For Boston, For Boston, We Sing Our Proud Refrain! For Boston, For Boston...

- Dropkick Murphy's

Three universities in one day was my accomplishment yesterday. If anyone is paying attention, you will realize that I had two interviews yesterday: one at Berklee and one at BC. Both were for entry-level "higher education" jobs that are not my top priority, but they have some things I AM looking for that make them viable options if things don't work out the way I plan on the job front.

The job at Berklee is in the Registrar's Office and as of last Thursday turned into two different job options: Administrative Assistant and Content Manager. The latter was only approved last week and I learned of the split at the beginning of the interview. So who knows where we're going with that.

The job opening in BC is at the Students Support Services office, doing some work for financial aid officers.

Both are low-paying but have good benefits (although BC is more of a benefit to me because I could potentially take graduate level courses for free and earn a masters degree). The real downside is the fact that they are in Boston, I don't have a car, and the commute by train takes anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to about 2 hours (depending on which school you're going to). Damn, it stinks to be poor! (although my commute would only be lessened to 1 hour if I could drive.)

In other news, I spent the evening at MIT with Andrew, thoroughly enjoying his Blue's Clues memo pad holder and trying to avoid some guy named Dave who went to Penn with us and was a member of PiLam (I don't really know why, but it just seemed the right thing to do at the time). I also got a free meal at Legal Sea Foods (who was I to argue?), which I was led to believe is a Boston staple. I think the impression Andrew was trying to give me was, "How the hell could you never have eaten at a Legal Sea Foods, you socially inadequate lout! How DARE YOU take on the name of Masshole??!!!" I got the point and ate my chowda' like a starving Somali child with a hollow little Buddha belly (did I mention that my only meal that day was a grande capuccino at Starbucks?).

Speaking of Starbucks, my Anthony was less than pleased when I called to tell him that the hottest guy I've seen in a while is working at the Starbucks near Berklee's campus, on the corner of Mass Ave and Boylston Street. It is very likely that he is a Berklee student and I have no intention of teaching a younger man anything about the wonders of the female sex, but I think I managed to hurt Anthony's feelings when I told him I had fallen in love and was running away with a young, dark-haired Starbucks employee. Ooops.

What can I say? I have no other friends to gossip with... Although Christy and I DO agree on the utter HOTNESS of Christian Bale (or, as Anthony likes to put it, "that American Psycho guy"). However, he will just have to be content at number ten on my cheat sheet (preceded by, in no particular order: Ty Pennington, Owen Wilson, Tom Welling (Smallville, anyone?), Orlando Bloom (but only as an elf - I have a "thing," if you will, for elves; Ron Livingston, Michael Vartan, Johnny Depp, Henry Rollins, and Clive Owen).

Please don't ask me what a cheat sheet is. If you don't have a deal with your significant other for a free ride every once in a while (no pun intended), you're not working hard enough to keep the passion alive.

I must say though, that the cheat sheet is highly amusing to me. I keep track of a number of my friends' cheat sheets and there is more than one amusing entry. I will list a few here:

• Paul Ruebens (yes, THAT IS PEE-WEE HERMAN! And NO, that is not a joke!)
• The Dell Computer guy
• David Bowie AND Iman (it's a two-fer!)
• Ozzy Ozbourne, but only from the Black Sabbath Days
• Matthew Perry when he was on prescription painkillers ONLY
• (and my personal favorite, the ever "charming") Darth Vader

And with that, I have family visiting and must go.

Been There, Done That

I. CONQUERED. A MOUNTAIN. Yes, my dearest friends, I conquered Mt. Grace, a thunderstorm, some hail, a field of rabid cows (and one rabid baby moo-moo), and a 1/2 mile of MA-78 (that's what happens when you choose to go the wrong way on a trail). My work here is done.

Now tomorrow, it's off to conquer Boston's subway sytem, a.k.a. "The T." All in the name of job-hunting. If all goes well, I'll see both the Berklee College of Music and Boston College. Maybe even Andrew. Who knows! I'm just so full of surprises!!!

Take My Advice for It

Those of you who like music, I advise you to check out Spencer Day. He's local to California, but he has CDs you can buy. The style of music would probably fall in a softer category - much like Martin Sexton or Damien Rice.

Go ahead, check it out - you won't lose a thing!

My New Hobby

Lately I've been doing this crazy thing: sleeping. As in ALL THE TIME. I have never slept so late, or so much, since...since...since before I can remember! It's truly amazing how difficult it can be to pry one's eyes open at 8 - 9 - or even 10AM. It wasn't all that long ago when I couldn't sleep past 7AM to save my life, and just the other day I didn't even surface from my room until 11AM.

Well, actually, that is a lie. I woke up at 9:30, discovered a migraine as I trudged to the kitchen for breakfast, and turned around and crawled into bed with my mom until 11. (Yes, all you crazy kids heard me right - WITH MY MOM! Take that, Michael Jackson!)

So that's my life in a nutshell. Most of my life since returning home has centered around driving my mom to Dunkin Donuts for her large cream, with a dash of iced coffee. Yeah, and the desperate attempts to find myself a job.

In fact, I went to an interview on Wednesday with the most unimpressive, yet demanding man I ever met. He grilled me on my ability to use HTML and type formulas into Excel for over an hour (despite the fact that the Temp Agency vets everyone they send out on job interviews and wouldn't have sent me if I didn't score well on their stupid little tests), and then got pissed off when I asked what salary range they were affording the permanent position (it was a temp to perm job) and what the company benefits were. He actually said to me, "Well, we just kind of threw this together last week and we haven't really figured out a salary," and then went on for about fifteen minutes in the vein of "we'll be sure to tell you when we figure that out, but gosh darn, we just don't know our ass from our face right now."

My mom told me that I should have told him that I knew that I would be good at the job and the only reason I came to the interview at all was to see if he and his company were good enough for me, but I hear that is not the best way to get a job or suck up to your temp agency. And then my mom actually forbade me to take the job if it were offered. I have two things to say to that: 1) How old am I, ten? I wouldn't take the job anyway, and 2) Excuse me?!

In any case, I am still unemployed, but I have two interviews this week - one at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and one at Clark University in Worcester. It looks like I'll be doing best with my own job search and the temp agencies can all suck my big toe.

In the meantime, I saw the latest saga in the Batman series: Batman Begins. And while I could go on and on about the various attributes of Christian Bale (it was love ever since the first musical number in Newsies), or about the way Andrew grabbed my knee and nearly squealed like a pig when Katie Holmes and her nipples first arrived on screen, I would rather just tell you that I really, truly enjoyed my movie-going experience. As Anthony put it, no one is going to win any academy awards, but it was a feel-good, yay-for-Hollywood kind of a movie. And Christian Bale is SO HOT. Enough said.

This weekend is full of surprises too. Mel is traveling out from New York (for god knows what) and Andrew and I are expecting to see her in her full glory in Boston - even if no one will tell me what night I should expect to drive out there. And Christy and I are taking a grand ol' hike on Sunday in Mt. Grace State Forest. Should be more excitement than this little girl deserves.

Again I Blame Erin

You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility. Existentialist 88% Romanticist 75% Materialist 69% Cultural Creative 63% Modernist 56% Postmodernist 56% Idealist 38% Fundamentalist 6% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

I Stole This From Erin...

Hand-Raiser You are 71% Rational, 57% Extroverted, 28% Brutal, and 28% Arrogant.

You are the Hand-Raiser, that annoying kid in class who always had an answer for everything. No doubt, as a child you probably sat in the front of the class, anxiously waving your hand back and forth in the air while your teacher desperately tried to avoid calling on you because you were the ONLY fucking kid that answered her questions. Clearly, the key traits of your personality are your rationality and your extroversion. You are like a little talkative calculator, in other words. You also tend to be rather gentle and less arrogant than most people. So what is your defect, then? Well, you're boring, and when you're not boring, you are just plain annoying with your ultra-logical responses and constant need to talk to others. So keep waving that hand in the air, son. I'm still not calling on you. You are too logical, you talk too much, and your humility and gentleness only makes me hate you more, because they make me feel like I almost SHOULDN'T hate you. But I do. Big time. To put it less negatively: 1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive. 2. You are more EXTROVERTED than introverted. 3. You are more GENTLE than brutal. 4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant. Compatibility: Your exact opposite is the Brute. Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Braggart, the Haughty Intellectual, and the Robot.

Click here to take the Personality Defect Test.

Recovering Unemployement Addict

Despite the fact that I still am unemployed, things are looking up. I've received call-backs from two universities and at least three staffing agencies. I have my first actual job interview tomorrow, and my second is scheduled for June 30th. Maybe your friend Ryan actually will be employed by the end of this summer. Keep your fingers crossed.

In other news, my back still hurts. It is not as bad as it was when my body was gearing up for that once a month JOY we call "female troubles," but it still sucks to have shooting pains run down your quads and to have your butt feel sore from (my best guess) sympathy pain. I am even enjoying the every other day kidney pain - cuz you know that a one-kidneyed person enjoys nothing less than pulsating spasms through the last of the pair.

What else? Oh, yes, I woke up with a migraine today and it's still hanging out behind my left eye. I have an appointment to see a staffing agency later this afternoon and I can barely begin to tell you my joy at having a headache all morning. If I'm really lucky, the migraine will return just in time for the meeting.

Whew. The house is quiet today though. We accidentally took the girls out for a two hour walk yesterday and now we have counted TEN ticks that we have pulled off their body (or the couch or bed they were sleeping on). They are so exhausted now that they barely even want to lift their heads to make it over the lip of their bowls for breakfast.

At least it means they are quiet.

And San and Preyasha have gone off to Hampton Beach for the day, only to leave the house to me and my headache, and my insanely cleaning-crazy mother. For once, the television isn't on with the volume up to decibals that the Jolly Green Giant can hear, and no one is trying to talk to me. That makes the migraine oh-so-much easier to deal with.

Anyway, I should probably hop into the shower and smell pretty for my meeting with the staffing agency. I hear they like that sort of thing. I may even wear something other than my pajamas.

(Erin, wish me luck!)