Tuesday, September 16, 2014

that transitional time.

hey kids!

it's been a while.

like, too long. way too long.

today's post is about TRANSITIONS.

... i am not good at them.

when i came back from studying abroad in england and the bus that was supposed to take me back to indiana was an hour late, i cried on the phone with my mother at the chicago airport. when the bus finally came and i saw that it was driving on the right side of the road, i screamed really loudly and had a bunch of people stare at me, and then i proceeded to hug my knees and cry silently until the bus dropped me off at a mcdonalds where my parents were meeting me. the next day when i drove to target i drove down the wrong side of the road for a good two hundred feet where i almost hit a truck.

transition is not my strong suit.

i have, however, learned that i can handle it. sometimes.

it was a transition moving back from alma. it's now the middle of september and i'm still like, "lol when i do move back to alma?" and then i'm like "lol never" and then i get sad for a long time and i have to watch my embarrassing TV show on an illegal website until i'm not sad again.

my netflix logged me out. you know, the netflix i was bumming from a friend of my ex boyfriend's? his username was sam sucks cock and i was using it illegally for like, three years, so it was about time it logged me out. (i didn't transition into life without netflix very well either but i'm too poor to pay for it myself.)

here's how my summer routine looked:

1. sleep in way too late
2. realise i had to go into work at kroger
3. hate my life
4. go to work at kroger for eight hours
5. hate my life even more while at work
6. go home and go to bed
7. buy useless shit at target on my days off to fill the empty void in my life that came with working at kroger

working at kroger wasn't the best thing for me. i've blogged about anxiety before and needless to say, kroger made me hella anxious. one day at work i had an anxiety attack which turned into a full body convulsion. my manager, rather than check to see if i was okay, asked me if i had seen any broccoli crowns.

my brother picked me up and i went home early.

the next day, i had so much anxiety about going back to work that i had another anxiety attack. it took me an hour to pluck up the courage to call in sick. when i explained why i wouldn't be coming in, i then got lectured for twenty minutes (after being on hold for ten) about how it wasn't acceptable for me to call in sick because of anxiety.

so i put in my two weeks and told kroger to kiss my ass.

the day that i called in sick and i spent the day dealing with my anxiety, i got a call about an internship that i had applied for and i got it.

I GOT AN INTERNSHIP!

... an internship that paid considerably less than kroger. so nobody was pleased that i quit kroger to make less money.

but whatever, i was happy and i had two weeks to myself. which i spent seeing my cousins, going to the pool, writing weird poetry, learning how to knit, and visiting adam before he left for his junior year at alma.

my internship is at wunderkammer company, which is a really cool hipster art gallery downtown that used to be a restaurant. its mission is to revitalise communities through contemporary art. myself and seven other interns are working around the clock to conduct the largest creative sector census in the nation.

if you make a living doing something creative, whether that's art, any type of writing, web design or computer programming, anything CREATIVE and you live in the fort wayne area, click here. it's a five minute survey and helps us out TONS.

so that's been fun. i get to hang out in the art gallery and run wunderkammer's social media and work with really cool people and i get to wear cool hipster clothes and stuff.


like, it's just a really neat building.

so during those two weeks where i wasn't doing that much and having my own little private summer vacation, i had to start job hunting again.

places that i applied at:

1. starbucks
2. target
3. YMCA
4. half price books
5. barnes and noble

places that i heard back from: NONE. ZIP. ZILCH. ZERO.

one day my cousin jessica came over and she was like, OMG THERE'S A JOB FAIR AT IPFW WE SHOULD GO and i was like, THAT SOUNDS LEGIT and so i picked out an interview worthy outfit and i updated my resume and i dusted off my high heels to make my calves look intimidating.

my resume, though updated, is still really, really sad. it's basically like "lolz i have a bachelor's degree in english hire me plz"

the job fair, in short, was terrifying. there were like, four hundred people there, kroger was there, and all of the jobs were for like... recycled metals conglomerates and computer programmers. i don't do well in large crowds of people and i lost my cousin and my brother and i tottered around in my heels clutching my folder full of fifty copies of my resume, trying to pretend like i knew what i was doing and where i was going. i gave my sad resume to a lady representing early childhood alliance with the assurance that although i didn't have a degree in early childhood education, i really liked kids.

she called me back a week later and offered me an interview.

my mom was like, "oh emily, you're so marketable!"

when she told me that, i was eating a bowl of popcorn in my pyjamas and watching MTV on my computer. hire me. i'm so ambitious.

the day that early childhood alliance called me and offered me an interview, dan, my boss at my wunderkammer internship, sent me and email that was like, SO I SEE YOU QUIT YOUR JOB AT KROGER HERE'S A PART TIME JOB YOU SHOULD APPLY FOR I HOPE THAT'S NOT WEIRD THAT I CREEPED ON YOUR FACEBOOK AND SAW YOU WERE UNEMPLOYED

not at all. not creepy. totally not.

it was a morning receptionist job at new american youth ballet and conservatory. i wrote a fancy cover letter about how my experience as a swim coach and as a resident assistant made me fully capable of answering phones and dealing with unruly children and stressed out ballet parents. i agonised over it for like, three hours. like, how does working at kroger help me be a receptionist?

"my time slaving in the back of kroger and washing broccoli prepared me to work at a ballet company. i can fulfill your produce needs."

i got an interview on one of the hottest days of the summer and spent an hour sweating my ass off sitting in a nice office with a woman named wendy, who had a fierce pixie cut and told me my nose ring was really cool but i should probably go back to a stud because some of the students came from conversative families. she offered me a second interview and asked me a lot of questions about my bearded dragon.

the next day i had my interview at early childhood alliance. i wore the exact same outfit (different underwear i swear) and sweated my way downtown. i was greeted with screaming children and an unhappy receptionist.

to be honest, i didn't even know what job i was interviewing for. i hadn't applied and their website hadn't been helpful.

a nice woman named sherry took me into a room and there were four people waiting for me. all of them had pieces of paper and looked tired. i sat down with my little resume folder and sherry said, "we're all going to be interviewing you, i hope that's okay."

uhhhhh. sure. i'm just totally panicking now.

halfway through the interview, one of the directors told me that my three years' experience as an RA didn't count as real employment. then she asked me what i had my bachelor's degree in.

AND THEN I FORGOT WHAT I HAD MY DEGREE IN. LIKE, I ACTUALLY FORGOT WHAT I WENT TO COLLEGE FOR.

when i finally remembered i laughed awkwardly and said, "sorry, i'm just really nervous!" giggle giggle giggle don't cry giggle giggle.

after the interview sherry thanked me and had me fill out an actual application, which i did by hand, and i didn't have enough room to write my small essay about my disciplinary plans for three year old children because i have huge ugly monster handwriting that nobody can read.

that night my family was like, OMG HOW WAS YOUR INTERVIEW and i was like, LOL I FORGOT WHAT I GOT MY DEGREE IN and my family was like, EMILY YOU SUCK UGH

and then

EARLY CHILDHOOD ALLIANCE CALLED ME AND OFFERED ME THE JOB.



(don't even ask about the gif.)

i told them i'd think about it and then i went to my second interview for the receptionist job at the youth ballet. i put in my nose stud and met the owner of the ballet company and the academic director, because it's also an academic school for children with extraordinary schedules.

they offered me the job on the spot and i took it.

YAYYY!

after the fiasco that was my interview at early childhood alliance, i didn't feel bad calling them and telling them i wasn't going to accept their job offering. i then learned that i was the only person who applied for the job and i felt kinda bad, but not really.

my receptionist job at new american youth ballet rocks. wendy, who's my boss, is really laid back, really funny, and brought in a kuerig for office use. now i'm addicted to cheap caramel macchiatos. i sit at a desk and do fun administrative stuff, answer phones in a happy voice, enrol cute kids in ballet classes, and make sure the academic students don't get too loud when they're on study breaks.

they all call me mrs. hollenberg (i don't bother to remind them i'm not married), hunt crickets in the lobby with me, and teach me about ballet. this morning i learned how to do a plie and one of the advanced ballet students told me that i should probably never, ever decide to start ballet lessons.

i'm kind of an adult. i have to be at the ballet at seven thirty every morning, so i go to bed at ten and get up at six fifteen. i make my morning coffee at work, enter financial transactions, call companies, and make ten bucks an hour, which is about four dollars more than i got paid at kroger. i have more time at home to do things like blog, play with hamlet, and go to wunderkammer on thursdays and fridays to intern.

it's a pretty good gig.

making this transition hasn't been that bad.

but at the same time, a bunch of my friends are getting engaged, have full time jobs, are living in apartments, and going to grad school to save the world and cure cancer and stuff.

and i'm awkwardly living at home, taking too many selfies with my bearded dragon, and still having my mom cook for me.

well, you can't have everything in life.

i have a job that i like, and that's a good start, isn't it?

i leave you with this gif of squidward ballet dancing. because i work at a ballet school now.