Looking for a job is a lonely experience.  Looking for a job in a brand new city across the country is an extremely lonely experience. With all the time I spend applying for jobs, I’ve largely ignored the rest of my life.  The constant worry and rejection, coupled with the “so how’s the job search going?” questions leave me too sad, depressed and anxious to come out and be social.

This week I’m in the Bay Area for an interview. (YAY!)  But in spite of my super excitement about the opportunity and my confidence that I’ll get the job, I’m so sad out here. This is my second trip to the Bay.  On my first trip, I had so much fun.  It was equal parts networking extravaganza and vacation. This trip (because I’m newly poor and jobless) I can’t even afford a hotel or a rental car.  I’m staying with a friend of a friend who happens to live near a BART station (thank GOD).  I’m just starting to be comfortable traveling on the trains. However, I still haven’t ventured on the buses. I constantly worry that I’m overstaying my welcome and will come back to find my suitcase on the sidewalk.

Being out here, I spend a lot of time alone. Sometimes alone is just alone, but sometimes, most times, alone is a very lonely place.  I just wanna go home, drink straight out of my own milk carton and watch my tv in my underwear. (Except, I gave up my apartment, and am now living with my mom–boo).

Being in a new city, alone, is tough. Having to be ON and networking and interviewing in a new city is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  Today I was on a train and it hit me. I don’t want to do this by myself and I don’t want to be here by myself anymore.  I’m tired and I’m done.  I cannot do another trip out here like this. If I don’t get a job out of this trip, I think I’ll officially be at rock bottom.

It’s not that I am losing faith. It’s not that I don’t believe in myself. I believe in hard work, I believe in perseverance, I believe in a little bit of luck .  So I’m going BALLS OUT for the next three days. As hard as I’ve been working, all the leads that I’ve followed, all the time and effort I put in, and as big a hit that my credit card has taken (!!!) if nothing happens this week, I need to rethink my strategy.

You know that old saying, “Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away….” I’m not walking away.  I’m going all in.

Wish me luck out here. It’s now or nothing.

My life has been crazy lately. Moving hella fast and moving real slow at the same time.

May 10 – Graduation from MPA School

May 11- May 14- Packing, Packing, Packing

May 15- May 24- Vacation celebrating graduation from MPA School

May 25- June 1 – Packing, Packing, Move out of my apartment

June 1- Moved in with my mom (for the second time)

June 2- June 9 Scrambling for temporary work (unsuccessfully)

June 10 Leave for San Francisco- Interview on Friday (Yay Me!)

June 19^th Moving to be with the GF (unless I get offered the job in Hayward)

Argh!!! I’d really like to be settled. I’d really like to have a job. I’d really like to know what my schedule is going to be like on June 20^th.  Unfortunately, right now I’m not any of those things.  And I’m a little bit terrified.

So my summer move to Atlanta got off to a brilliant start. Friday started off like every other day last week. I woke up about 8:30 am, and shortly thereafter I started moving stuff. This time, however, moved my stuff from my brand-new less than week old apartment to my car. Because … Friday was moving day!!! (again, lol)

I packed up all my stuff in my car and went to my last day at work. I stayed at Orange County for an extra week, mostly because I wanted to attend my co-worker’s baby shower. Besides the baby shower, Friday was a big day for me at work. I had to finish the last two projects that I’ve been working on for the past month or so that I have been procrastinating finishing for the past two weeks, but that is a different story.

It was important for me to stay for the baby shower because my co-worker is the most beautiful pregnant woman I have ever seen, I wanted to spend that time with her. And I enjoyed the shower, I learned about how to care for a newly circumcised baby penis. (I know, I was a little distraught, too)

My plan was to stay for a bit of the shower, and be on the road to Atlanta by 3:30pm. Instead, I stayed at work until 5, playing at the baby shower and talking to my co-workers (whom I’m gonna miss like crazy)

Anyway, of course right before it was time to leave work, it starts to rain. I get in my car to go to my mom’s house, and almost there, the truck in front of me stops and when I try to stop, my stupid heavy over-full car slides right into the back of the damn pick-up in front of me. No worries, I’m fine. But I’ve ruined my car and I couldn’t get a rental until Saturday (boo!).

But today I am in Atlanta. I have unpacked my suitcases and I have to be at work at 9am tomorrow. And I will probably be at work until 10pm. Yes, work from 9-5, 5:30 dinner meeting, 6:30 work session and 7:30 Budget presentation. I know, right. Trial by fire, bitches!!!!!

I’ll let you know how it goes. Ta-ta

I started packing up my life (i.e my apartment) yesterday. I’ve been putting if off for weeks now. I knew the end of my lease was coming, and I’ve known for a long time that 1). I was spending the summer in Atlanta 2). I was gonna move from my 2 bedroom into something else 3). I have a LOT of stuff.

Knowing all those things should have propelled me to get started on the packing all my sh*t up a lot sooner than 10 days before the move. But I am a procrastinator by nature and I really thought that something miraculous would happen so that I wouldn’t have to do the actual packing and sorting and throwing away.

Which brings me to why moving makes me sad. Moving forces me reflect on my life. It is once of the few (maybe the only) time I actually allow myself to think about what I’ve done over the year (I say a year b/c I tend to move once yearly) and if I’m any closer to doing whatever it is that I really want to do. For some super successful people, moving day would equal happy day and they would celebrate their progress. Unfortunately, I am not a super successful person, and moving day isn’t so much happy for me.

Packing only shows me all the things that I’ve been really excited about, spent money on, carted around, and promptly forgotten about. I have years (yes, years!!) worth of Self, Shape, Vogue, Glamour, Health magazines… and I don’t think I’m any more healthy or beautiful or fit because of them.

I found no less than 8, count ‘em-8!! books on how to pass the LSAT, as well as, the 116 Best Law Schools, So you want to be a lawyer?, at least 4 unfinished applications to law school, various catalogs for various law and public policy schools around the country. And I’m not in f-ing LAW SCHOOL!!!!!

I found a whole folder full of all the houses/condos/townhouses that I spent at least 6 months of my life meticulously poring over before I found the perfect one, had a panic attack, cried like a baby and chickened out of purchasing, assorted anatomy study guides for my aerobics instructor exam, as well has at least 50 books that I have purchased or stolen from friends that I have every intention to read but never got around to….. sigh. All the things that make me, while not quite a failure… definitely not a success.

So I think this is why I’m sad. Moving reminds me of all the things I was supposed to do, all the goals and dreams that I’ve put on hold, all the things that I don’t have time for and all the fun and/or interesting things that I’ve tried, but that for whatever reason just didn’t stick.

I want to believe that this is why I’m sad. But it could also be that as a small child we moved around a lot and since I didn’t own anything I liked it. Moving frequently works well with my short attention span and wander personality.

When we settled in Orange County, all I wanted was to live somewhere else. sadly, the one thing that made it happen was my parents’ divorce. We moving and it was simultaneously the best and the worst. College came shortly after and I moved out of my mother’s house and into a dorm room. Over 4 years of college I moved into and out of 3 more dorm rooms.

Every year I was sad. Sad that I was leaving, sad that everyone else was leaving, sad that things were changing, probably sad that I was going home and not going to some ultra fabulous locale where my life would finally start. After college, I lived with one of my cooler friends and life would have been grand if I have loved or even semi liked my job- which I didn’t. Which made my whole life suck.

After that experiment, I went home, back to my mother’s house. Where the wonderful job came, and I was supposed to be getting my life together and preparing to live on my own. Instead I lived in my old room, with all the crap that I have been collecting my entire life for 3 years! Fast forward to 2007, I’m grad school-bound, and some pivotal things have transpired to push me into semi-adulthood and alas, into my own apartment. Where life has been, mostly grand, with some really high points and a few not so high points thrown in as Life tends to do. And mostly I’ve felt really put together and on the right path, sort of.

Which brings me back to the freaking beginning. I think I’m still waiting for my life to begin. And I’m waiting for all the crap that I’ve been collecting, the plans, the self-help bullsh*t, all the unread books, all my failed attempts to journal to finally pay off. For once I’d like to move and not feel this overwhelming sense of loss and disappointment.

I’d like not to feel like I almost got it right, that I’m almost there, that if I push just a little harder that my f-ing life will finally begin and I’ll finally know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. But until then, I continue to pack up all my shit and just feel sad about the whole damn thing.

Hello World!

Ok, I think I’ve graduated from my little myspace blog and it is time to explore the world at large. I know I have friends (somewhere) who aren’t on myspace or facebook, (and some who are) that do not want to wade through all that crap just to see how I am doing. Also, blogging on wordpress just seems so grown-up (and I am on a quest to become an adult).

Since I am leaving in a few weeks to start an internship in faraway Atlanta, now seems like the perfect time to start this blog. It will probably be something like a public diary. Of course all my NC friends have to read it and comment, since I won’t get to see ya’ll when I want to….I’m gonna miss you so much.

Anyway, I’m notorious for starting new things; being really ambitious, then losing my enthusiasm and pooping out. This time I’m not going to make any claims about all the blogging I’m going to do, but I will try to post at least a “week in review” every week, stream of consciousness style (which is how I speak anyway) just to keep you updated on how I much I miss you and about all the fun this country girl is having in the big bad city

So here goes…..