And So It Is

And for an update. It's been 7 months. I suppose there's something to say.

Work is life. I 'd be lying if I said I didn't love it, though. I've never been one who can sit still anyway. Working 60+ hours a week--every week--has it's drawbacks, most certainly, but I'll take it over idleness. I also feel like my job provides me with a sense of purpose to an extent, and that is enjoyable as well. I've been promoted since my last post, which is insane to think about since I was only last "promoted" to management in September. I, with my team, of course, am essentially in charge of all activity in the Pittsburgh market for my company. It really is in every way my dream job. I could stick around in this for a long, long time--fate allowing.

Separating my personal and professional lives is a complete impossibility. Firstly, because my job takes so very much of my waking time, but also because much of my social life revolves around a group of work friends.

From Buku to Bukowski life has been pretty interesting. I have such little free time that it's always an adventure just deciding how to spend it. Fortunately working in promotions has so many social perks. Last night I found myself at a dub-step show in the South Side in relation to my job. So after the work was done I hung around for the show. The allusive Caleb Pass did not make an appearance, which put a damper on the night, but an unexpected run-in with a delightful acquaintance and making nice with the bar and security staff proved enjoyable, even fulfilling. The headliner, Buku, is also a friend of mine which is reason enough to stick around and show support (or just act remarkably exclusive being "in").

In the downtime, I have found comfort and familiarity with Shiraz, my cat, and Bukowski poetry. For my birthday, Ethan gifted me a collection, Burning in Water Drowning in Flame, which may very well be my favorite work I've been introduced to in many years--pre-graduate school, even. Humor me as I indulge myself. An excerpt:

the other night

an old worker

grey and blind

no longer useful

was retired

to the Outside.

speech! speech!

we demanded.

it was

hell, he said.

we laughed

all 4000 of us;

he had kept his

humor

to the end.

From "the workers."

In life there is much humor and much grief. Purposeful people are those who see the correlation. There is, no doubt, much sorrow that comes with understanding.

I had a dream last night. I had multiple sub-dermal piercings throughout my back, which were being removed by hand in some shop that resembled no place of business of which I've ever been familiar. I bled a little and became nauseated when they removed one from my lower side. It bothered me so much, that the mirroring one I opted to leave in. At this point, a man I knew began to tell a story from the corner of the room about hunting with his friends and his friends' dogs. Appearing from nowhere, as elements are wont to do in dreams, was a caged hound. The man removed the dog from the cage and proceeded to shove the barrel of a rifle into the animal's hindquarters. And fire.

I woke up so disturbed that even though last night's events kept me up past 3am and it was only the early waking moments of dawn, I could not return to rest.

Sometimes I wonder if the poetry is doing it to me. But then I remind myself that it pales in comparison to the cruelty of life.

Job, and Stuff

4th week for me. Work is going well. I couldn't have asked for a better person to work with. Jacque is smart, driven, and responsible. But also fun and cool. She just got married too, and I love weddings and everything that has to do with them, so I've enjoyed looking at her photos, hearing about her planning, etc. Office life is going well.

I feel a little bit in limbo. Manolis won't be visiting until late December (as in after Christmas) at the earliest. I have started my routine and what not but haven't really gotten into the groove quite yet. Getting my first paycheck was a delight, for certain. I'm looking forward to really getting into the flow of my days and having a life on top of just work.

But that is all contingent upon my health. Let's be honest. Without that, there's nothing. I can't really do much other than work and sleep or I'm totally run down and incapable of accomplishing even those tasks.

The nest step is IV antibiotics, which need to be approved by my insurance company to pay. Insurance companies are inherently evil, however, and so this is a difficult and time consuming process. The plan is to go ahead with the procedure (inserting the PICC line and beginning to administer the drugs) in November. Keeping my fingers crossed for a number of things. Perhaps when all is said and done I will be symptom free and cured for the new year. The idea of living without pain is nearly foreign to me now. I'm really, really hopeful for this next move.

In one of the more annoying occurances in my life recently, my Paypal account was hacked into (well, according to Paypal this is impossible and what actually happened was this mystery asshole had my password, but whatever). I woke up to an email from them entitled "Your Paypal Receipt for..." I thought this was odd since I hadn't purchased anything with Paypal in months. So, I check it out and see that yes, in fact, my Paypal account was used to buy $164 in website software. Bullshit. Call Paypal and get a very unsympathetic woman who was subsequently made to feel bad about herself by yours truly. At my insistence I was transferred to someone with knowledge and give-a-fuckness who said he would freeze my account and contact the website the item was purchased from. However, even though no money had actually been deducted from my account yet, he could not stop the amount from being paid out to Paypal. Now, he could stop it there and then after some arbitrary wait period I could deposit it back into my account. But, the point is, they couldn't just stop it, and I didn't have the funds in my account to cover that (or any) payment at the time. In which case I would have been responsible for overdraft fees, which is total bs. Now, fortunately, my bank is cool and just had me sign a form saying "pay nothing to Paypal" and, given the circumstances, waved the fee. But, it just all really made me think twice about all online anything. Because, you're not really protected. And these people don't really care.

So, that's my blather for today. Forget you, Paypal. Forget you.

Working Girl

I got a job!

Finally, after the last year and a half of being overworked, underpaid, and just plain out of a job I finally got a real one.

I'm working at the promotions company I was a spokes model for since June of '09. Both of my bosses quit in the matter of a few weeks. I put in my resume and came out with one of the positions!

I work in Greentree. My hours are 10-6, Monday through Friday. My title is Program Manager and I basically do payroll, scheduling, and other administrative tasks for the spokes models.

Today is day 3 of my first week, but I'm in the office alone for now. The new hire and our trainer will be coming in next Monday, so then the real work starts. I'm just kind of bumming around, organizing the office and taking calls from my superiors in Baltimore until then.

This is truly the greatest thing to happen to me in the past year. Now, all I need is to get healthy to have a little bit of peace in my life.

It's funny though. There really always is the next thing. High school was really the last time I enjoyed the here and now and wasn't looking forward to the next big change. I was excited for college and moving on, but loved each day I had in high school, particularly my Junior and Senior years. From undergrad onward it's just always been a constant longing for the next step, or just for the current struggle to be over. I remember being so thrilled at the end of graduate school, only to be met with illness and unemployment. Now, here I am with a real job and on the brink of being cured, but I can't help but ask the question, "What's next?" What new hurdle will there be to overcome? Hopefully things will just calm down for a little while. I can work and focus and enjoy the present for what it is. But, the greater accomplishment would be to be able to feel like that even if another hurdle presents itself...

I know that life is a journey, but I've never been much of a process oriented person. I'd like a little destination now, please.

Job Rundown

Hey, hey!

So, yes, I am working 5 jobs. No, I'm not crazy. I'm just a.) excited to be able to be as active as I've always been =) (take THAT, tick!) and b.) am in debt and need to make some cold hard cash. Hey, if I can't find a well-paying "real" job, I'll take 5 decent-paying part-time jobs. =)

Here's the rundown for those of you who are confused.

MediaStar Promotions: This is the one where I walk around and hand out free shit. It used to be awesome (20 hours a week with a team leader who did all the hard stuff), now it's totally lame (9 hours a week and we have to run our asses to the office three times a week). I end up working two nights a week, between Wednesday and Saturday.

Crazy Mocha, Cranberry: Barista, plain and simple. I open on Sundays and work one week night a week, plus any covering a need to do.

The Priceton Review: This one was the most difficult to land (really challenging training) and is currently on the back burner. I still need to complete two more SAT practice tests and will probably do most of the work for this as online grading and test proctoring until after the Census job is done.

Census Enumerator: Fancy way of saying I annoy people in their homes. If you didn't fill out your Census, be expecting to have me knocking on your door. It's flexible hours, but I can work up to 40 hrs a week. I just need to be a little more disciplined and actually work that many hours, because the money can't be beat and this only lasts through June 22nd.

ShutterBooth, photo booth attendant: Probably the most unusual of my jobs, but also incredibly awesome. I attended my first event (as a "shadower") and went through my formal training already. This weekend I shadow again and as early as next week could be on my own. I construct and "host" photobooths that people rent for their events. The most common are weddings, but there are also proms, birthdays, benefits, etc. I can work this Friday through Saturday, but most commonly Saturdays. The pay is great and I work one long day a week instead of short hours throughout the week.

So there it is. Here's to doing whatcha gotta do to get a dollar bill. ;)

I'm Thinking About Writing a Book

A lot of books, actually. I mean, I've got shit to say. And, like my mom says, if Sarah Palin can write a book, anything can. (And I do mean anything.)

Specifically, though, I think I'm going to write a book about my experience as a young, intelligent, American woman, graduating with a Master's degree and her quest to land an entry-level, 30K a year job (the meat of the book being all those part-timers in between). I mean, after my interview today I could potentially have 5 jobs. And still, still, find myself completely unable to take care of myself. I mean, I live a home (no rent, no utilities, and most of my food is paid for), and my dad pays for my health care and car insurance, and my mom has paid for all of my medical care over the past nearly year and a half (because insurance doesn't cover anything you actually need, unless you want to surrender yourself to a live of misery and lies).

Currently, my jobs are: spokes model, barista, test prep instructor, and Census taker. I'm thinking of applying to train to be a bar tender a few nights a week and am interviewing to be a "photo booth attendant" (I see potential for a lot of chapters to be written with that one) this afternoon. That would be six--SIX--jobs. Come on, America. You really need to do better than that.

Of course, I could just save up all of my material for one long, unpublishable memoir that no one would ever read. The story of my life could be edited to be very entertaining. I mean, let's be honest, shit happens to me that just doesn't happen to other people, especially when you throw Julie and Caleb stories into the mix. But then, as was already stated in the description of such a book, no one would be able to benefit from my insightful perception of our existence. Wouldn't want such a treasure going to waste, now would we? ;)

All in all, this job hunt has been an adventure all its own. And whether or not the story ever makes it way to the pages of a New York Times bestseller, it's certainly a tale to take note of, even if I'm the only one taking notes.

As an Answer to Your Questions

So, yes, I got the SAT job. Yay! It is, unfortunately, not an answer to all the money issues and job searches, as it is not a full-time salaried position. Here's what it is.

The Princeton Review is in no way affiliated with Princeton, the really good university. It is, however, a prestigious standardized-test prep company with offices in every major US city. (It's Kaplan's biggest competition, if you're familiar with them.) I've been certified as an SAT prep instructor (provisionally...how it works is, you do the training and see if you're a good enough teacher, which I did very well. You also need to score at least a 700 on each section of the new SAT, and I need to score higher on my math section before I am 100% ready to go). With this certification, I can bid to teach courses (the schedule goes up and you put in requests for which ones you want to teach), tutor private students, proctor exams, and grade essays. All of which pays really well.

So, my plan is to proctor and grade to my little heart's desire now through July. I got one of those temporary Census jobs which starts the last week in April and goes through June. That will take up most of my time for those two months, especially considering I am still doing Camel and Crazy Mocha. (Yes, I have four jobs. Yay Master's degree.) Then I am going to visit Manolis in Cyprus (god and bank account willing) in July for a few weeks. The plan is to then start the SAT teaching full force as fall is their really busy season.

So, that's the job update. Thanks all of you for your support and positivity. I appreciate it more than you know.

You Will Not Believe What Happened to Me

If I believed in fate, I'd be pretty sure I wasn't supposed to get this Princeton Review job.

So, two weekends (with one in between) of 9-5 training, the second of which starts tomorrow at 9am--sharp! Thursday night we had to meet, however, for "Teachback 1" which is an opportunity for each of the trainees to get up and teach a lesson to the other trainees and our instructor, who will critique you at the end. Four people going my night, last night, which started at 6pm at the Princeton Review offices in Oakland.

I leave at 4:40 from my home in Ambridge, leaving myself an hour and twenty minutes to make a half hour trip. I wanted to get there early and also allow some wiggle room for any traffic.

Well, fuck me.

On 65 heading into Pittsburgh the two lane road goes down to one. It's been that way for a few weeks now. No surprise there. But there's never been a delay because of it. Well, yesterday we sat for about 10-15 minutes. And just sat there. And then, started to go. And never, ever will I be able to tell you what the reason was for this delay. Just 15 minutes gone from me. No worries though, right? I mean, I left myself plllllllenty of time.

Again, fuck me.

Fort Pitt Tunnel traffic. Now, I was expecting this. It's rush hour for crying out loud. But I don't even have to go through the tunnels, I have to go past them. And this was a particularly bad day for that weird merger section of 65 where it hits the city. Sat there for about 10 and called my trainer, cause it was starting to look like I was cutting it close.

I wish.

A mile from the Oakland exit I sit, completely stopped. And this went on for literally 30 minutes. When I finally did get to the Forbes Ave exit I saw the minivan which had broken down on the one lane between me and my job training. And I cursed it. It's 6:25 now, I'm going to be a half hour late.

If only.

I crawl up the exit and discover that, in fact, there was to be another obstacle on my way to Craig st. All of the traffic lights on Forbes Avenue were out. No, I'm not kidding. So each and every intersection was treated as a stop sign all the way in. It's 6:40 when I reach Craig, and at this point I'm not even phased by the utter lack of parking. I just drive around and around, apparently for only five minutes, however, because when my ass finally hit the seat of the classroom I was supposed to be sitting in since six the plastic 9.95 Wal Mart-special time keeper on the wall had struck 6:45.

I was 45 minutes late for a presentation that had been prefaced a week ago with, "Yeah, if you're late for training you may just want to give up, because if you can't be on time now how can we trust you to be on time and responsible for a room full of 17 year-olds."

So there it is, how my first Teachback went. Go me.

Jobs, schmobs

As per Amanda's request =), a new post. There's really not a whole lot to say right now. Hence the lack of post-age? But I am in the midst of training for a job that I really want (and have not gotten yet). I'm trying to be an instructor for the Princeton Review. They do SAT (and various other standardized test nightmares) prep courses. I really want this job. I think I would enjoy it as I loved teaching at Colorado. It also pays really well and is totally flexible. Plus, there's an opportunity to train to teach for other tests. So, the way I see it, in a little while if I decide I would like to go to law school I could train to teach the LSAT and then kick its ass (hopefully). I don't really have a great desire to go to law school. In fact, one of the best parts about my life is that, even though I'm struggling to get it together right now, I still would rather be doing this than school. My MA program was one of the most miserable things I've ever been through. However, given my financial strife, if I could get a phenom score on the LSAT and go to a school that would guarantee firms fighting over me when I got out, I would totally do that.

Whatever, we'll see.

Right now I'm just focusing on getting the job. And it's not easy. I'm learning the actual skills the prep courses teach at the same time I'm learning how to teach them. I'm just praying I get hired. I really need the job along with wanting it.

In addition to trying to do the homework and teaching prep for that, I'm also still on the Camel job and working at the coffee shop. Several coffee shops actually. I've been bouncing around to the Crazy Mochas that need me as of late. Hey, I'll take the money.

Health is going sooooo much better. I still have some rougher days. But the bad days now are better than the good days before. It's hard to imagine that only a couple of months ago I was having trouble walking and washing my face.

And, with that in mind, I registered for a bike ride through Yellowstone with Amanda, her boy friend, and her mom. It's not until September so I am hoping I am feeling up to it. I had to register for it now though because there are limited spots available. How awesome will a road bike ride through Yellowstone be?! I can't wait.

Right now I'm buried in errands and paperwork and phone calls to this and that institution. Deferring student loans, getting reimbursed for medical costs, dealing with my screwed up taxes (yeah, not one but two of my employers sent my local income tax to Pittsburgh, even though it says right on the damn form that my address is Ambridge. lame.) I do love crossing things off the to-do list though. At least I get to feel productive.

The most exciting thing in the immediate (or relatively immediate) future is my weekend trip to NYC for Justin's birthday party extravaganza. And it will be an extravaganza, make no mistake. Playing Assassin in Queens dressed as super-sexy, head-to-toe black and fishnet sporting, well, assassins. Yeah, can't wait. =)

In the meantime it's all about landing this job (can you tell I'm fixated on it?). I'll keep you posted on the progress. ;)

Keepin' It Real

I feel an apology for my extended absence would serve no real purpose as my posts have become seemingly more and more infrequent, and--let's be honest--no one is exactly salivating in anticipation for the next daily vanity installment.

So here I am, two full months into a new year and a new decade with a lot more promise than the last (year, at least). With a diagnosis of my illness came new found hope and a reenergization that was greatly needed to say the least. Under treatment, my pain has largely subsided, and even though two months in there continue to be good and bad days, I am thankful for being able to get out of bed in the morning tear free. The promise of a full recovery is there. It can't come fast enough.

Partial reason for the lack of postings has been health (specifically blah) related, but there's some fun excuses too, like the fact that Manolis has been spending the past three weeks with me! I've barely parted from him enough to make a phone call or update the facebook. The only reason I'm finding myself with time to fill right now is that I'm working at the Cranberry Crazy Mocha and he's hijacked my car to watch the Arsenal (his football club) at Piper's Pub in the South Side. He departs Tuesday and even though I am sad to see him go, especially because the dates of my next visit to see him are up in the air, there is some comfort in the knowledge that with better health comes greater responsibility and expectation. I need to use this time to get into gear, bust ass, and land a decent paying job.

The job search is so depressing. Apply, apply, apply and not even so much as a rejection. Did you get my resume? Apparently you do need to hire someone since you don't even have enough manpower to forward a prepared rejection notice. Fuck.

I really have a lot to be thankful for, though, even in the employment department. You see, I'm on a very strict budget and I need to make a specific (and somewhat astronomical given the circumstances) amount of cash a month to keep the bill collectors at bay. Between the student loans rollin' in (and f u Sallie Mae), the car payment skyrocketing after that major repair resulting in me taking out a greater loan, and the debt of good times past, I'm barely making it by the skin of my teeth. That said, the moment my hours get cut at my good paying job, the lesser gig steps up and needs me working more hours. I'm not cruising comfortably in the search for a career, but I am making it. And that's saying a lot.

Sometimes I am amazed at the sheer amount of thinking the human mind can accommodate. Between worrying about my health and just remembering all of the things I have to do related to it (don't even get me started on insurance companies), finances, job search, relationships, etc., I still find the time to reflect on my age and the passing seasons of one's life. Yeah, you're right, cut through the bs. What I'm saying is all my friends and family are getting married and having babies--all of them. And it's not freaking me out, and it's not making me feel like that's what I need to be doing. But it is making me think. A lot. And about a lot of things. The passing of time is relentless; all succumb to its power. I just hope I'm doing the best with what I've got because one thing is for sure, there are no sure things. And there's especially no second chance for your use of time. I worry about being caught up in the minor details that are practically designed to suck the life out of you. It's a shame things are the way that they are. We really do work so hard and certainly not only professionally. I just hope there's a good return...

Pretty Sweet

I got a job. Well, sort of. But, I didn't even go looking for it; it just fell in my lap. I get this email from ColloegeOTR (College On the Record), asking me to be a columnist for their website. They have bloggers from every campus around the nation, and they apparently contacted me because of my affiliation with the Comm. Dept. I get to blog on whatever I want, post videos and pictures, and am completely anonymous. And, get this, if I do well, there's a chance for me to be named Editor in Chief for my campus and actually get paid for my thoughts.

Woot.