A few weeks

It's been a long few weeks. Things have been going okay, don't get me wrong....but I seem to be alternating between being frustrated with my job and the direction I think it is (or, rather, isn't going in) and being fairly content. As a result, I've been probably a little testier than usual some days and, regrettably, a little short with Scientist.

I've also reached the point where I'm ready to move, I think. I like the town we live in well enough, but it's too small and during the winter especially I just get insane stir craziness. That, and honestly, I don't see a lot happening with my career here: cronyism and an permanently f-ed up state employment system have ensured that. My job isn't bad, I just don't see it going where I want it to for awhile.


The one nice, fairly recent, development I've mentioned a few times is some of the hobbies we've really gotten into over the past few months. Scientist has been brewing beer, as well as making yogurt and kefir. I've been baking, cooking, knitting....We're a regular Little House on the Prairie. It's kind of funny--I never EVER pictured myself as being domestic, but I love it. I like doing things that result in a product I can enjoy or spending time in nature. As cheesy as this sounds, I feel like it makes my heart swell. I feel content. Isn't that what life supposed to be about?

Spring

Spring always seems really insane: I think the stir-craziness everyone's been feeling all winter finally peaks in late March/early April, and, if we're lucky, the weather turns nice and people are able to break their solitariness, go outside and run around. Everyone seems to drive faster and smile more when the weather first turns nice.

Work at my newish job has been good, but super busy. It's not a perfect job--it pays so !*&^% little that I feel like I'm being taken advantage of--but I like my boss(es) generally and I like doing something in my field. If only it paid more and was a little less research-y and a little more...public-y. Alas, it is not my perfect job. I honestly doubt the perfect job exists in this state.

Actually, there's been a lot I've been thinking about in relation to both my job, the direction of Public Health and health care and where I think I fit into this giant fucking mess we've created/was created for us....but more on that at a different time, when I'm in a more reflective mood.

On a completely unrelated note, Sunday marked the third anniversary of my first date with Scientist. Who would've thought three years later we'd be married and living so far away from the town in which we met?

New Yawk and Other Trips Further East

Over Easter weekend Scientist and I made the short trip up to New York to see the city. I have been to a fair number of places, but somehow New York had been one of the places in the US I'd failed to see.

So, despite the face that we had just made a very expensive purchase, which we've had very little time to enjoy due both this trip and the work, we saddled up and headed out.

We saw pretty much everything we could have hoped to see in 3 days: the Brooklyn Bridge (on an extremely windy day no less), Wall Street, Soho (including PURL, where I bought some great yarn for my first sweater), Times Square, improv at The Upright Citizens Brigade and Central Park. I was really impressed at a) how clean the city was compared to other larger cities I've been to and b) how incredibly nice everyone was to us.

One of the highlights of our trip was our fabulous and elegant dinner at Gramercy Tavern. In addition to the great atmosphere and food (I had foie gras for the first time ever), the people watching was top notch. In fact, I heard the couple next to us get into a fight, which ended in the woman making a dramatic exit to the bathroom as her cheese course arrived. I felt bad for eavesdropping, but the temptation was just too great for me NOT to listen.

NYC was awesome--better than I expected, actually--and exhausting. I realize we didn't even come close to seeing all the things I wanted to see, so hopefully we'll be able to fit in another couple trips before we leave Morgantown.

In other travel related news, Scientist and I bought tickets this week to go see my dad in China next September. He'll be getting married, and while there won't be a formal ceremony, we decided this is a good time to go see him and meet his new wife. I'm excited, although the prospect of a non-stop 14 hour flight fills me with dread. Nevertheless, this will be an epic trip (we'll be gone 16 days) and I'm excited about seeing a country and experiencing a culture far removed from any of the other places/cultures I've ever seen.

Keen on Yarn

As any and all of you who are friends with me on Facebook know, in the last several months I've become obsessed with knitting. Maybe "obsessed" is strong word; let's say I've become keen on on it.

I don't know what it is about knitting I love so much. Maybe it's the idea that I've finally found something I can do that doesn't fill me with a sense of inadequacy like writing does (although nothing is more fulfilling than a good writing day), or studying Russian. Or perhaps it's ying/yang nature of knitting: one needs to be both methodical (pay attention to patterns, plan for how much yarn you need, etc) and creative at the same time (there are endless number of wacky things you can find patterns for on the internet). I suspect that what I love most about knitting is the yarn, though.

This is actually my second shot at knitting. I first attempted it when we moved here; I had no friends, we lived in a kinda shitty apartment, and I felt like I was watching way too much TV. That attempt was short lived--I lost interest and gave it up after a few weeks.

This time though, I think I'm going to stick with it. I started out making a blanket for Sophie, and then moved on to bookmarks (I sent my first one to my dad in China). Now, I'm making washcloths for my mother's new house and a friend's birthday, as well as a gorgeous checkerboard pattern type scarf for Scientist. People LOVE knitted gifts, and non-knitters and wanna be knitters seem to be uber appreciative of the time and effort it takes to make them a knitted gift.

When we head to New York at the end of the week I'm going to make my biggest purchase yet at Purl, a knitter's mecca located in Soho. I'm thinking it's time to make myself something, and that something will most likely be hoodie in the loveliest, richest shade of expensive purple yarn I can find.

Picking Up

After two weeks of sorta twiddling my thumbs, it looks as though I'm about to get very busy at work. Sitting around reading peer reviewed articles on every possible policy and intervention dealing with issue under study in my office is fine and all, but there comes a point where one gets bored. Really, really bored.

But that is no more! Er, won't be soon. I'm working on three different projects for two different teams of researchers, two of which are about to take off. It looks like, in addition to reading, I'll be doing some field work (doesn't that very Scully-like?) involving surveying college students, as well as going to rural health clinics in the area. The site visits should be really interesting; WV has some pretty backwater places, especially in the southern part of the state, and seeing that up close should be educational. And scary.

I have high expectations for this job. I hope I'm not disappointed.

On a completely unrelated note, it warms my heart that I'm not 'speaking' to a totally empty room when I post on this blog: thanks for adding yourself as a 'follower' DHP.

J.O.B.

So, for those of you not on Facebook (and thus not privy to my every movement through status updates), or who haven't yet received a personal e-mail from me, I started my new job on Monday.

Things are good so far: everyone has been extremely nice, I work down the hall from everyone I worked with as a graduate student (so I know practically everyone on our floor already), and I haven't had much of a problem adjusting to an 8 hour work day....Okay that's not entirely true. I work an 9 hour work day because at around 11:30 every day I go work out with Scientist, making my day longer as I have to stay later for taking a long lunch. This makes my day seem really long by the time 5 rolls around, but I'm glad I can work out during the day--it makes me more productive in the afternoon, when I have a serious energy slump.

Anyway. I don't really have an idea of what my work load is really going to be like yet; my boss and other people I work with are actually out of town this week, and won't be back until Monday. I was told that come Monday things are really going to start 'movin'. Whatever that means. I'm okay with that though, I would much rather have stuff to do than be super bored, as I was during my graduate assistantship.

What I did with those two years

Thursday, I submitted my background check to my future place of employment. If you've ever done this (which, I actually have--I was fingerprinted and thoroughly checked out before I left for Ukraine), it's a little unnerving, no matter how clean one's record is. I didn't even have to submit that much information: just my social security information and the addresses of every place I've lived in the last 7 years. I hate this sort of thing not because I have anything to hide, but because it is SO annoying. Especially if you've, say, spent a significant portion of time overseas and have to explain to someone why it would a giant pain in everyone's ass for you to write down every address you've lived at ( a) they're in Russian, and b) I don't remember all of them and c) if you want a really good picture of what type of citizen I was thru 2005, its easier to check with the Peace Corps office in Kyiv than with the local police department in a small town in southern Ukraine). It always sounds like you're lying or hiding something.

This is actually something I run into frequently: having to explain my Peace Corps service and all it entailed to people who haven't spent any/ a lot of time in a developing country. I had a less than idyllic Peace Corps service: I started out my service with a giant, painful cyst in my ear which I had to have removed (after 2 operations I'm finally okay); I had a very difficult time with the administration at my school; I moved a bunch because of a bad landlord or two; I had put up with some seriously childish, asshole-like behavior on the part of other volunteers(think re-living high school in a bubble); and I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder 3 months after arriving home (I didn't tell anyone about the anxiety while I was in Ukraine for fear of being sent home). It sucked. Not everything, and not the whole two years, but a significant proportion of it.

So, when I try to explain why I moved four times in a year, or why I don't consider Peace Corps the best time of life, or why I don't even bring it up right away when I meet people, it's hard. I don't want to scare anyone off from trying the Peace Corps, or, God forbid, traveling/living overseas, but I don't want to lie and say everything was sunshine and roses. It wasn't: but not for the reasons that most people think (no heat, intermittent water, frigid weather, etc.). How do you explain that? I don't play the "poor me" violin and ask for pity. I just want to put the bad parts behind me completely and forget about it sometimes, which is difficult when I have to constantly talk about the circumstances surrounding my service whether in an interview or filling out a background check.

JOB!

I done gotten myself offered a job! Okay, I actually received a "contingency offer"; meaning, my offer is contingent on me passing a background check. God willing, I will pass said background check and then my ass will be employed!! YAY!

I will be working on a tobacco cessation project. Actually, there are two projects I'll be working on: one is smokeless tobacco intervention and the other is a smoking cessation project for pregnant smokers.

I'm super excited. It could definitely pay better, but its in my field and my future boss is a master grant writer, who, hopefully, will impart some wisdom and experience on me and teach me how to write an awesome grant. Researchers love people who can write grants and get them money. Love. It.

Cranky

Reasons why I'm pissed:

1. The economic stimulus package: I'm unemployed and, if/when the SP is passed, I will be (hopefully) working in a field that benefits enormously from it and is STILL PISSES ME OFF. What a huge waste of money.

2. Unemployment: I supposedly live in the city with the lowest unemployment rate in the country....So, where's my job, biatch?

3. Having to avoid the woman at Starbucks who, for no reason, scolded me for reading 'A Year of Living Biblically'. I see her all the time now, and, because I'm a nice person who was raised with manners (unlike SOME people), I feel like I need to say hello and exchange niceties with her.

4. My former adviser.

5. My mom hurt her back.

6. I'm about to be offered a job that pays crap. Seriously. Like, imagine what you might think would be normal for someone in my field with a Master's degree and experience, and then lower it. Lower. Lower. That's about right.

7. I'm ambivalent about children.

8. It's February.

9. Next month will be March.

10. I LIVE IN WEST VIRGINIA FOR GOD'S SAKES.

Fingers Crossed

I had a second interview on Tuesday for one of the jobs I applied for a few weeks ago. It went really really well. I gave some great answers about why I was interested in the job and why I got into Public Health, and the women I was interviewing with (the boss women) seemed to take quite a liking to me. I kept emphasizing that I wanted to become more familiar with the grant writing process, as look at how Public Health policy can work to improve the overall well being of communities in need, which they seemed to really like (who doesn't want an employee to VOLUNTEER to help write a grant that will get you federal money?). Towards the end of the interview they really started talking in concrete terms: what I would be doing, as well as the work environment, etc. A good sign, for sure.

When I e-mailed both of them yesterday I was told they both enjoyed meeting me, enjoyed my enthusiasm and I would be "hearing from them very soon". Now, either they are playing a cruel mean joke on me and I won't hear anything, or I've got it. The second interview seemed almost like a formality; the first interview was really the "vetting process" and I managed to somehow impress the first set of women who interviewed me the first time.

The only thing that isn't so great about this job is the pay. It sucks. I mean, really. I don't think I'm unreasonable in my salary expectations: I have a Master's degree and 3 years of public health experience (1 1/2 of which was overseas). But this pays nothing....The one up-side to all this is, the review process through the university is frequent and the pay increase is "significant" (or so I was told by another employee). Still, the starting pay is about $10 K less than I envisioned. All jobs here pretty much pay poorly, and I'm getting a job in the recession, so I'm trying to be positive about it. A job, is ultimately a job, and I can always keep looking.

Good things

Good news! I got a call for a second interview on Friday for the position I interviewed for a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, I have to wait a week; my interview isn't until a week from Tuesday, but I'm feeling good about this. I'm trying not to get too excited, I mean, there is a possibility that I won't get this position. I still want to apply for another position that actually pays more, has more responsibility and will be a better "resume builder", but given the state of the economy and the fact I live in an area that is not so flush with great jobs I may just end up taking what I can get, you know? I hate settling, but I may have to do that and keep my eyes open. If I can get this position and get some experience with grant writing I will be in very good shape for the next place we move.

I really need to find a job--I'm starting to run out of things to do. I hate saying that because inevitably someone always says [insert stupid voice here], "I wish I was unemployed....I'd love to just lay around and stuff..." The problem is, rarely does unemployment accompany a windfall of money and/or the promise of a job (and therefore more money)in the immediate future. Don't get me wrong: Scientist has a good job and we're not hurting, but I hate feeling like I'm not contributing something financially. Plus, I'm bored. How much can one knit, read, cook, watch bad TV and play with one's cat?

A Glimmer of Hope

Not two days after I last posted about my frustration with not finding a job, I received a call asking me to come in for an interview. This position is with some people I know of, but don't actually "know" per se (as in, I'm sure the boss would recognize me right off the bat, but not necessarily know my name). I was encouraged to say the least.

The interview went well, but I could not get a read from the people conducting it. I hate that--I pride myself on picking up non-verbal cues and trusting my instinct (that comes from traveling: you learn to trust your 'gut' about people and places so not as to run into trouble), but I couldn't tell how well I was doing with either of them.

I must have done fairly well, because, when I emailed one of the interviewers later they said I would be hearing from them about a second interview (they'll be interviewing the top 3 candidates) by the end of this week. Now, when I read the email to Scientist he said it definitely sounded like I would be hearing from them. However, given my past experience I was a little wary of reading into anything.

The problem is I've applied to 3 other jobs, two of which I KNOW a) pay better, b) have more responsibility and c) will look way better on a resume. I've already gone in and talked to one person about one of the jobs (which should be posted on the HR website today), and have a feeling that I'll get an interview (we just met to talk about the position because someone in my department recommended me for the position that's about to go open). The thing is, getting just to the interview part might take forever--the job has to be posted two weeks, then they have to sort through the applications, do interviews, do second interviews....I'm thinking, realistically, IF I got through the second set of interviews it would be late February. The employers of the job I just interviewed for will already have long ago made up their mind. So, I don't know...

I guess this is all a moot point--I don't know for 100% I'll get a second interview or that I'll even get this job. And the other job--who knows? I hate being in limbo, but what am I gonna do?

Unemployment

So, like I've said before, I just graduated almost exactly a month ago and thus far I've had little luck in the job department. It's frustrating, for obvious reasons, but also because I actually have a good amount of solid experience in my field both here and abroad (not to mention a lot of other work experience in teaching etc.)

Right before Thanksgiving I had an interview which went super well. The interviewer (who, I'm pretty darn sure actually made the hiring decisions) said to me, "Well, once you graduate, if you're interested in this position, we can see what we can do", and then, not 5 minutes later the other person sitting in on the interview told me (after they showed me around and introduced me to everyone who worked in the department) "We will definitely be giving you a call." I found out two weeks later they offered the position to someone else.

Now, I'm not going to take this personally (really), but why ya gotta go building my hopes up like that when you don't know for sure you can hire me?! "We'll definitely be giving you a call"?! That's a total tease.

I'm not yet at the position where I'm completely frustrated. I realize I just graduated. I realize we just got past the holiday season and no one hires right before the beginning of the year. I understand this is a terrible economy to be looking for a job in, but.....I have a feeling there are other reasons why I'm not getting calls back and they have nothing to do with me, my education, or experience. And I'm not going into them on a public forum like this. Not yet at least...

A fresh start

A lot of people think making resolutions is lame. I love them: resolutions make feel a renewed sense of hope, which is generally the kick in the ass I need given that they're made during one of the most miserable times of year. I also have a thing with lists (I get this from my mother, for sure), which also love because I have an overwhelming need to organize, organize, organize.

So, without further ado, here are (some of) my resolutions for 2009.

1. Work up to getting 200 minutes of cardio per week and lifting weights (for both upper and lower body) twice per week.

2. Start studying my Russian again (after a 3 year break!).

3. Stick with my knitting—including starting and finishing an “advanced” knitting project.

4. Be better about getting cards out to people for birthdays and Christmas.

5. Keep my blog at least reasonably updated. (Ahem)

6. Find a job!

Changes

I know in the past, oh, year and a half or so I've been really bad about posting updates on this blog. And, I know that I always seem to offer up some lame excuse about why I haven't been posting, but this time, I have a really good reason for not updating this blog for four months....For real.

I graduated last month with my Master's degree in Public Health. The last half of the semester was very trying to say the least; I was having problems with my program that I won't get into here, plus I was writing my 60 page thesis type paper thingy.

Right now I'm looking for a job. Needless to say, with the economy the way it is I'm pretty sure it's going to be awhile until I actually find something in my field that doesn't pay a few dollars a week. In the mean time, I'm going to try to entertain myself with various projects: painting all three of our bathrooms, going to a local Russian conversation circle, reading, and knitting (my newest love). And updating this blog--I'm going to make this a priority (I love writing and I have friends all over the country so why not make this a regular way of keeping in contact with people?). I'm even thinking of making some major changes. I need to mull this all over first, however.