I love my parents

Last night, I went to my parents house for the specific purpose of enlisting my mother to help me reconcile my checkbook. I think that it's a sign of her motherly love for me, because seriously, my checkbook was a disaster.

Then I helped my daddy with his resume. It's so weird to be helping my father in this way--kind of a role reversal. But it was fun, and hopefully the changes I encouraged will be of use as he continues the job hunt. (Incidentally...I HATE job hunting. Haven't we discussed this before?)

Afterward we just sat around talking for awhile. Mostly about all the crap in my life that stresses me out. I'm grateful to have them, that they just listened, oftered their advice without judgment, and then helped me move forward.

Oh, and we have fresh peaches and cream. Mmm.

Seriously folks. I have the best parents on the face of the planet. I'm just sayin'. Although, I hope my mom does okay by herself getting her hair cut. Her first new style in like...20 years. Good luck mama!

New job

I have a new job. I was hired today by a network security company in American Fork, to work as a receptionist/customer service busybody. I really like the people I've met so far at the company, and we'll see about the job itself. It's full time, with those benefits I was ranting about earlier. The only downside is the necessity of quitting my present job at Walden, which I have honestly been enjoying.

Does life ever just make you grumpy? There's nothing to be done about it, so you have no choice but to accept, no matter how you feel about it? It does me, sometimes.

Insurance and other meddlesome things

Insurance.

Yesterday, I wrote out a check for my year's worth of car insurance. It's gone down considerably, as my youthful speeding tickets have finally been dropped from my record. Still a chunk of money, but I stressed less about it this year than in those past.

However, another fact of life is looming in the near future, as my parents are none too slow to remind me.

My health/dental/vision/etc insurance will disappear in January, as I am no longer in school. I've had the fortune to have a cushion of many months, due to error on part of the insurance company. However, the cushioning is at an end, and come 2009, I am responsible for my own little self.

It raises an issue I'd rather avoid, but cannot. With one (or even two!) part time job(s), I get no health insurance. Right now, I'm working about 25 hours a week. I have been hoping and hoping and wrangling to get more hours, but even if I were to get the max I could possible have, I still would not get benefits, as the school cannot afford to pay them. I have been so hoping that Walden would work out despite all the issues, because I have been enjoying it so much. But it looks like I'm going to have to face reality.

I've been hoping to find a second part time job to bring in more money, but even besides the benefits issue, there are others. The most sad and important of which being that Walden is inconsistent. Much as I love the people there, they are extremely fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants. (I hesitate to use the word flaky no matter how appropriate.) Yesterday I worked a full eight hours. Today I worked five. What is tomorrow, or the next day? How can I get another job, if I can't even guarantee when I get off every day? I'm working a "real" job to find consistency--without that desire, I'd be working in the theatre as my art-soul wishes. I thought maybe I could find balance here, but apparently not.

I love Walden School. Already, I do. But I need to be realistic. I have to be an adult, no matter how much I want to avoid it. I need to save money, and I need to take care of myself. If Walden can't commit to me, I need to go somewhere else. Sad, but true muffins.

Casinos have never been a temptation before now....

I spent this past weekend with my birthfather [Jason], his wife [Jenny], my sisters, and various sundry relatives, at Jenny's family's property somewhat above Strawberry Reservoir. This is the second time I've been up there, the first time I'd met some of the various sundry relatives (although, I'll admit here that I enjoyed these sundry relatives much better than some of the sundry relatives that were there last time. But this is irrelevant...)

Spent the weekend relaxing, fishing (which is still very new to me), chatting, watching movies, reading, and--my personal preference--playing games. I just have this thing about playing games. Any games, board games, card games, whatever. My family doesn't play a whole lot of games, because there just aren't enough of us to play much more than Settlers of Catan, which, admittedly, we enjoy, but still don't play that often. So up at camp, there's a whoooole bunch of us, and games abound. I'm in heaven.

We brought up Pit, which I have discussed before, being one of my all-time favorite group games, following closely behind Apples to Apples. However, I get quite enough of Apples during my PGSA summers, so Pit was definitely high on the list. We also played Phase 10 (not my favorite--I need to get this fambily to play Shanghai), and the Totally Insane Card game. However, at some point (I think it was only yesterday) my sister Danielle asked if we could play poker, as their uncle has a nice poker set he keeps up at camp. So Dad obligingly brought out the set, and proceeded to teach me various versions of poker. I can't even remember all their names. But after several hands of just being confused, I asked about Blackjack. He tried to explain it to me, but I asked D and her bf to play a round with me so I could get it better. And HOURS later, we were still there, playing Blackjack. And we played again after fishing that night. And again this afternoon.... Seriously addicting, and I have no idea why!

On a side note: I don't like teenage boys. I guess I liked them when I was a teenage girl, but no longer. I particularly don't like teenage boys who date my teenage sisters. It may be a bit overprotective of me...or maybe it's just the teenage boy thing. Anywho...

I was also faced with the discouraging fact that my other family all have, to my dismay, thoroughly enjoyed "Breaking Dawn." Now, I admit and will continue to admit, that I need to read the book again in order to really decide how I feel about it. And I'll give that my earlier review was perhaps more negative than really necessary. After all, there were definitely points that I enjoyed. However, I--currently--still stand by my dislike of the book. I found it to be overall disappointing, and was a little discouraged that my sister(s) and Pops did not so far agree.

On an entirely separate note, last week before I left for camping, I gave a rough draft of my novel over to its first readers--two of my very best friends, Sam and Ashley. Now, Sam will gush and tell me how wonderful it was no matter what he thinks of it, and then perhaps give me a tentative review while I try to drag details out of him. This I am prepared for. However, Ashley is an entirely different matter. Ashley is one of the pickiest people I know, particularly when it comes to movies and books. She is incredibly picky about what she likes and doesn't like, and I am INCREDIBLY nervous about her reading my book, especially in the precarious rough-draft stage it is in. But giving it to Sam meant also giving it to Ashley, and I so I just have to hope that she will be sensitive with my baby, just after I have cut the umbilical cord and let someone else's eyes rest upon it the very first time. It's terribly nervewracking!

And now...on to the job hunt!

Direction and purpose

School is cool. Real life sucks.

This evening I was talking to Melissa (my best friend) on the phone. At one point in the conversation, I said something to the effect of, "Melissa, let's go back to school. Where do you want to go?"

This led into a discussion about the virtues of USU in Logan, and we "decided" we would go next year, once her student loans from our first time around are paid off.

I'll tell you what--even the half-kidding declaration of going back to school made me feel better about life.

I've been feeling pretty directionless for some time, since before my December graduation, even. Theatre is something of a dead end for me. Don't get me wrong, I love theatre and I love stage managing, probably more than anything I could ever choose to do, except maybe writing. But (long story short) I crave mental, financial, and spiritual stability, none of which are available with a career in the arts. This summer was so very fulfilling, and if it could go on forever, I would be set for life. But alas.

So now I'm home and facing the rest of my now-empty life and wondering what on earth to do with it. I applied for a half dozen jobs this morning, and will continue to do so, but I consider them "filler" until I can figure out what I really want to do. Going back to school is actually a viable option, as I have and will continue to discuss. Going on a mission is still in my frame of reference. Wailing in frustration is--at least internally--a constant.

No matter what happens, though, I need to find direction and purpose. I can't live without it. I have driven myself for too long--and been going without for too long--to continue this way for much longer. Coming from "Ivona, Princess of Burgundia", we must go onward and upward forever.

Struggling

I'm not having a very good day today.

I feel that I am an independent person. Slowly over the last four years, I've been taking on my own finances. My parents help a great deal, but I've felt that I was on the road to becoming independent. Today is a huge blow to that. I'm moving home today, for no other reason than I simply cannot afford to pay rent. Or utilities, or to buy my own groceries. I'm flat out broke. I've never hit rock bottom in quite this fashion before--always there has been hope, a paycheck soon to come, another job to start. Now, I'm directionless.

Last night I got a text message from my landlady, telling me that my room has been rented--started May 10. That means I'm still responsible for nearly a hundred dollars worth of rent--which I don't have. I asked her if there was anything I could do, and I told her that I just don't have any money whatsoever. She was rather cold in her rebuff, telling me she couldn't let me out of my lease. I see her side, but what does she think I can do? Pull money out of thin air? I suppose she thinks my parents will pay it. The thought makes me sick. I'm honestly in tears at the thought of how financially strapped I am right now, and it makes me sick to think of asking my parents to bail me out. After everything they've done for me, everything they're doing for me, to think that I cannot even pay my own expenses just makes me feel like a failure. Especially because there's no end in sight! I haven't got a job lined up, I can't manage to get one--believe me, I've been trying for two months solid, with no luck.

Life is hard. I guess that's what this all narrows down to. It's even harder, I guess, watching some of my friends have success, when I can't seem to get close. I'm a pretty bright girl--I've got a college degree, I'm educated, I'm passionate, I care about people, and I like to serve. It shouldn't be this hard. It really shouldn't.

Springtime Intoxication

Maybe we just have days when chaos touches us, like little eddies in the river of worldly sanity.

There is something about this time of year that does something to me. It's moving time. Every year for the last four years, in the last weeks of April and beginning of May, I have prepared to move--sometimes it was home to my parents, sometimes it was just to a different apartment across town. But its definitely getting to be a habit. I think my body can sense the move coming, and it triggers a real, emotional response.

Last year at this time, I was half-packed, the windows were flung open in my upstairs bedroom, and together with my roommate Emily, I was rapidly devouring the Twilight series for the first time. There was--absolute freedom. Of course I had finals, but that semester I didn't have any that I was particularly worried about. I was free to enjoy the springtime air, which is intoxicating in and of itself.

This year the freedom isn't so heady. I'm moving back to my parents house, with no job prospects in the offing, and no real idea of how I will occupy myself (and my checkbook) for the next two months. But that springtime air still does something to me. It makes me want to sleep with all the windows open, if not outside entirely. It stirs my creative juices, and makes me want to delve into a delicious new book. Though, I don't think anything will stir me the way Twilight did. I think I read it at the absolutely perfect time.

It makes me want to go to Red Cliffs with the gang, or down to St. George to enjoy the roses at the temple, with a trip to Larsens after. And most of all, it makes me want to hop in my car and drive forever--just keep on driving with the sun behind me and the wind in my hair. This is the power the season holds on me--and I don't mind one bit.

Renting Blues

So, I'm moving home. This is a rather unfortunate circumstance which I do not entirely regret. I need to save money, and all the reasons I moved to Salt Lake in the first place are mostly null and void, the only exceptions being 1) my independence and 2) living with Dixy, one of my best friends from college. Right now I need to save money (particularly considering that I have none) and hopefully I can get a job down here just as easily as one in Salt Lake.

With these things in mind, I spent half of last week trying to get in touch with my landlords, who were apparently away from their phones the whole time. At last reaching my landlady on Saturday, I informed her that I had lost my job, and that I needed to move out at the end of the month. As we had discussed when I signed my lease, she said she would list my room, and if she could find a renter she would let me out of my lease. I agreed this was fair, and went my way.

Today, I searched online listings to find my room. No luck. I checked all the regular haunts where Dixy found the house in the first place, to no avail. It's not there.

All I want to say is WTF? Did she forget? Am I being screwed? I don't know, I don't really care. I listed the room myself, and hopefully I can get things taken care of so I can get out of the lease. These landlords have been pretty good all around, so I don't want to jump the gun. I just want a peaceful resolution.

So, if anybody is looking for an apartment in Taylorsville, let me know. I've got a pretty sweet place for you.

A Disagreement with Modernising

When my dad was my age, all one needed for a really good job was a Bachelors degree. That little piece of paper could practically guarantee a job, with good benefits and a nice salary. As has been said in many circles, the Masters degree is today's equivalent, as the Bachelors is now the equivalent of the high school diploma. You practically have to have one of those to work at Pizza Hut.

I have a Bachelors degree (although I don't get my diploma until this summer, but lets stay on topic). Somehow, when I was approaching graduation, I thought this would get my foot in the door at a lot of places I wanted to go--at least in the local market of boring everyday jobs. I was told time and again that this little piece of paper was all I needed to make it in the world.

Let me correct a few perceptions.

Just having a degree doesn't do it anymore. Companies are expecting--for their entry-level jobs!--at least two years of experience, a degree in the field, not to mention a good resume and excellent interview. They want expertise, professionalism, and some other characteristic that a simple degree just doesn't bring. I'm talking about entry-level receptionist and administrative assistant positions. It makes me want to scream sometimes--how is anybody supposed to get those two years of experience, when no one will hire them in the first place?

Personally, I'm circumventing this ridiculous situation by getting a different certification, but I find it highly discouraging that I spent four years in college, only to spend six weeks in a class to go into a completely different field. I think that they should at least warn you that you're spending your time, effort and money on something that essentially does nothing for you.

Disappointment versus Devastation

I got two rejection letters today, one from UC Irvine and one from the University of Delaware.

Okay, so of course I'm disappointed. I really wanted to go to grad school. I'd be one of the first in my family to do so. It would have been a great experience. But I'm not devastated. My mother held me like she expected me to cry when I told her, but I didn't cry. Maybe I will later, I don't know. Frankly, I'm just glad I'm not waiting around anymore. Waiting to hear was even worse than knowing the answer.

Now, I can move on with my life. Where I'll be moving on to, I have no idea. I'd kinda been hoping to go to grad school so it would occupy the next three years of my life and I wouldn't have to make any big life-changing decisions. But alas, HF never makes things easy.

Next week is my last class in Phlebotomy. I have to pass the final exam, complete an externship, and then I'll get my certificate and be a phlebotomist. So far, I find it entertaining. Whether I can do it long term, I have no idea. But it's a place to start.

I am spending the summer in Pennsylvania again this year. At least I'll get a little theatre in 2008, even if its the weird version of my art that PGSA offers. I think it'll be fun, and help me not feel like an utter failure as a theatre student.

Realistically, looking back, I thought I'd be married by now. I still hope that will happen in the relatively near future, but as HF has taught me again and again, I can't stake anything on it--I just have to wait, and do what I can in that area to make things happen. Eventually it will work out.

So, yeah. I'm a little directionless right now, but I have hope and limitless possibilities (except, of course, that I'm limited from grad school!) I can go in any direction I choose, I just have to do that--choose.

Temp Job

Standing on your feet for eight hours is not fun.

Today life just sucks

Laughingly, I told my boss:

"I've signed into an apartment, and I'm scheduled to move in on Friday. I guess it depends on how much work you throw at me! And by the way, I'm definitely hoping for more--I need to be able to pay for the place, you know!"

He wrote back and said:

"Realistically how many hours a week would you need until things really ramp up?"

NOT the answer I was looking for.


I'm job hunting again. I'm looking for part-time right now, maybe to off-set the absolute lack of money coming from what I thought was my ideal job. But if I can't find part time, it'll be full time, and then what? I'm an underpaid college graduate bumming my life away in suburbia, hoping to get a break someday? Hoping to pay the bills rather than hoping to find joy in pursuit of my passion?

I hate moving out. I hate packing. I don't mind moving in, I don't mind unpacking. It's just this, right now--the state of flux. It doesn't help to have all this uncertainty surrounding me--will I be able to pay for my new apartment? It's not looking like it!!

I don't know what I want. I have friends and relationships here, in Salt Lake and in Utah, relationships that I cherish more than anything else in the world. But what do I want? I have grad school interviews this weekend--I get excited about grad school more than most things left to me, but to what end? Am I even going to pursue theatre? Suburbia has opened its mighty jaws and is attempting to swallow me whole. It won't be long before rent becomes a mortgage to pay.

I'm terrified. I'm depressed. Tonight, I'm lonely. I know everything will look better tomorrow, but today, complaining to my blog is what suits my needs.

Today life just sucks.

Huzzah!

I have a job! At last!

I've been hired as an Executive Assistant to the producers of an independent film company, at their subsidiary in Salt Lake City. I'll be doing some secretarial duties--keeping the schedule, budget, itinerary--but also a lot more involved things like writing project proposols, building project presentations, and correspondence with all the company sponsors.

And in case you were wondering--I'm totally stoked! I really like the producers: I've met two of the three and they're great, they seem really fun to work with, and they're really excited about what they're doing, which makes me excited about what they're doing. :) I think it will be a lot of fun.

My plan is to move up to SLC, probably the Midvale/Fort Union area, here in the next couple of weeks. Stoked!

The days go by

After spending far too many days reading, watching movies, and otherwise wasting time, I decided I needed to find something relatively productive to do with my time, when not job hunting, interviewing, or mourning my idleness. Yesterday, I came up with scrapbooking. Now, its not really productive, but it gives me the idea of productivity...at least my hands are doing something.

There is something infinitely satisfying in scrapbooking. Sometimes I mock the hobby--the huge sections or entire shops filled only with scrabooking supplies. The intricate details. But on the other hand, I kind of like making the pages balance, just so, getting the colors to work, finding the right patterns to go with the pictures. Some of my pages are better than others, but it keeps my mind occupied and I enjoy it.

So, in the process, I have taken over the family room, as shown--this big table, filled with the associated products. My other-mom, Jenny Walles, gave me a big kit of scrapbooking stuff for Christmas, and thus I have put it to good use.

In contrast, this is how my little brother spends his days. He should be working. He claims to have had an ear infection...for the last five days...and so he sits, watching movies far too loudly. It amazes me that he does not weigh 300 pounds with all he eats. Next to him, I positively feel like the most active person in the entire world. :)

Managing

The only thing that makes life bearable right now is Chris.

I'm still working on a job--I found an apartment ad today that looks good, right near the office of the place I want to work, if they'll get back to me like they said they would. Life could, potentially, be turning for the better here soon. Who knows. But once I can be truly productive again, then things will be better.

The Productivity of Life

Here's the thing: The lack of stress in my life eventually equates the lack of productivity whatsoever.

I live off stress. I thrive in stressful situations, when I'm not getting enough sleep because there simply aren't enough hours in the day. I love a semester when I have 20 credit hours, two jobs, and five hours of rehearsal a night--where I don't see home but once a day, and that's when I'm coming to crash in my bed for six hours before I have to get up and do it all again. This is my ideal lifestyle.

The last couple of weeks? Poop.

I'm still job hunting. I expected to have been at a job two or three weeks already by now, but here I am, still living in my parents house, hunting over the internet for jobs and housing, in the desperate hope that I can move out of here sometime soon. This is not my way to live. Some people might enjoy the time to relax, the lack of responsibilities. Not me. It's driving me crazy!

Freaking Oooouuuuutt!!!!

As I sit here in my chair, I appear to have been stood up for the second time by the Production Stage Manager of PCPA Theatrefest. We were supposed to have an interview before Christmas, it didn't work out, so we rescheduled. And now it appears to have happened again.

Do I mind? I'm not sure.

I have another interview scheduled this afternoon with a theatre in Chicago, as an SM, not a peon. We'll see how it goes, or if I get stood up.

Here's the thing: I really want the job I interviewed for on Tuesday. They told me they'd get back "in a couple days", whatever that means. It's been three days, I haven't heard from them. I sent a confirmation email this morning, just saying, "Hey, what's up, are you going to call or what?" but you know, in polite-speak. I know that despite my best efforts, I did get my hopes up about this one. I didn't want to be disappointed, yet again. But I do, really, truly, actually want this job, more than any I have applied or interviewed for.

So obviously, it's with a little less than full enthusiasm that I'm interviewing today. I mean...these jobs would be cool too, they're just not what I really want right now. And with the other job still up in the air...it's hard to be that sad about being stood up again.

Who knows what will happen?

Mercy...

...can come in many forms and disguises. It can come to help, to assist, to magnify, to warn and alert. It can cause us to work or it can finish our work for us. But it makes us whole.

My math professor has agreed to change my D+ to a C-. She'll take care of the paperwork when the school gets back from break, but essentially I'm in the clear, I'm a graduated woman. You have NO idea what relief I'm experiencing, the joy that I can at last share with my friends. Thank you, everybody involved and responsible for this little happening.

I had a job interview today. I essentially have the job, if I want it. But it conflicts with URTA. I wrote the schools to see if they are willing to move my interviews, but regardless, I'm wavering about the position. It just doesn't feel right. My friends--theatre or no, religious or no--you have to trust your gut. Furthermore, you can't take the first offer that comes along just for fear of not getting another. There are other jobs. This one is good, it sounds like fun, but it just doesn't feel right. Besides, grad school comes first.

I've been sick today. The flu, we think. A 24-hour bug, I think, because I'm starting to feel better. But it's left me some time to think. I was reading in Genesis today, kind of for the heck of it, really (as ironic as that is.) You know, Jacob got pretty shafted by Laban. He works seven years, hard labor for Rachel, then last second Laban swaps out for Leah. Although, me and my naughty little mind had to wonder what kind of customs they had that would mean a whole night with Leah before Jake figured out it wasn't his little sweetie. But you know, Leah has over half of Jacob's kids--six sons and one daughter, that we know of--and still Jacob doesn't love her. She dedicates her whole life to serving him and trying to win his love, but never gets it. God made Rachel barren for a long time, to compensate Leah. She was able to bear sons and Rachel wasn't, because God had mercy on Leah. Because Jacob didn't love her. He always just loves Rachel, even after she dies in childbirth on the way back to Isaac. Her whole life. She must have felt very lonely.

Lack of Motivation

The other side of Christmas is a lot less exciting than the road up to it. It's always been that way, it always will be, but this year there's a few more things adding onto the sensation.

I need a job. Fact. I want a theatre job, stage managing anywhere that is not Utah. Those are a lot harder to come by than I'm prepared to admit, especially considering my resume. But how on earth are people supposed to add to their resume if approximately no one will hire them? I hate the world.

Money, blah. I just don't want to live at my parents' house any longer than I have to. I love my parents. I love them dearly. I enjoy spending time with them, I enjoy staying at their home. On vacation. It's not the same when you're living there. And in another week or so, it won't be vacation anymore, it'll be living here, and that's not good.

Christmas was good. I spent Christmas Eve with my birthfather and our extended family. Christmas morning was a quiet affair with my family. I got books and movies, mostly, which is what I wanted. I read "Ender's Game" in the space of 24 hours. We spent most of Christmas day with my Uncle Frank's family, and we all went to see "I Am Legend" with Will Smith. It was an interesting story, but I don't think I'd watch it again. We saw it in IMAX, and it was huge and loud.

I just feel unmotivated. I keep putting off things I know I need to do--figure out what to do about math, some grad school stuff, bills. I want to write, but the muse seems to have abandoned me. I must get her back.