FinalDoom

This. Always always track your time outside of the company system. You never know when it will help.

I'm not sure how helpful this will be, because I didn't "do" a lot (at least looking back) when I was in Vietnam last month. Saigon (HCMC) is a wonderful city. Eat Ban Mi (meat sammich of Saigon) at Banh Mi Huynh Hoa (Google maps it--the accents are missing on the a, i, and y in the first three words respectively). I read on a Saigon food blog (done by a district 10 restauranteur's partner) that it's the best they've found in Saigon, and I'd believe it--plus, it's in District 1, where you'll probably be as a tourist. There are a couple cool shows (for a small chunk of change--expensive for vietnam, but not from a US perspective, and worth it)-- the AO Show at the Saigon Opera House, and... I forget the name.. But it's north(westish) one street, and right 3 blocks. AO Show is acrobatics and music and stuff with a tribal theme, the other is a little more "authentic" look at Vietnamese tribal and city cultures.

I didn't go to the Chunchi (spelled wrong I'm sure) tunnels near Saigon, because I read enough about them, and they were covered quite well in the Hanoi war museum, and I heard from most people they're just a big tourist trap really, in spite of being impressive tunnels. There are a lot of areas you can't go into anyway. But, a lot of people go, so it may be worth it.

I didn't, but there are some neat sounding boat trip/homestay packages for pretty cheap that go down the Mekong delta to various water villages and stuff.

There's a number of towns as you make your way north to stop at. Don't take a bus for more than 6 hours. Even the relatively nice sleepers are painful as hell, because the roads are awful. They're pretty smooth, until the bus hits a pothole or something that smashes all your bones into the seat. And you can't sit up on a sleeper bus. Trains are much better; If you like beaches and whatnot, there's no shortage of places to stop, though, so a sleeper or normal bus should be fine.

I stopped in Hoi An, which was nice--the old town tourist trap is worth a day, and is quite neat. The rest of the are consists of a variety of slightly expensive for vietnam food in restaurants, the occasional street vendor, and tailors. They will actively try to sell you something and get you to come back to their shop. I got a free bike ride back from the beach for agreeing to go to a shop a couple blocks from my hostel. I'm a backpacker. What do I need a suit for; I can't carry any more pants.

Hanoi has a lot of stuff in the museum class of things, and a handful of temples and parks and whatnot. The ethnology museum is pretty great, as is the womens' museum. It's a nice little city, and there's some really nice local markets to get food and other things at late at night. I found a collection of wonderful little stands/restaurants: I'd get a noodly thing, then there was a woman making bahn choi and a couple other dessert things. I'd grab one or two things from her every night, it was so good (especially if you love a gentle candied ginger). They're just around here, slightly south, on the east side of the street

The Little Diamond Hostel is a hotel with hostel prices and dorms. Stay there. They're super helpful, and there's free fruit all day in the lobby, plus a huge buffet breakfast (for like 5 bucks a night in a dorm, or a bit more in a private).

Sorry for not including more links. Internet is balls in China.

One of my good friends' dads was blown up by the unibomber in the 90s (Salt Lake City) and survived. He now does tours from time to time with Kazinski's brother, expousing forgiveness, understanding, and all sorts of peace things. He testified in the case that sentenced Kazinski and put his word in against the death penalty, among other things. It takes some serious strength of mind and character to do things like that.

I believe Starsfan88 means between a no-kill shelter and a euthenasia-fanatic shelter there is a medium ground.

Not OP but I can share something from my own experience. This probably will depend highly on your target enterprise as well, but it's what I did in tech:

Start small, compromise if you must. Take that job that doesn't pay as well as you want but is in the right field. Get that experience (at some point experience matters a whole lot more than your degree). Hopefully that is a place that you enjoy the work or the people or something. If it all sucks (ignoring pay for now) don't be afraid to jump ship to somewhere else. Companies do not have loyalty to you (in general) so there's no reason to give them yours if they don't deserve it.

While you're there, build your LinkedIn profile. For many fields it's a necessary (social media) evil. I don't have any links on training and understanding and leveraging LinkedIn, as I got my kick from my state department of labor rep when I was laid off. Your dol probably has similar seminars on resume building and LinkedIn skills available. My takeaways were: 1) a good picture of yourself, bonus if it's doing something you love. 2) the first line slash paragraph should be a quick sell of your skills and what you want from a job. Follow with metrics and stuff you've done for companies. Fill everything else out too. 3) Log in every day and at least click on something. Better is to comment on something. Eg. Follow companies in your field and comment on things they post. This boosts your profile in search results. Done right, you should be fighting off recruiters daily or at least weekly. (You can go dark when you land a good job and the nose will die down, but it's easy to ramp up again if you need when your profile is already set up)

Now that you've got people looking for you, you can wait for the right one. Do interviews for things you might want but don't really want. Get that practice in. And it helps if you don't want it, need it, or care too much. That way you can practice being natural, calm, and selling yourself.

Then in comes pay. This is where most of my interviews stopped. I knew I was underpaid, and I was looking to move somewhere (personal reasons not work) that I should be paid even more. So I considered what I should be paid, what I felt was right, and asked higher. For example, if I was making 70k, should have been making 90k, and adjusting for the new location felt that 110k was good, I would ask for 120k. Firstly, when asked about my current salary I'd find a way to not answer. "I'm currently paid under market value and am not comfortable disclosing that, but I'm looking for 120k." People asking your current salary are just looking to cheap out. Fuck em. I got a lot of offers around 90 to 100k. A few of the better recruiters said "boy that's high, but not unreasonable given your experience, here's some tips." (I had five years at the current place plus a couple more elsewhere, on top of education--I liked what I was doing and the people even though management were cheap fucks.) Many recruiters just disappeared after hearing my asking price, many interviews went well but didn't meet my expectations. When you don't need that new job, it's easy to test the waters and work your way into a better position both in how you sell yourself, and what you can say no to. I now make double what I did a couple years ago, both by finding an employer that would give me close to asking price, and luck of them being an employer (a bit smaller too) that actually values their employees monetarily. When I asked for a promotion and small raise they said "no way you deserve more than that"and bumped my pay another 15% with the promotion.

As always there's an element of luck, but persistence, practice, and time will help you get what you want.