Free spirit, restless soul

on the road. Got to the construction site and headed back home.

Couldn’t concentrate. Kept getting distracted.

Moved across the room, cleared off my (underutilized) desk and set up shop here. I’m right next to the plants and the window (fresh air). Clear desk. Cup of coffee.

Now to start again.

UPDATE: Finished another cover letter.

Re-reading the entries made me very happy though. Great memories. I’ll be thinking of more to add.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of a good memory.

I think I had forgotten these things. My thoughts after realizing this: why did I ever stop doing this? what happened? how could I stop doing things I love?

Stress changes me. Grad school was constant stress. Not so much grad school itself, but “grad school plus” (including jobs, etc.). As soon as school ended and I could sort of relax, I noticed a marked difference in my personality, outlook… Actually, this realization made me a bit sad. I’ll have to remember this in the future and work to mitigate against future stress-related upsets.

Anyways, what do/did I love?

-photographing: Taking pictures and capturing moments and objects has been a pastime for me for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I get so absorbed trying to ‘capture’ something that I forget the whole rest of the world. I am ‘in the zone.’ I particularly like composing shots (e.g. the framing of the elements in the picture) and being able to capturing the colors/textures/shadows/shapes of things.
-cooking: I really don’t like to follow instructions, which can make for ‘interesting’ times in the kitchen. I like to experiment and end up using a lot of substitutions. Got a backlog of a thousand or so recipes I want to try… Should keep me busy for a few years. That is, if I ever try them. I may just conclude that experimenting is the most ‘fun’ way to cook. Nah, I’ll get around to some.
-wandering: The thing about wandering, though, is that it is really difficult to ‘wander’ in a place that you are familiar. I love exploring new places. Wayfinding. How do we interact with places? How do we find the town/city center? I like learning how to get around places, and chancing upon wonderful places. When I lived in NH and C lived in RI, we used to meet up in Boston and wander for hours. Sometimes we’d take T a few towns away. We’d walk around. Wander into shops at our whimsy. Oh, I enjoyed it.

1) when I was in undergrad. It was what made college so wonderful.
2) when I was in Americorps. There was a group of 50 of us – it was like a large family.
3) (sort of, but not really) when I was in grad school. Though I didn’t spend time outside of the classroom with friends and I didn’t live near campus. I simply didn’t have/make time, as I was taking classes full time, working a few jobs, spending some time with family and C.

Now that I am out of school… and living in a new town
I am realizing the lack of community.

We’ve lived in this town 6 months. No friends here but we haven’t tried to make friends. We did join the community garden. Folks are friendly, but….

Also I’ve lost touch with many of my friends over the past 5 years. Some I don’t really have anything in common with, so it is okay… but…

Maybe it is time for new friends or communities… Maybe I’ll try meetup again. I’m not sure how long we’ll live here (in town), but we’ll be in MA for the foreseeable future.

Practiced for 40 minutes tonight.

Mostly worked on the 1st verse (of Vienna) and remembering where the chords were. Found it helped me to first go over the keys on the piano and quiz myself there…. since all chord names start with the left-most note. That made it easier to remember which keys to press. I kept forgeting where Ab and Eb were… Mostly got it towards the end of my session.

Gm Bb
F Ab
Eb Bb
C [C/D D]

that we can walk to the grocery store?

We can also drive but you need to go a round about route….

Our apartment complex is next to a bike path which goes across a major route in town. The town is installing a cross walk with SIGNALS so cars will stop. Drivers have been mostly courteous without the signals but …. (it is state law to stop for pedestrians). Anyways, that will make it even easier to get to a supermarket. It’s a 5 minute walk.

Also, if we don’t need perishables we can stop at the natural foods market that is even closer – maybe 4 minutes? They don’t carry fruits and veggies, but they do have veggie burgers and other staples….

Also x 2, we have a plot at a community garden. Soon we’ll have fresh veggies…. that’s maybe a 15 minute walk (or a 5 minute drive).

So all of that was just a long way of saying
NO EXCUSES for not having the proper ingredients with which to cook.

around campus about mid-day. Was beautiful though a bit hot.

Planned to walk just before sunset, but …. a big thunderstorm rolled through then. Pretty sure I saw hail too.

Tomorrow’s another day.

Had a list of 3 jobs that I wanted to apply for this week.

As it turns out, the deadline for one of them was May 17th. I sent an e-mail to my career advisor. Not sure what the etiquette is involving late applications.

Went to my alma mater (I graduated 2 days ago) to work on my cover letters. I sat in the lobby of the business school for a few hours. A few of my favorite profs/admins wandered past and stopped to chat. They were all positive and hopeful and willing to help. One of them specifically offered herself as a recommendation. Recommendations are difficult, I’ve found, because many of the places I apply to require the references with the resume. So I need to: a) have lots of people willing to stand in as references, b) ask the same people again and again, or c) only apply to ones that I’m really interested in. Anyways, it was a good morale boost and helpful to talk to these folks. I’m glad I made the trek to school.

One of the things I did today was… to go through all my old cover letters and copy lines and phrases about my self, interests, education, experiences, work ethics, etc… and pasted them into one word document. That way I can easily grab things as I craft new cover letters. I applying to jobs in a couple different fields, but many want similar things (if not in education, then in work ethic, etc). I think that will prove quite helpful. I’ve got another 5 or so cover letters to work on next week as well…...

Something I’ve found easy enough is to take the job requirements and copy them into a word document. Then clearly write out how I meet each. I’ve actually had to group the job requirements by general themes. Sometimes I use examples. It is hard to give detail and still have a cover letter that is under a page…..
One of the jobs I am applying to is really quite annoying… not the job, but the application process itself. The org requires a cover letter, a resume, a plaintext resume, references, a formal application (with most of the things that the two resumes include, as well as silly questions on data entry kph and wpm….both of which I had to do research and take an online test to get something that I suppose is accurate enough?). And then for each job, they ask for my monthly salary. First, I’m not even sure what constitutes a job. In the past 5 years I’ve had 4 internships, 4 part time jobs, 3 consultancies, 1 full time volunteer position, and then a variety of small gigs. I’m not sure they want information on each of these. My “monthly salaries” for the PT jobs look pretty sad on the app though.

My progress today?
1 recommendation
1 e-mail to career counselor
1 complete cover letter (due the 24th, so I’ll review it again in a day or so for more changes)
1 partly completed application*

okay to apply for a job after the application deadline has passed?

Thoughts?

Tortillas! Made from scratch…

(We’ve got plenty of veggies to put in them too).

And a tortilla press that has been hanging on our key rack for a few weeks.

...Maybe Wednesday night?

We hopped on the bike path, walked towards downtown and took a side street up to Main. Hadn’t walked around downtown for a while – a few things had changed. Walked back via our street. Posting a picture of the construction at the ‘end’ of our road. Our road used to go into downtown but for the past several years it has been under construction. They are replacing the bridge. There is a narrow (temporary) pedestrian bridge.

1) Apply to 3 jobs on my list (This task will take all week)
2) Burn DVDs and mail to M. (Find DVDs) COMPLETED 5/21
3) Mail certificate and report to Y. (Find mailer; write note) COMPLETED 5/21
4) Mail check to E. (Get address) COMPLETED 5/20
5) Mail rental textbook to ecampus. (Pack it up first)
6) Put K’s certificate in his mailbox. (Print; stop by campus) COMPLETED 5/21
7) Get staff bios to show on website. (Troubleshooting Joomla)

Numbers 2-6 shouldn’t be so bad. Mostly small tasks and then going to post office.

outside under a tent today for 2.5 hours during graduation.

Not sure that counts for being outside.

Decided to make gallo pinto (literally means spotted rooster, but it is a rice and beans dish). People eat it with most meals in Costa Rica.

Simple enough to make. Not as easy as merely cooking rice and beans, but a very different taste. Involved 2 cups beans to every 3 cups rice. Some sauteed onion and garlic. A variety of unexpected spices (ginger, cumin, and coriander) and worcestershire sauce. Added back in some of the liquids from the can of beans too.

Then we (sliced and) fried plantains.

A delicious dish. We brought it to the party and folks liked it. We enjoyed it. Will make again. Maybe we’ll try another recipe; “Natives say there are as many recipes for Gallo Pinto as there are Costa Ricans” (from the recipe site).

[Side note: The only two people who we talked to about the plantains thought they were bananas. No, they don’t taste like bananas. You need to cook them. They are starchy like potatoes…. The cashier at the grocery store told me I changed her life. Silly. My aunt couldn’t believe (after she tasted our plantains) that it was just plantains and oil and no breading or spices. Yes they are that good.]

for a few hours in the morning.

took a walk downtown in the afternoon.

It was called the Fundamentals of Musicianship: Piano.

The class itself focused heavily on theory and details and we had very little time actually playing.

I’ve always loved how beautiful the piano sounds.

In March (while on break) I picked a song (one that I knew I could stand to hear a hundred times). The song? Vienna by Billy Joel. Got the lyrics, chords, a keyboard chord chart, and a midi keyboard. I could play through the simplified version of the whole song. Once break was over I promptly ended my piano time and got right back into work.

Today I picked up the keyboard again. I found I had forgotten where all the chords were that I had been using a few months ago. The placement of the notes is starting to come to me from college (and middle school music class). I found it took a long time just to get one chorus down. Once I got there, I was fine. I think if I am going to ever learn the piano, it will just require lots of time spent REGULARLY on it. Maybe I’ll review my old music notes (from piano class) but probably not for a few weeks.

I plan to give this song another try in a few days…

at the community garden today for a few hours this morning. We pulled weeds, laid down newspapers in the walkways, and then covered them in mulch.

I found a snake wrapped around a weed. Tiny snake.

The best past was the kids.
Kid 1: “Mom!! I found a worm! ... MOMMM I found an even bigger worm MOMMMM!”
Kid 2: “Let me see!!!”
Mom: “Wow that’s the biggest worm we’ve found today!”

C halfway back to work after lunch today. He works in town and I wanted to stop by CVS to get some pictures printed so we walked there together.

Also ended up spending more time outside (later in the day) than I had expected…. Locked myself out of the apartment while I was doing laundry – eeee (better than while cooking!). I would have gone for a nice walk but I didn’t have shoes on…. Was outside (part of the time, sitting in my car after climbing in through the trunk) for almost 2 hours?

Beautiful day.

I wrote a handful of songs (just the lyrics). C wrote the music. (C is part-musician). We recorded maybe 4? Need to write and record the rest. I’ve been wanting to play/learn piano more, and C said he would help me create a song for the album using the piano. Create an album cover and CD image. I’m actually quite excited about the CD cover as I’ve learned how to use the lasers in the CD drive to burn beautiful images directly on the disk.

The album’s theme is ‘harvest season’ and mostly about fruits and vegetables.

Our plan once we finish the album is to distribute it to some friends. No big plans :)