing. She’ll use her earnings to hire one of those talented kids to literally play her verses, create music out of her images whatever. Her credits, their music. Her words and visuals transformed into a jingle, with some help from friends. Their credits, her words- it worked any which way.
Headline - “Girl invents money”
Her phone was trembling as it magically started to research all manner of ideas within songwriting. Her mind was humming along like a storing, sifting sponge. And in the backdrop of her exquisitely multithreaded brain she was figuring out the details of gamifying the market for internship skills using b8 currencies… this is going to be for real.
But wait, what will the facilitation team think? Will they be as excited about her idea or will they think it was silly? What about the musician offering the internship? What if he is too set in his ways to appreciate the utility of her idea? What if he mistakes her excitement for impetuousness? Will he still discuss her project without prejudice? Again the familiar knots began to form..
She had to shake off this negativity. She had to believe this would work. She would be a part of a peer collaboration and work gamification project where it was least expected! Surely that in itself would be a powerful sentence in her college essay?
