Category Archives: Post-Grad Life

Gone Huntin’ – Fall Edition

 

Currently in the same position I found myself in about a year ago: unemployed. There’s been minimal room for moping around and optimal time spent figuring out exactly what it is I want to do with my life. Without dwelling too much into the nitty gritty – if you know of a cool digital gig, hit your girl up.

Besides the obvious here (my current state of excessive job hunting) – my newfound free time has allowed me to explore my new neighborhood. Yes, it’s true. The middle-bird has flocked the nest and landed in the distant territory known as Brooklyn and I’ve been a resident for about a month or so.

There’s been impressively good weather this past week. Considering the chaotic shitstorm that mother nature subjected us to for the past few months, it’s nice to see her giving us all a solid favor with the 60+ degrees and sun. That being the case, I’ve been trying my best to not confine myself to the potential doldrums which excessive amounts of time in my apartment would create.

Early this week I opted to take a two hour sanity break. Being new to the area, it felt best to use this time towards urban exploration. Part of the process included a stroll down the Eastern Parkway and the ultimate quest – actually stepping foot in Prospect Park. Boy did she not upset. That place is simply beautiful. I am, of course, relatively biased in this observation seeing as my ideal dream land is similar to the that in the opening sequence in The Sound of Music (best version I could find…) and the Long Meadow. I found myself completely overcome with excitement at the sight of an open, sprawling, hilly lawn, surrounded by trees sprinkled with newly minted foliage. This quickly led to me collapsing to the ground in joy and 20 or so minutes of breathing in the fresh autumnal air.

Alas, there wasn’t enough time to devote to proper photography of my new favorite place on the planet or to explore the park further, as I had to return home to the ultimate hunt – finding a job.

(photo from http://www.inetours.com/New_York/Brooklyn/photos/Long_Mdo.html)

Operation: Get Real

Yes, I’ve finally decided to name my job search – Operation: Get Real seemed like the most appropriate moniker for my life these days. This morning I woke up with a rejuvenation and desire to stop being a bum because I will not find a job from the confines of my comfy bed!

As a result, I now find myself at my local library in a cubicle searching for social media, blogging, editing, promotions, and PR gigs within a 20-or-so mile radius to my home. There are a lot of positions of this nature in my general area so I decided to make a brief list of requirements (for lack of a better word) that I would like to see in my future job… Some attributes include job security, proximity to home, opportunity for growth, work with other people, team environment, and so forth.

Here’s to seeing if my list of expectations helps me as I go forward in my job search.

Ground Rules

Okay I was talking a big game yesterday when I expressed my frustrations over knowing what is essentially useless knowledge – i.e. American Idol drama, celebrity baby mama drama, which reality star is in cahoots with another, etc. etc.

The point of removing myself from gossip related “news” sources is for a completely selfish purpose. Like I said, I am tired of knowing things that don’t really matter in the greater scheme of things. CNN has always been my homepage since I first bought my laptop four years ago, however, I incidentally find myself continuously bypassing their bylines and heading to my “Gossip” bookmarks (10 sites… EEEEK) and get my daily fix of scandals.

I mentioned in my previous entry that I’m going to stray away from Twitter and Facebook – let me now amend that. I spent some time today considering what the rules should be in regards to my social media presence and decided that if I see something I want to comment on, instead of doing it via my Facebook/Twitter account, I’ll call that friend and let them know what ever snarky, witty comment that I would have made online. There’s really nothing but goodness to come out of this – I’ll end up spending more hard time with my friends instead of soft time. I’m the worst when it comes to communicating with my friends, so hopefully this will have a positive effect on the relationships with my peeps.

This isn’t my first time stepping back from the gossip world, when I was on Semester at Sea the only sites we had free access to were The New York Times and Wikipedia – needless to say I learned a lot about the recession (it was the fall of 2008) and endless information via Wikipedia’s “Random article” button (God bless that button, I still use it now). It took me a few weeks to figure out that Britney had her life back together, among other gossipy related things from 2 years ago (clearly the return of Britney Spears was the most poignant). It’s time to remember what it’s like knowing valuable knowledge.

I have predetermined my online news sources: New York Times, CNN, Time Magazine, BBC, and the Los Angeles Times (just to mix things up)

The goal is to do this for a month. If I try and read a gossip site (or watch a Hollywood show)  I must drop to the ground and do some sort of physical activity i.e. 10 push ups, or 100,000 crunches. Hopefully at the end of the month, I’ll be filled with good knowledge and have some sick abs.

Anyone else down for the journey?

Post Grad Update

Did anyone happen to catch the season 7 finale of Entourage?? I’m supposed to write a solid review on it – mostly just my thoughts about what happened and what not but that last episode has left my mind all aflutter. The episode was like stepping in the mind of an ADHD ridden 10th grader and at the end Vince got his ass beat. Needless to say it’ll take me some time to compose my thoughts. Be sure to check out my thoughts later this week on Player Affinity.

Anyhoo – my internship has ended and I presently find myself in the midst of a mini-quarter life crisis. Did I go to school for the right thing? Am I going to find a job? Should I go to grad school right now? For that matter, should I go to grad school at all?

So many unanswerable questions!

Well, that’s a lie. My thoughts obviously have answers, I just am incapable of figuring everything out right this minute and that irritates the you-know-what out of me (I’m practicing refraining from cursing, how’m I doing so far?)

I definitely want to go to grad school – I effing love learning. I love the process of learning, I love interacting with others on an intellectual basis, reading materials which I probably wouldn’t even fathom of taking on by myself, and a slew of other reasons…

The whole reason I got into this grad-school kick today was because I went to an interview and left the meeting unhappy – upset to the point where I almost cried during our conversation. I’m not a complete whack-job, I’m actually pretty good at doing interviews, most likely because I’m very comfortable talking to complete strangers, ha. The almost-tears were a result of this frustration that’s beginning to build inside of me. – Am I ever going to find a job? Let alone, a job that I actually like?

Errghh.

Some Habits Never Die

I was preparing some dinner for myself tonight when it hit me – I am in a love affair with carbohydrates – particularly pasta.

We’re going to completely disregard the fact that I’m of Italian descent and was basically raised with a tomato flavored pacifier. What better time than now to realize that the year that I spent living on my own consisted of a very simple diet – a bountiful amount of good alcohol, and an equally large sum of dirt cheap food. It’s clear that my caloric priorities did not include incredibly healthy cuisine options (for that I raided my roommates rations – yes, I ate the hummus before AND after break, just kidding).

What’s not to like about pasta – especially at 89 cents per box? I quickly learned that anything is good with pasta. A few of the pasta fusion dishes I concocted included beets, chickpeas, mushed chickpeas, green beans, stewed tomatoes, garlic powder, steak… The sky is literally the limit when it comes to pasta accompaniments – and that is one of the beautiful results of combining olive oil, a writer’s imagination, and a collegian’s budget.

My eating options have certainly changed since returning home – mostly because I live with my parents and they can afford to buy me some awesome healthy options. Today, however, was different. I veered past all the vegetables, and organic alternatives that I force my mom to buy. Today, I craved pasta; nay, I yearned to consume the succulent wholesomeness that comes out of tube shaped wheat and flour.

While I’m happy that I no longer need to survive on such options of dubious health benefits, it was certainly great to come home and see my old friend inside the cabinet. Just in case you were wondering, I opted for a more traditional route and used real sauce for my pasta. And, true to form, had the requisite spill.

It’s August…

This means that all of the undergrads out there in the world are currently overpaying for text books (a lesson learned the hard way), hitting up Target for some cool, inexpensive decorations and linens, finishing out their summer jobs before the school year starts and so on.

Us college graduates admire your pain as you struggle over the right color towel sets and shower caddies – how you agonize over whether or not you’ll have friends in your classes or if your roommates will suck.

Augusts are simple – routine even, so to not be engaging in the usual “back to school” Costco runs, Amazon perusing, or other pre-September anxieties which happened in years past is particularly unsettling… we’re treading through unchartered territory folks!

Routines are hard to kick, especially if you’ve spent roughly 80% of your life doing the same thing every August. What does one do to try and change such a ritual of this nature? I’ve written before about developing new “adult-like” hobbies, but I don’t think that’ll fill the void many of us are presently experiencing.

A simple way to fill this post-collegiate emptiness would be to get a job. In that case it’ll be the exact same as a back to school routine – buying the coolest clothes, worrying about whether or not you’ll fit in with your co-workers, figuring out where the cool kids sit and if you in fact can be categorized as such…

Sadly, I have yet to find a full time position so I’ve come up with a great way of feeding this back-to-school monster — job searching.

A New Scale

Life after college is one filled with these immense, powerful, overly potent questions. The majority of them more or less pertain to having this sort of post-educational existential crisis of some sorts. All of them, though, seem to metastasize like some disease and consume your thoughts – at least that’s what happens for me.

Some of the questions my friends and I discuss are based off of where we’re going in life, finding a purpose, finding jobs, transitioning from a full-time student to a full-time employee and so forth. All these questions, though, are based around trying to find a new resolve all while not compromising ourselves and trying to mature/advance or what have you.

I have created a rather black and white scale for how I will measure my success in for the next few months – it’s called the Regression/Progression scale and I’m starting to push it into my friends’ subconscious like the movie Inception.

The premise behind Regression/Progression is simple. When you’re thinking about making a decision, it is important to envision whether or not this is a choice you would make as an 18 year old, recently released from the confines of your parents, doing stupid crap every day, college freshman, or a 22 year old goal oriented, learning from your mistakes, looking for more in life, college graduate.

This new system works for both social matters as well as professional ones. A slide show of examples are flowing through my head, however, the majority of them would call me and my friends out on the debauchery that occurred in the four plus years (eek!!) prior to this mid-grade enlightenment and I’m not at the phase in life where burning bridges is my top priority.

What do you see yourself doing in your post-graduate life? What kind of career do you see yourself in? Are you looking towards going back to school and finding a new career path? What are your thoughts! Holla at me!