I have two jobs. This is definitely a first for me, but one that I can handle. For the first time in my life, I have the TIME for two jobs. School is not keeping me from working. This has been a hard concept for me to grasp, and I'm coming to discover that starting two jobs simultaneously is not as easy as I would have thought. My jobs are COMPLETELY different, and I have to put on a different persona for each one of them. This has left me with a bit of an identity crisis on my hands. But, as an actor I should be used to this, right? Apparently assuming other personas onstage is not the same as doing so in real life. I'm really struggling with dropping my casual, "I get along with everyone because I do my best to be super nice all the time" attitude when working with the teenagers at school. I need to learn to be an authority figure, but the fact that they're going to have to hate me in order for me to gain their respect is a hard pill for me to swallow. I just need to buckle down and make myself do it. It'll make things a lot easier on me in the long run, and hopefully I can not only earn the respect of the students, but of the other teachers as well. Being the youngest person working there, I sometimes feel like I am not taken as seriously as the other people that are training for my same job but are older than I am. Age discrimination is a real thing. Crazy realization.
But, the really big news is that I got into grad school! I'll be attending Lewis and Clark College in the Fall! I'm so excited to have been accepted to such a wonderful school, and I can't wait to start my life up there. Grad school will be the start of an entirely new chapter in my life, one where I am financially independent, living in a new city, in a new state, without anyone I know. Phew! That's scary. But somehow, I'm more excited at the possibilities that this new life is bringing than afraid of what could go wrong. I'm a big girl. I can handle it. The only thing I'm really nervous about is quitting my jobs to go to school. I feel kind of bad taking these jobs when I've known all along that I'm just going to be leaving at the end of the summer. It kind of feels like lying... I've been assured multiple times that they can't be mad at me for this, because neither of my jobs are really the type of jobs that you would stay at forever, especially with a degree. I'm just nervous about what my bosses will think when I tell them. I hope they don't think I was a waste of their time.
I'd like to say that I've had some sort of life-changing realization recently that I can share with you, but the truth is that I've just been trying to keep my head above water with everything that is going on. I'm definitely going through a bit of an age crisis because of my 23rd birthday coming up. 23 sounds like a grown up age. I don't want to be a grown up. Hence, the crisis.
Well, I sure hope that my next post will be a little more interesting... But if that means something terrible happens in my life that would be more interesting to read about, I'll take boring blog posts any day.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
There's No Place Like Home...
Alright. It's been 6 months. I'm graduated. Looking for a job. And living with my parents. Cool.
I keep telling myself that it's just until I go off to grad school, which is true. When my friends from college ask me what I'm up to, they picture me off doing grand, grownup things and loving life. What they don't realize is that I've been sitting here for two months without anything to do. This is simultaneously the most relaxed and the most irritated I've ever felt. With all this time to waste, I've discovered a few surprising things:
1) I really don't mind not being busy. I mean, I'm actually enjoying having days on end where my family goes off to work and school and I have no company but the dog. I'm starting to wonder if I'm really as social of a person as I thought I was, or if I was social in college because I had to be.
2) Living at home is like being in high school again. Seriously. I got yelled at the other day because the dishes weren't done. And they weren't even my dishes. After four years of cleaning up my own messes and letting others do the same, I have regressed to a world in which you can proverbially "do the crime" without "doing the time." AKA: I don't have a job, therefore I am the resident dishwasher.
3) Living at home also brings back memories that I worked really hard to drink away during college. I've actually started having dreams about my ex-boyfriend since I've been back. Woah. Talk about coming out of left field! I think it has to do with my passing all of the places that my memories with him happened. Whatever it is, it's freaking me out. Seriously, Taylor Swift lyrics are starting to accurately describe my feelings. This needs to stop. Six months until I'm out of this place...
4) My family has A LOT of people coming to fix things at our house. I've never known anyone to have so many fix-it guys knocking on the front door. And again, since I have no job, I am the person that gets to sit awkwardly in the house while the guy performs whatever duty he came here to perform.
5) Jobs are difficult to find. I mean, I was warned about this in college, but really, who thinks it is going to be them sitting jobless 2 months after finishing college? I certainly didn't. I always thought that it was going to be Stoner Steve 3 rows behind me who rarely, if ever, showed up for class. But no. It's me.
So here I am. It's not like I don't do anything. I've been actively looking for jobs. I actually think I may be hired for two jobs at the same time. I thought I would be taking on too much if I worked both, but my parents seem to think that I can kill myself for a few months in order to have some money to move away with in August when I'm off to grad school. They've got a point, and I've got nothing better to do with my time. Decision made.
I also hang out with friends... occasionally. Another little-known fact about moving back in with your parents: Most other people haven't. It's true. Either that, or I was just friends with some serious overachievers in high school. I guess that's not too hard to believe, considering that my high school contained a freakish population of overachievers. Because of this, I have exactly two friends within "hey, let's do something tonight" distance. All of my other friends are either in "so, we should set a weekend and I'll come visit" distance, or "I'm too poor to visit you... let's skype sometime" distance.
Most of my time these days is spent watching an insane amount of TV with my dog, who is so happy to have me home, it makes me dread leaving him in a few months again. I've been on quite a few interviews, though. That has been interesting. I'm in the process of (hopefully) being hired as a hostess at a local Mexican restaurant. I thought that this job would be a little low on the totem pole for someone with two degrees, but my mom insists that it will be a good place for me to socialize with people my own age. My mom seems to have this obsession with making sure I have a social life while I'm here. Apparently serving tortilla chips near other people my own age is the solution to that problem. The second job I'm hoping to get is more in my field of study. I would be working with teenagers who suffer from depression, anxiety, etc. at a school. I'm completely stoked for that one. The funny thing is that the Mexican restaurant has had a more rigorous interview process than the school... I guess they can't trust just anyone to answer the phones and seat people at the appropriate tables.
It has seriously taken FOREVER to get the interview process over with. I mean, is 4 interviews really necessary for a hostess position? No. And it has taken them almost two weeks since the initial interview to come up with a decision. The other job hasn't told me yet if I have a second interview with them. I'm hoping to hear tomorrow.
Well, that's all for now. Back to my not-so-glamorous viewing of The O.C.
Yep, that's happening.
Isn't life after college great?
I keep telling myself that it's just until I go off to grad school, which is true. When my friends from college ask me what I'm up to, they picture me off doing grand, grownup things and loving life. What they don't realize is that I've been sitting here for two months without anything to do. This is simultaneously the most relaxed and the most irritated I've ever felt. With all this time to waste, I've discovered a few surprising things:
1) I really don't mind not being busy. I mean, I'm actually enjoying having days on end where my family goes off to work and school and I have no company but the dog. I'm starting to wonder if I'm really as social of a person as I thought I was, or if I was social in college because I had to be.
2) Living at home is like being in high school again. Seriously. I got yelled at the other day because the dishes weren't done. And they weren't even my dishes. After four years of cleaning up my own messes and letting others do the same, I have regressed to a world in which you can proverbially "do the crime" without "doing the time." AKA: I don't have a job, therefore I am the resident dishwasher.
3) Living at home also brings back memories that I worked really hard to drink away during college. I've actually started having dreams about my ex-boyfriend since I've been back. Woah. Talk about coming out of left field! I think it has to do with my passing all of the places that my memories with him happened. Whatever it is, it's freaking me out. Seriously, Taylor Swift lyrics are starting to accurately describe my feelings. This needs to stop. Six months until I'm out of this place...
4) My family has A LOT of people coming to fix things at our house. I've never known anyone to have so many fix-it guys knocking on the front door. And again, since I have no job, I am the person that gets to sit awkwardly in the house while the guy performs whatever duty he came here to perform.
5) Jobs are difficult to find. I mean, I was warned about this in college, but really, who thinks it is going to be them sitting jobless 2 months after finishing college? I certainly didn't. I always thought that it was going to be Stoner Steve 3 rows behind me who rarely, if ever, showed up for class. But no. It's me.
So here I am. It's not like I don't do anything. I've been actively looking for jobs. I actually think I may be hired for two jobs at the same time. I thought I would be taking on too much if I worked both, but my parents seem to think that I can kill myself for a few months in order to have some money to move away with in August when I'm off to grad school. They've got a point, and I've got nothing better to do with my time. Decision made.
I also hang out with friends... occasionally. Another little-known fact about moving back in with your parents: Most other people haven't. It's true. Either that, or I was just friends with some serious overachievers in high school. I guess that's not too hard to believe, considering that my high school contained a freakish population of overachievers. Because of this, I have exactly two friends within "hey, let's do something tonight" distance. All of my other friends are either in "so, we should set a weekend and I'll come visit" distance, or "I'm too poor to visit you... let's skype sometime" distance.
Most of my time these days is spent watching an insane amount of TV with my dog, who is so happy to have me home, it makes me dread leaving him in a few months again. I've been on quite a few interviews, though. That has been interesting. I'm in the process of (hopefully) being hired as a hostess at a local Mexican restaurant. I thought that this job would be a little low on the totem pole for someone with two degrees, but my mom insists that it will be a good place for me to socialize with people my own age. My mom seems to have this obsession with making sure I have a social life while I'm here. Apparently serving tortilla chips near other people my own age is the solution to that problem. The second job I'm hoping to get is more in my field of study. I would be working with teenagers who suffer from depression, anxiety, etc. at a school. I'm completely stoked for that one. The funny thing is that the Mexican restaurant has had a more rigorous interview process than the school... I guess they can't trust just anyone to answer the phones and seat people at the appropriate tables.
It has seriously taken FOREVER to get the interview process over with. I mean, is 4 interviews really necessary for a hostess position? No. And it has taken them almost two weeks since the initial interview to come up with a decision. The other job hasn't told me yet if I have a second interview with them. I'm hoping to hear tomorrow.
Well, that's all for now. Back to my not-so-glamorous viewing of The O.C.
Yep, that's happening.
Isn't life after college great?
Thursday, July 19, 2012
What's My Age Again?
Growing up, I thought that by the time I graduated college, I'd have my life figured out. I'd graduate with a degree in something that I was passionate about, and I'd step off of that college campus ready to take the world by storm. Little did I know that while I was optimistically planning my future, reality had built a glass wall in front of me, separating me from the ambitions I had so zealously made for myself. I ran at a full sprint through college, and reached graduation, diving headlong out of college, careening toward the world, only to slam against the blockade I couldn't see coming. Now, here I am. I have one more semester left of college, and I feel like a bee trapped inside a window, throwing myself at it again and again, hoping by some miracle I find a place where the invisible wall will give way to my freedom.
Terrified doesn't even begin to describe my feeling. I am out of my depth, trying to figure life out on my own. There are too many possibilities, and I find myself drowning in them rather than swimming through. I have this sudden inability to make decisions, because one bad decision could ruin my whole life. Do I take a year off before I go to grad school? Which grad school do I go to? Can I afford to live on my own? Do I put my pride aside and move back in with my parents until I am on my feet? Do I have the courage to drop everything for a year and move to another country? With so many questions floating through my head at every moment, it is impossible for me to sort them out and keep my sanity simultaneously.
So what's a twenty something to do? In this last 6 months of the limbo between adolescence and adulthood, I am forced to confront my fear of responsibility, to learn to trust my instincts, and to realize that the only person who can control my future is myself. Welcome to my journey. It's sure to be a bumpy one. Buckle up, I know I am.
Terrified doesn't even begin to describe my feeling. I am out of my depth, trying to figure life out on my own. There are too many possibilities, and I find myself drowning in them rather than swimming through. I have this sudden inability to make decisions, because one bad decision could ruin my whole life. Do I take a year off before I go to grad school? Which grad school do I go to? Can I afford to live on my own? Do I put my pride aside and move back in with my parents until I am on my feet? Do I have the courage to drop everything for a year and move to another country? With so many questions floating through my head at every moment, it is impossible for me to sort them out and keep my sanity simultaneously.
So what's a twenty something to do? In this last 6 months of the limbo between adolescence and adulthood, I am forced to confront my fear of responsibility, to learn to trust my instincts, and to realize that the only person who can control my future is myself. Welcome to my journey. It's sure to be a bumpy one. Buckle up, I know I am.
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