September 12

Well,
Life is going. I'm not sure that anyone is at the steering wheel.

Things are going ok. I guess I have my good moments and my bad. I'm looking for a job that everyone believes is what I need to be doing. I hear a lot, oh you don't want that job, you can do better and why would you want to do that? Oh... it would be so easy to take a job that I know I'm more than capable of doing, something easy for me, needed for others and somethign that would just be a job that I need. That's what I'm looking for right? A job? Well... I guess it's more, this time, I'm looking for a job that has a career tag attached to it and that makes all the difference. I told myself I wouldn't get into another 'tide-over' job and keeping myself held to that standard is pretty difficult. I'm good at clerical/secretarial stuff, I even enjoy it... so why then am I always told, You can do better than that, don't settle. I work from 8-12 each day on my job search and then tell myself that the rest of the day I've earned off. Any more than that, and it just gets tough. Tough because I'm not hearing the right answers and most often because I'm not qualified. I know I can do it, how can I convince them that I can. Most often I've been frustrated with being told NO by a computer rather than a person. A computer that scans my resume for certain words or a computer that gives me questions to answer and denies my application based on the answer to one question - a question that I'd addressed in my cover letter already. I'm frustrated. I don't like Corporate America at the moment, I don't want a job like that, I want to take the easy way out. And another beef I have with the system is job related experience. How can you get job related experience if all the jobs require 1 year of previous experience already... Or working with money, how can you have 6 months cash handling experience? I've purposefully shied away from jobs that just handle money as they didn't seem to have a higher dimension than stocking and running a cash register. I'm tempted to ask the places that denied me based on lack of cash handling experience if they'd like me to go work for Mickey D's and dumb down my resume for 6 months just so that I can have cash handling experience. AGBHHGHGHGHAWHG

Yeah, little frustrated.

Beyond that overlying pressure of not having a job, I get other things done. I'm almost to 5 lbs in my weight loss challenge. I have gone to the gym religiously since I joined over a month ago and started a step class on Monday - it is such a good workout. I broke my phone and got a new one, a pretty pink razer... me, a pink girl? Who'd have thought. I've bought a suit and dress shirt and shoes and then this afternoong, I got some new work out pants. I've recently printed my favorite photos and put them in a book - they are all ones of outside and are gorgeous. Makes me get the urge for going....

Just now got off the phone with a lady who I'm going to be volunteering with coming soon. She is a coordinater for services offered in the St. Louis Area and helps to teach English and Citizenship to immigrants/refugees who have their citizenship test coming up. I'm excited about it!

Reading currently:
Nineteen Minutes
The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and other Clinical Tales
101 Great Answers to the Toughtest Interview Questions

Favorite Things to do these days:
Tearing up old to-do lists/condensing 5 to-do lists into one
Step on the scale in the morning to see how well i'm doing!
Going to the gym, I love the endorphins

The last two days, it has gotten a bit cool in the air. Highs in the mid 70's and getting down into the 50's at night. Quite a different feel to it.

Tomorrow, after grasscutting, I'm headed out to Ohio. I was supposed to go next weekend, but we moved it up. Actually, if the long term forecast is right, we're avoiding being 4 for 4 on getting rained on the entire weekend while camping. This would be a treat if we can beat it. So, off we go tomorrow to meet about 1/2 hr. outside of Springfield, OH. Packed all night tonight and then just food and clothes tomorrow. Just smelling the lovely smoke smell on these items makes me long for long nights at the fire. A bit of work to prepare to go, but oh so worth it.

Step Class, Day 2 went a little better. I did most of the exercises without getting exhausted. I never would have thought they could be that challenging. Guess I should get some sleep if I'm going to be driving ~6 hrs tomorrow. SO, catch you on the flip side...