Thursday, April 23, 2009

Daily project

As my time in Yakima winds down, I'm finally getting a few leads on the job search front, but still need to fill the daylight hours. Yesterday I came across a recipe for homemade bagels and thought I'd give it a shot. It's not like me to be so ambitious, but I love bagels and they're expensive, so I figured that learning to make my own could save me money. The results were quite pleasing to my eye and tastebuds:

Friday, April 17, 2009

How I feel about what I just did ...

I can't really explain here, but if you ask me on a more private setting, I'll tell you what this photo refers to.

Two months of unemployment

Sunday will mark the two-month anniversary of my lay-off. There's not much news to report.

Now that I know I'm moving back in with my parents and will be off the hook for rent for a month or two, I'm a little less stressed out about living on unemployment money. I don't really want to go back to Klamath Falls, but it's easier to at least know what's happening. At this point, I almost hope that it takes several more weeks to find something new so that I have some time to settle in a bit before I have to move again.

The problem I'm having now is finding three jobs per week to apply for. It's required, but there just aren't three journalism jobs being advertised per week. There are plenty of jobs I am not qualified for, but I don't want to just apply for things I wouldn't be offered any more than I want to apply for things I wouldn't take.

At this point, I'm starting to accept that I may have to look in another field. There are ways to use these skills in other ways.

The freelance writing thing hasn't panned out yet. The Web sites I've applied for are mostly looking for how to articles or opinion pieces, which isn't what I want to do. They're not looking for journalistic pieces.

In the meantime, I'm spending much more time online than I should, simply because I'm trying to avoid the last bit of packing I still have to do. it's at that point where everything left is just little stuff lying on the floor and knick-knacks, or stuff that has to go to Goodwill and it's just a pain in my ass.

The fun thing that I've done this week is go to the Mariners home opener. I've been a fan of Ken Griffey Jr. since I was a kid and I wanted to see him come back to Seattle. It was a beautiful day and a friend who also went to the game met up with me afterward (I crashed at his place) and on the way home, we ran into a mutual friend and went out for a beer with her at Pike Place Brewery. It was a perfect Northwest sort of day.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Thank you, MSNBC ...

I'm not entirely clear on how this got past the censors, except that this is what a movement is calling itself, and I'm aware that it stoops to the intellectual level of a 13-year-old boy, but I laughed my ass off.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Lazy Saturday

One of the things about unemployment is that you can either have a lot to write or absolutely nothing. The search for work can be an interesting job in itself, if you're willing and/or able to do anything, but if you're determined to work in a specific industry, the process of looking gets a tad monotonous.

After about two months of looking for work (I started the search around Feb. 5 — the day we had a union meeting to discuss the fact that we knew there would be layoffs and that my job was one of the ones most in danger), I finally got a few responses to resumes. I don't want to mention anything specific for fear of jinxing the process, but I do have at least one solid lead that I'm confident about. It's a paper on the west coast, which would be great. I've been in contact with some people from that paper all week and one was supposed to call me yesterday regarding an interview, but he didn't. Here's hoping they were just busy.

The other lead is less sure, but I got an e-mail from an editor telling me he was narrowing down who to interview. I know it wasn't a form e-mail because he referenced a very specific, personal part of my cover letter. That job would be farther away from the west coast but is close to some family.

If nothing else, I'm just happy to have gotten some response after all this time. I'm about to send out some more cover letters — I have to do three per week while I'm on unemployment — but I'm feeling a bit better. One thing's certain. The countdown to leaving Yakima has begun. I've given notice to be out of my apartment on May 3, and if I don't have a job by then, I'll be staying with my parents until I do. Knowing whether I have a job would make it easier to decide how to deal with my stuff (particularly if I have an offer from a place that will pay moving expenses), but the sure thing is that by the end of the month, I'll be off the hook for rent and utilities or moving somewhere where I have a steady paycheck and can take care of those things without stress.


Tonight I'm going to a party with a work friend and some of her friends. I met them last week at a fun party at this really cool farm house out in the country where they tried to teach me to Salsa. It was a fun time. It figures that right when I'm ready to move, I finally start meeting great people and feeling really comfortable with the friends I have made here. I've always considered myself to be someone who made friends easily, but it's been hard here. It was the first time I ever moved somewhere where I didn't know anyone (including when I went to D.C. for the summer) and I just felt like the new kid in school. I just didn't have the confidence to call people and invite them places, even when we were friends at work. I haven't felt like myself in a long time, and I hope that wherever I go next, that changes. I need to figure out how to make the most out of wherever I am and I hope I've learned to do that.