Trying to get back in the swing of things

It has been a long 3 months back at home, and definitely an adjustment. In some ways, it's like I never left home, but it also feels like if that were the case, that a chunk of my life was spent in some sort of weird time warp abroad. I really miss being in Spain and I wish I could be back there, but I made the decision that it wasn't entirely practical for my long term goals to go back. Also, I made crap money -- really good money for the amount of work I was doing, but still crap. What I really wanted to do was work the normal teacher hour-load every week, but my guess is that the Spanish government didn't want to blow millions of euros paying the foreigners to work for them. That decision seems a bit odd, to me, seeing how we were pouring our money right back into their economy, but I still see what they're saying.

It has been extremely difficult trying to get back into the work scene and really disheartening. I don't want to go back to some stupid retail job, but c'est la vie. I've heard of a lot of people going on to masters degrees who wait tables to get by, and honestly, I would need a job with hour flexibility in order to do that, anyway, so I just need to be realistic about it. But it still sucks, especially when I see the girls at the barn who can do any show they want and have unlimited disposable incomes/or trust funds + the like to get by. Then I remember how the horse riding world is so completely separate from the reality of normal people and I should just shut up and be grateful. My family is in the upper middle class, anyway, but sometimes I feel like we're living in a cardboard box compared to some of the other families at the barn. Yes, I have become a crusty cynic. Ship me back to New York, please.

This week has been pretty busy, though. I've continued my quest in getting a job, and I'm thinking I need to branch off from the job search engines and look in person. I'm sure that hundreds of people are looking at the same positions as I am, people who are older and more experienced, too, no doubt. The economy blows a big one right now, so any and all writing jobs are few and far in between, and I've always wanted to be involved in something where I get to use creativity, a bit.


The short-term aspect of my life has been getting to me. That whole "a rolling stone gathers no moss" phrase rings true to me, because I've been flitting here and there for so long that I don't feel tied down to anything and I always frantically search for a new environment, because that's what I've been used to since I moved from Iowa to Michigan, ten years ago. Three years later, we moved to Long Island, then two years after that I started at Michigan State and transferred to Ithaca after one semester. My parents had already relocated to SoCal at that point, so that was another adjustment. Once I got to Ithaca, I left to study abroad in Florence the spring semester of my junior year, but I had to come home after two months due to health reasons, which blew my life into shreds for a few months. Then once I got back to school, senior year, I was preparing for the "real world" right away. Real world = Spain. So, I'm not exaggerating when I say I've been moving around like a psycho for almost as long as I can remember, and it has definitely taken a lot of energy and determination to get to meet people and stake some sort of claim in place I decided to live at that moment. Luckily for me, I'm really independent, but it takes a toll on me when I can't make long term commitments or relationships, since the human experience includes that. I guess I've felt like an outsider ever since I was 13 and we moved to Michigan, and I've never gotten past that isolated feeling so I just move around, but who knows.

Riding has kept me busy since I've been back. I've been riding a little 6 year-old horse named Cappuccino, and it has been an awesome experience. I've made stride (hardy har) in getting back into riding shape and being a team, again. Fortunately for me, I've lucked into having a completely awesome horse who is eager to please and forgiving when I eff up, which was a lot, at the beginning. Now when I look back, I'm surprised my trainer allowed me to lease him! But w/e, I did a LOT of work with Vicky, last year, that I guess it makes sense.
The first time I sat on Vicky, I thought she was a psycho, and I hated the pelham bit with the converter on it that they put on her, which she just ran away from, anyway. She also had pitiful turn out -- her mane was too long and on the wrong side, her whiskers were long, her coat was dull, everything was just a mess. She and I didn't form an immediate bond, but I was persistent in getting her to soften up a bit, which isn't easy for a nutso thoroughbred mare. We switched to a snaffle bit, which might as well have been a wet fish in her mouth, and then I put a happy mouth 2-ring elevator on her and a figure-eight bridle which I thought worked really well. She didn't run away from that bit, so I barely had to touch her mouth anymore. She had strange ways of behaving, sometimes, like hating walking and wanting to trot everywhere. She also spooked at almost anything, including flower boxes she had seen 50 times. On the other hand, I remember her stopping at jumps very rarely, and usually because she spooked or because she didn't see the jump, or because it was too high for her (I thought she might be able to jump past 3'3", but I was way wrong...). In the end, it was a really fun pair up for me, even though it wasn't without its problems, but what riding pair isn't. I have a really bold eye, so it was fun to have the horse version of myself underneath me. She was a bit too small for me, though, given her light frame and dainty bone structure.

Cappuccino has been fun and a different challenge for me. It's hard to me to keep an even, hunter pace and literally go with the flow. Everybody thinks jumpers is harder because of the intricate courses and tight turns, and maybe it is, but it's also challenging to keep an even rhythm and make everything look effortless when, in fact, it's not. Some of Cap's odd behaviors include looking out of the ring when he's not focused, swapping from right to left leads (because he's not strong enough yet), and being a bit difficult to steer. All of those problem have gotten better, though, and they're really not that much of a hindrance, anyway, if I ride like I'm supposed to. The main problem is his photosensitivity, which I had never even heard of before I had ridden him. He tosses his head because he's essentially allergic to the light and it causes him pain. The cause isn't exactly determined and there's no cure, right now. I put his fly mask on every time I ride and a hair net over his nose, which for some reason comforts him and minimizes the headshaking. I also put him on Chinese herbs which supposedly help. Eventually, I want to see if accupressure will help alleviate the problem, since the equine chiropractor has already helped, I think. As for his strengths, he's very willing and he covers for me when I ride like a moron. He is really pretty to watch and he is definitely gorgeous, too, with the bonus of having an awesome coat, mane and tail. I'm working on figuring out if I can afford to buy him, which will be easier to do if I can make payments over time since obviously I don't have thousands of dollars at my disposal, and mommy and daddy aren't willing to fork over the dough for me at this point in my life.

Boots was the last horse I had, when I was 14. I went up to Ontario with my mom and Cathy, my trainer, and tried 5 or 6 horses before we found Boots. He was a beautiful Belgian Warmblood/Thoroughbred cross, and I was extremely intimidated by him. He had a bit of an aggressive personality and he didn't like anybody, it seemed, but his owner/rider, who was also the trainer at the barn. The first time I got on him, it was a shock to be on a grey horse at first, and then it was odd that when we trotted our first vertical he didn't even know what to do, because clearly all he had ever done was gun it at big 3'6" or 4' jumper courses. When he came to Michigan, though, we made him a hunter because he had absolutely beautiful movement and he pointed his toes really nicely. He eventually came to like me, even though the first few weeks were extremely difficult. He would rear if my back was anything but completely vertical, apparently because he didn't want any weight on his forehand. He also would bolt, occasionally, especially when we would ride in our grass field. The first show we took him to, Cathy rode him in the second year green classes, and he was an absolute nightmare at the in and out gates. He wouldn't want to go in the ring and he would throw a fit before going in. Cathy decided to use a dressage whip on him during schooling and drop it before going into the ring. After a course, we would quickly reward him with peppermints, since he always did well when he actually was IN the ring. He also started to bond with me, Cathy and my mom, but that was about it as far as the horse-human relationships went. Little kids were always in awe of him and wanting to come pet him, which I warned them wasn't going to work well, and true to form, he would charge them with his ears back and nostrils flared. One of the dads of a girl I rode with jokingly said "you think you're so tough, eh?" and he bit his upper arm so badly that his arm had a softball-sized bruise, but I didn't feel guilty at all, since it was well known that Boots was aggressive with people other than the three of us. That year, Cathy was champion of the second year greens and I was sixth place in the 15-17 large juniors, so I was really proud at how far we had come. I definitely miss him a lot, and I'm sad that we had to end our partnership when he got a calcified front right coffin bone which made him utterly useless in the show ring and incapable of riding on his right side.

Anyway, I just miss owning my own horse, so I'm hoping it will work out with Cappuccino, but who knows. Maybe someday I'll be a lawyer or a stay at home trophy wife and I'll be able to ride until my heart's content and fill half the barn with my mounts, but until then, I suffer. I suffer in silence. And yet I never complain! (joke :-P).

The main priority in life is to find a job, get accepted into a good law school, and ride (I'm looking at the Dispute Resolution program at Pepperdine, which is actually the program BEFORE you can get a law degree). Booyah. Wish me luck.

Life these days

Feeling the need to write in here again, mostly because I don't have a reporter job at the moment, so I'm feeling unfulfilled. Ah, yes, unfulfilled by the insane amount of research and interviewing/transcribing tapes/taking hours to write a simple 500-word article...all for an absurdly, laughably low slave wage. My fellow Journalism major/communications people know what I'm sayin'. In particular, there's not much respect for young writers -- not from sources and not from coworkers. Apparently we're too young and inexperienced to know anything about life or have any ability. It's depressing. And right now I can't even work at The Acorn, the paper where I interned two summers in a row and then had a freelance job for one year. The economy sucks and it KILLS me that I can't do my thankless and yet, paradoxically, rewarding job. I know that I'm good at what I do, too (yes I am tooting my own horn), so it just kills me.

One of the trainers at the barn where I ride mentioned that I should ghost write a book he wants to publish, but I'm not really sure how serious he was. I should probably encourage/push him to start so I can have something to do with my time until I get a real job. Also, he wants to write a biography, which is right up my alley. I've done a bazillion personality profile articles, so this would be a fun challenge. It's difficult to write about a source that you haven't had the chance to meet, but I've even done THAT before. So, my plan is to see if I can get that ball rolling in the near future.



I'm already in a tremendous amount of debt with the parents because I've been freeloading by riding again, starting since I've been back from Spain. What I'd really like to do is just buy my own horse, but obviously that's unrealistic when I'm unemployed and living off daddy's dime (AND mommy's -- she got a new/better job!). Now I am so much more aware of how much everything costs than I was as a junior when it was all just left to the trainer to tell my mom how much a new saddle or a new horse blanket and show entries/hauling/braiding/etc would cost. And the costs are higher in California than they were in Michigan, but equal with what it cost me to ride in New York. Actually, I find that you get much better bang for your buck at the barn where I ride in California than where I rode in Ithaca. Also, it's nice to have a training staff that is more courteous and doesn't have the "oh, Meg, you ride better when you're pissed off at me!" mentality. Sheesh, that drove me nuts. I still find myself pursing my lips and getting highly irritated when I think about it, and how I rarely would say "you're being a jerk and I'm not going to stand for you treating me like a bratty 13 year old." #$)t^*$#%*$# I know, I know, I should just let it go...but I feel like venting. It's my own effin' blog, after all.

What else? Well, I miss my east coast friends horribly. I miss cynicism. I miss hanging out with my own age group and laughing til my face goes numb. Somehow I'll be able to find a new social network, I know, but it's difficult when you're unemployed and not in school.

Which leads me to yet another topic. I am applying to LAW school. That's right. A lot of people are saying "but why? I never heard you mention law before," and to that, I say that no, I've always maintained an interest. I love crime dramas and literature...NOT that I'd go into criminal law, but the whole process fascinates me. Something along the lines of corporate law would appeal to me -- something where I can do what I love, anything that includes doing a lot of research and presenting the results (and HELLO, that's what a journalist does). Yes, I was that dorky kid who looked forward to oral presentations and was meticulous about essays in high school. I was also in the drama club and choir to complete the trifecta of dorkery.

OK, I'm wiped out. I've been awake since 6 a.m. for traffic school after a whopping 3.5 hours of sleep. Yes, I am an insomniac and no, I can't make it through a day without a nap, because I get a "second wind" at night where I can stay up literally all night even on very little sleep from the night before. People give me a lotta flack for being a lazy mofo for my effed up sleep habits (well, that's partially true), but the Ambien I have prescribed to me would beg to differ with those assertions. Sidenote: when I take Ambien and I still can't fall asleep and I decide to do stuff, I behave like I'm intoxicated and sometimes I don't remember what I did the night before until I rack my brain...creepy. I would suggest not taking sleeping pills if possible.

And with that, I will pick up my book and then pop an Ambien and head off to dream land. Buenas noches.