Unemployment Day 1

State of the Huntress

Drained.  Today is my first official day of unemployment (last day of work was Saturday, followed by 2 days of spending time with my family).  I knew the return to my parents’ home was coming, but didn’t expect it to be as wrenching as it was.  Much of Sunday was spent unpacking, which was really an excuse to be loud so that my parents couldn’t hear me crying.  I know empirically that lots of folk are having difficulty finding jobs now; that I’m extremely privileged to be able to rely on my parents; that I have a lot of resources at my disposal.  Yet it’s hard not to feel like a failure, like some horrible selfish person who has been wasting time and energy and oxygen for the past four years.

It also doesn’t help that my home life has never been particularly cheerful — we put the “fun” in dysfunction with a whole range of untreated mental/mood disorders, poor choices, spats, and Things We Don’t Talk About.  Being around my father brings out the worst in me (because in the end I am very much like him) and it’s hard to quash the urge to fight back even though I know it won’t be productive.

All of this leads to me feeling like I’m a better person when I’m not living here.   As it is, I’m just going to have to work hard to keep myself to a high standard so that I don’t go to bed every night feeling like my insides have been sandpapered.

I have a feeling I’ll be turning to this blog a lot more during my time here.  I seem to have effectively killed what readership I had with my hurried, not-very-thoughtful posts written while still employed; in retrospect, it’s clear that the launch of this blog was ill-timed.  But I’ll keep writing anyway while it still seems helpful.

Cave Scratches

For all the above groaning and gnashing of teeth, it was actually a fairly productive day today.  I’ve sent out 20 applications total, 2 of which were sent today. I’ve got 1 still in progress and 13 bookmarked for further consideration.  I spent the whole morning looking at listings, and the afternoon working on applications.

Listening To:

SJ Tucker, “Don’t Get My Hopes Up”

Plans:

Complete applications that need to be sent via snail-mail and bring them to the post office; check listings and make schedule for the rest of the week.   Start to draft to-do lists for long-term projects.

Wednesday/Thursday

State of the Huntress

Frazzled.  Lots to do before I leave.  Also, Roommate’s Boyfriend is here and is a little bit crazymaking.

Cave Scratches: 2 more jobs bookmarked, 1 rejection letter. Applications got put off yesterday because I had a work project that needed finishing; realistically, they probably will have to wait until I get settled back in Hometown.

Listening To:

“Flashdance,” Deep Dish

Plans:

work: cleaning up the office, working antiques show party

other: pack, sleeeeep

Tuesday

State of the Huntress

Exhausted.  Have been tired all the time, probably exacerbated by the slow pace of work this week.  Things are winding down, not a lot to do.  No adrenaline.

Cave Scratches

8 jobs bookmarked, some local to where I’m going next, some not.  Need to start applications tomorrow

Listening To:

Red and Black, Les Miserables

Plans:

work: paperwork, randomly assigned miscellany

other: celebratory end-of-internship drinks; applicationfest

Sunday/Monday

State of the Huntress

5 days to go in my current position.   Anxiety momentarily allayed by the epic cute that is Despicable Me (watched with Roommate this evening).   Favorite moment: “IT’S SO FLUFFY  I’M GONNA DIE!”

Cave Scratches:

17 applications out, 2 on the back burner.  Might not get to them until I’ve moved.

Listening To:

Lisa Loeb, “Sandalwood”

Plans:

work: paperwork/wrap-up, possible intern party

other: organizing/wrap-up

Saturday

State of the Huntress

Ugh.  Stuffed.  Dinner with Roommate and Roommate’s Mom.

Also, adventures on the high seas today.  The base site for my site shift is located right across from the city’s largest affordable housing unit.   As a result, we sometimes get people who clearly need some help that they aren’t getting.  This one was worse than usual.  He came in extraordinarily intoxicated, muttering about how he had “nothing to lose” and announcing that he was turning himself in for breaking the Open Container Law.  We were all a bit stunned, but decided that it was most important to get him out of the building, so we informed him that, actually, sir, this is a museum and the courthouse is next door.  He stumbled back down the steps and collapsed in front of the courthouse, at which point we called the proper authorities to get him some assistance.

( He was fine, incidentally.  We saw him later dancing down the street, apparently still quite drunk).

Listening To:

La Cour des Miracles, Notre Dame de Paris

Plans:

Visit to an area museum, reading (Rita Mae Brown, my recently-discovered guilty pleasure), and applications.  Maybe a little organization/packing.

Friday

State of the Huntress

Sleepy.  Late getting to bed last night (jaunversation* with Roommate, among other things)

Cave Scratches

3 potential jobs bookmarked; will look more closely at them when I’m less tired.

Plans

work: tour, site shift

other: catch up with the family, start organizing for the move

Friday Adoration

Emma Watson.  New haircut.  Hi.

Gorgeous.

* a protracted conversation about jauns**

** emotional issues

Thursday

State of the Huntress

Accomplished!  Knocked a lot of administrative stuff off my to-do list today, and got in a lot of fun to boot.

Cave Scratches

No applications today, just my daily trawls through my field’s major job sites.  Applications probably won’t happen until the weekend.

Listening To

“Look What You’ve Done” from Ragtime

Plans

work: site shift, more administrative/wrap-up

other: co-worker’s housewarming party, hanging out with Roommate and her mom

today in weird documents

Today’s weird documents are brought to you by broadsides. (Wikipedia entry).

Military commissions are an omnipresent form of broadsides, produced and signed in massive quantities — stop and  consider for a moment how many folks were commissioned in the U.S. military throughout the country’s history.  Yet they are some of the most beautiful, and also some of the most bizarre, run-of-the-mill documents produced by the government.

Army commissions, for starters.

Army Commission, Civil War Era

These guys, like many other official documents/proclamations, take a letter-like format, beginning with greetings and ending with a closing and signature.  The top engraving shows a more bellicose version of the Presidential seal, an eagle clutching arrows.

Presidential eagle clutching arrows

The bottom engraving, with its panoply of flags, bayonets, swords, cannons, and rifles, is probably meant to be impressive, but to me it just looks droopy and abandoned and a little bit sad.

The droopy bottom engraving

And then there are navy commissions.  Same idea, different engraving.  The presidential eagle is perched on a rock in the middle of the ocean, and at the bottom…well, I’ll just let you look at it for a moment.

Navy commission, 1902

Now the navy may be many things, but an underwater equestrian extravaganza complete with mermen and classically-draped ladies it is not.

\And that was my WTF, history? moment of the day.

Wednesday

State of the Huntress

Busy!  I only have 8 more workdays left and lots of wrap-up to do.  I’ve also been stepping up my applications after taking something of a break from them during the last week of July.

Cave Scratches

15 applications out, 4 on the back burner.  The two that went out today were both organizations I have visited before and am truly thrilled about.

For some reason, I have felt worse rather than better after my (objectively successful) interview on Monday.  I’m trying to figure out whether this is because (a). the reality that I might be moving far away is hitting my fear of change, (b.) there are logistical problems totally independent from my ability to perform the job that might get in the way, or (c.) some part of my brain is trying to prepare me for rejection.  Probably a mixture of all three.

Listening To: Simon and Garfunkel, “Baby Driver”.   Basic Huntress feel-good music.

Plans:

Work: site shift, administrative/wrap-up stuff

Other: Shakespeare reading at my favorite library in the world (whyyy do I have to leave?), more application, administrative/organization

Tuesday

State of the Huntress

Hurried.  Missed posting yesterday, mostly because I’ve discovered Virtual Apple][, which has Java versions of a whole bunch of Apple IIe games.   Nostalgiariffic!

Cave Scratches

13 applications out, 6 on the back burner (eliminated one after re-reading description).

Plans

Work: meeting, more papers

Other: applications, errands I didn’t do yesterday