James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

Sometimes the toughest job interview questions are also the simplest and most direct. One you should always expect to hear and definitely prepare for:

“Why do you want to work here?”

Like a similarly problematic interview question — “Tell me about yourself” — “Why do you want to work here?” requires you to focus on a specific answer without any clues, contexts, or prompting from the interviewer. It’s a blank space — but that doesn’t mean you can wing it and fill it with just anything.

.

Svetlana Sultanaeva/Getty Images

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Steven Preister’s house in Washington, D.C. is a piece of American history, a gorgeous 110-year-old colonial with wooden columns and a front porch, perfect for relaxing in the summer. But Preister, who has owned it for almost four decades, is deeply concerned about the environment, so in 2014 he added something very modern: solar panels. First, he mounted panels on the back of the house, and they worked nicely. Then he decided to add more on the front, facing the street and applied to the city for a permit.

Permission denied. Washington’s Historic Preservation Review Board ruled that front-facing panels would ruin the house’s historic appearance: “I applaud your greenness,” Chris Landis, an architect, and board member, told Preister at a meeting in October 2019, “but I just have this vision of a row of houses with solar panels on the front of them and it just—it upsets me.” Some of Preister’s neighbors were equally dismayed and vowed to stop him. “There were two women on my front porch snapping pictures of my house and declaring, ‘You’ll never get solar panels on this house!’” Preister says.

Renewable energy is at a curious crossroads. It’s needed to avert further climate damage, and solar and wind power are now remarkably cheap. But even clean-energy proponents often dislike the aesthetics of the new technology. They’re happy for solar arrays and windmills to exist somewhere—just not within sight. Many homeowners’ associations refuse to let residents install panels.

.

Illustration by Kotryna Zukauskaite

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

.

(Emily Wright/The Washington Post)

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

In college, after being subjected to plastic-tinned deli sushi and leftover club meeting pizza, I began craving home cooking. Specifically: simple, cozy jia chang cai, or homestyle Chinese dishes that many families, including mine, put on the weeknight dinner table. I pined after tomato-egg stir-fry the most, perhaps the simplest and coziest of all.

Ideally, the tomatoes are bursting with August ripeness and the eggs are beaten with Shaoxing or rice wine. The sweetness in the mixture, sharpened by a spoonful of sugar, almost turns it into a treat. Nearly every Chinese family has its own version; some make it sweeter, some lean more savory. Until I missed it, I didn’t realize how emblematic of home it was.

Tomato-egg stir-fry is a light, easy dish made with ingredients you likely have in your fridge. It’s quick to whip together for dinner after a long day of class, work, or travel, though I love eating it for breakfast and lunch too. Pairing it with white rice and cucumbers marinated in soy sauce makes it a complete vegetarian meal that hits just about every cravable texture and flavor—and it comes together in minutes.

.

Photograph by Isa Zapata, Food Styling by Spencer Richards

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________