Life Update

Workin' hard for the money, woooo! At least, I hope that'll happen. I got a mention of a job offer today when I went to Wellnessmart in Thousand Oaks. I've been there to shoot the sh*t with the main doctor guy, and today I mentioned something about oh yeah, I'm an unemployed bum (well, retail sort of does/doesn't count). So he asked before I left if my contact info was accurate, because he'd like to see if I could write for him. SQUEE.

Granted, this isn't the first time someone has mentioned maybe I could do some writing for him/her, but we'll see what happens. The prospect of it is cool, if nothing else.

Another no-less-important update: I found out one of the reasons I sleep horribly, even when exhausted, is because I might have a dust mite allergy. Apparently your bed is crawling with disgusting bugs (bed bugs?) and you can have a sensitivity to them. Yeah, gross. I mentioned to the doc that I have a problem breathing when I'm laying down, but not when I'm sitting or standing, and he says it's likely an allergy. SHEESH, now I know, after trying practically everything to sleep better: less caffeine, no naps/power naps/4-hour naps, nasal spray, breathe right strips, working out at strategic times, melatonin, ambien, it has all been a wash. I also have the whole anxiety thing keeping me awake, but if it were as simple as a dust mite allergy that is keeping me awake, I would weep with joy to be able to resolve it like this. Stay tuned.

Other: I got evangelized today, against my will. Actually, does anybody ever want to be evangelized? I was just chatting with some lady about why she was planning a trip to Africa and then got to hear a bunch of bull about spreading His word, blahblahblah, "Christ is the only way," and the whole litany of self-righteous tripe. Whenever I have to deal with that, I always probe and ask questions but keep a sort of calm exterior, because there's no point in getting into an argument with people who have no interest in being logical. The thing that I despise is having to defend myself when I get those random accusations. I suppose I could just let it slide, but of course I mentioned "Well, I am Catholic." So this lady goes into some diatribe about how Catholics don't read the Bible, Catholics are drunks who have no reverence for religious festivities, this and that and the other thing. I'm not about to go to bat for Catholicism, but I was getting hugely irritated by hearing an evangelist trash it. I'm sure I could bring up any religion and this woman would've had a conniption fit. Shoulda said I was a Jew, that would've gone well.

RAHHHHHHHH...

Anyway, I'm beyond exhausted. I keep sleeping 4 hours every night and burning my candle at both ends during the day. It would be worse if I had a real job, obviously, but I think I'd end up being completely useless at life if that were the case. Oh, and how delicious is the fact that I can get a job offer without going through all the arduous process of cover letter + resume + job search engine + outside help? Networking = beneficial. It behooves you to network. "Behooves" is probably my favorite word.

Rambling, woops.

Still writing my short story and talking to writer dude who submits to the same website. I've been surprised at how much fun it is to dip into the fiction arena and bounce ideas off other writers. I feel about a thousand times more intellectually stimulated talking to these people than I would, say, watching Dateline and eating chocolate fro yo. I'm checking the box on this website that says I want my submissions to be evaluated for publication, too, so we'll see if that gets off the ground. Right now I've finished my outline and done about 5 pages of a short story (it'll probably hit 60+ by the time I'm done with this installment). We'll see if this leads anywhere.

Yawn. Time to get out and go ride the horse.

Life is busy

You'd think my sleeping would get back on track once my life adjusted to that of a more normal twenty-something, but nope. I guess I'm just a dyed-in-the wool insomniac.

I've been doing a stupid amount of work to get a "real" job. . I'd like to think that that Journalism degree and multilingualism would be worth something, but apparently in this economy, that equals the amazing opportunity of working as a painter. A world-class painter? Oh, even better: a house painter. Yeah, that's what Career Builder would like me to do, anyway, in addition to offers such as electrician and secretary. Oh, sorry, "administrative assistant."

Maybe I should just go to my local temp agency and just chalk it up to the crap economy? Well, right now I'm shooting higher and I joined Cal Lutheran's version of Career Builder, which actually recruits Cal Lutheran students for a sh*tton of career opportunities available almost exclusively in Ventura County. It's completely amazing to have a job search engine that is just for jobs in Ventura County, because "Southern California" is way too broad. California just boggles my mind with its size.
Oh, and no, I have no education background from Cal Lutheran, but when you have both parents with jobs there, it opens the door for that (yay, thanks, mom and dad, for defecting to academia in your 50s). My dad actually has two jobs, which is completely bizarre, seeing how he's always gone to work in his starched dry-clean only getup to live the life of the executive mortgage banker, financial guy. But oh yeah, back to that economy thing, I guess it's necessary to get a second job these days? Luckily for MBAs, apparently you don't even need an education degree to get a job in that field. Or maybe that's just the case at schools like Cal Lutheran? Anyway, bravo, papi. Oh, and my mom isn't teaching, but she just got promoted to Assistant Director of the Multicultural/International Programs, there. Brava, mama.

Yawn. So yeah, I have a budding profile on Cal Luthernan's job search whatever thing. I submitted an unbelievable amount of junk, along with a highly tailored profile, my ruthlessly edited resume, bajillions of writing samples, a sample cover letter, and that doesn't take into account the searching I do to find potential matches for things I can pursue on my own. I'm hoping this will be more successful than Career Builder, but there's probably zero chance it could be worse, unless the CEO of a company calls me up personally to tell me I'm a failure at life and then dissolves into maniacal laughter at my expense.

There she be, in all her glory, I just whited out my contact info, just in case I have potential stalkers (hello, stalkers!).

Other stuff...the horse thing is going. Not necessarily "well," but going. There was a bit of a mishap at my last show, where I opted to scratch half my classes on the last day, because the horse's photosensitivity got the best of him so he wouldn't/couldn't stop shaking his head. I get extremely frustrated by it, but there's not much that can be done but put the horse away, give him a pat, and wait and hope that the next time we show it goes better. And by "better," I mean that he doesn't shake his head so violently that I feel like I'm the passenger in a bumper car, getting shook about on his back. Rahhhh. In any case, I'm pretty sure Cappuccino (horse) will be leaving the barn, soon, anyway, so he can get sold. I'll definitely miss him, it's been a fun partnership. Can't exactly afford a horse right now, though, it's also pretty impractical, seeing how I'll be (hopefully) going to law school and working at the same time, in the next few years. I just wanna have my cake and eat it too, I guess, and do it all. For now, that will have to go on hold until I become wildly successful...or a trophy wife. I have lofty ambitions and my other goal right now is to find my personal sugar daddy who will buy me a summer home and more horses than I can count on one hand. ;-)

Another thing I'm working on is writing a short story and submitting it to an online forum. Apparently there are ways to get compensation if a recruiter sees something they like, so that would be amazing if that happened. I've never written fiction, though, so it's a bit of a hurdle for me. It isn't proving too much of a challenge yet, though, since I am always writing something or another and I write ridiculously thorough outlines. So, I'm hoping this will be more than a hobby, but we'll see if it takes off. I befriended one of the other writers on this site, so he and I have been chatting a lot and he's been helping me as far as inspiration and editing goes, so hooray for that, too.

OK I think I'm gonna (attempt to) hit it, again. Wish me luck.

Life

Every so often I remind myself that I was in Spain this time, last year. I remember the whole thing being totally surreal. How? I started at my bilingual middle school with the help of Carlos, my bilingual coordinator and supervisor with his hybrid Spanish-British accent. Then there was the odd factor of being openly stared at in the street like I was from another planet, to my agreement that yeah, SoCal and a small, Southern town in Spain are on different planets.

Now everything is back to normal, but it's like I don't know what normal is supposed to be after spending four years in college, a year in Spain, and now back to a place where I have spent very little time -- Simi Valley. Now there's another difference: the SoCal culture and NY culture are pretty much opposite in a lot of ways. New York is much louder and brash. People don't act like their moods are affected by constant sunshine and like life is a Disney movie, where the biggest problem in the morning is deciding between a Gucci or Versace pair of sunglasses.
Oh, of course there are the Hamptons and the obscenely rich people who own oil companies, just like the left coast. But the people who I associated with weren't usually those people, except for the few I knew who I competed against, riding. Back to the cultural aspect, though -- I usually want to get the *bleep* out of Simi Valley and go back to New York. The problem with me is that I'm never 100% comfortable wherever I land, because nothing is familiar. I haven't lived in the same place for more than 3 years at a time since I left Michigan, when I was 16. Yeah I talk about it a lot, blah blah, but I'm getting used to SoCal, still, so I am going to think about it if not just complain. It's not that I want to complain as much as try to figure this whole thing out and come to terms with living here indefinitely.

I started LSAT prep class. Well, more like I took the diagnostic test and I'm waiting for the real classes to start and get the wake up call that I need to learn to pace myself better in taking the test. I will get hung up on making sure I have done my process of elimination while evaluating which answer best suits the question I'm reading, and getting worried, because sometimes they look like they all could be correct. Actually, it's sometimes obvious that two of the answers were put there to play tricks on you so I just throw those out and concentrate on what does fit.

Truth be told, I am such a huge nerd for reading and writing that the LSAT doesn't faze me as much as it should. I'm a Libra, after all, and we're all about balance, right? Ya damn straight. I get so in the zone when I'm taking the (practice) tests that when I hear someone sneeze I jump. My favorite part of the test are the logic puzzles, because I feel like I'm good at that. The worst part is the long passages, because although I'm a fast reader, I want to be thorough. Being completely nitpicky isn't an option when you have 35 minutes to get through 26 questions while reading the long passages and answering questions. Kind of weird, because when I used to take scantron tests in high school I remember always being one of the first people done. But the stakes are way higher this time, it's not like if I bomb the test about WWI that I'll get a chance to up my overall grade on the next test.

A lot of people have been asking me "seriously? Law school?" and I just say yeah, I'm interested in pursuing it. I remember my insanely demanding sophomore year at Ithaca, and how I was assigned to write two 25+ page essays, I had a job, I wrote for the paper, and oh yeah, I was living with a sociopathic roommate, all at the same time. I managed to keep my sh*t together the first semester, but I just snapped like a twig the second. "Twig" makes it sound like it wasn't too bad. Let's say I started sending sparks in every possible direction, like a toaster dropped in the bathtub. Point? I feel I've matured a lot since then and managed keeping my anxiety in check, more. Clearly the (lack of) sleep exacerbates my ability to work efficiently, but I'm working on it s'more.

One thing that has made me anxious is the job situation. I've found that the employers who are interested are now telling me (NOW TELLING. ME.) that they can't get a hold of the American contact to affirm that I worked in Spain. Well, sh*t. That makes it seem fishy, obviously, and it feels like a year of work was wasted. In any case, I've been told to provide new contacts, so I put down one of my riding trainers and my mom's last boss who went with me to El Salvador last year. Let's hope this will catapult me into the right direction, because I'm stuck otherwise. I mean, I worked at a newspaper and in Spain, I speak nearly fluent Spanish and Italian, I did other grunt work, and shouldn't that be enough for some entry level job of some sort? But of course just going to undergrad means nothing these days unless you want to be chief fry cook at your local In N Out, I guess, especially in this economy. Moan, groan, vomit.

OK I think it's time to sleep. ¡Buenas Noches!