I’ve been encouraged by a good friend to get back into blogging. Apparently my life has the potential to be mildly interesting when put into writing, although I have my doubts. I’ve been back in the States now for a good 6 months and have also been unemployed for 6 months. So really, since I’m still job searching, I have no excuse not to blog.
In reconnecting with old friends since being back, the most common questions I get (aside from asking about my PC experience) are “what kind of jobs are you looking for?” and some variation of “so what do you do all day?”. I’m starting to dread both of these questions. For the first one, I really don’t give a hoot anymore what kind of job I get, I just want something to do and some money. In the first few months I had great ambitious, idealistic tendencies towards international development/non-profit work in a metropolitan area. But is it really so surprising that I’ve lost my luster and enchantment after 6 months of looking for the perfect job that in reality will just be a standard desk job that may or may not make me want to bang my head against a wall from staring at a computer screen for too long? Cynical? Probably. But that said, I do have some quasi career-change ideas/plans in the works that I’m not quite ready to share yet. In the meantime, I’ve moved to the D.C. area yet again and am enthusiastically looking for “right now” jobs. I have a few things that have potential to work out soon so I’m hopeful.
As for what I do all day…well. Let me tell ya, I’ve gotten this doing nothing thing down. On a good day, I wake up around 8:30, eat my breakfast and drink my coffee, work out for about an hour, freshen up and eat lunch, sequester myself in a coffee shop or library for the afternoon to pound out some cover letters and cross things off the “to-do” list (Even I am asking myself what a person with nothing to do has to cross off of a to-do list), and then hang out with friends in the evening. On a bad day, I wake up around 9:30, forgo the workout, and after drawing out my morning coffee, try to come up with a plan for the day and inevitably end up staring at the walls for about an hour trying to figure it out and coming up short. After a few more hours of putzing around the internet, pacing, and thinking about doing something mildly productive like cleaning or grocery shopping, I finally give in to cable television, and watch endless episodes of HGTV’s “My First Place”, “Property Virgins”, “House Hunters”, “House Hunters International” and “Property Brothers” while bemoaning the fact that my friends are all busy recuperating from a long day at work or class. As a result, I’ve learned quite a lot about realty.
Having recently made the (temporary?) move out to the D.C. area, not much has changed aside from the fact that I’m dealing with some delayed culture shock. Being back in a metropolitan, high-population-density area is rather overwhelming after village life and Iowa life. But I’m gradually readjusting and I have the added distractions of free museums and better shopping and at the very least I can kill two hours of the day on public transport to and from the city. So yeah, that’s that for now!
