.

Points if you get where my post title is from without googling.

I feel the need to clarify something from yesterdays post (she says, defensively). Much of my woe is coming from the fact that I can’t even get an admin assistant position in the field that I want to be in. Two commenters pointed out that this is the way to go if I’m serious about DC (and they are right) but I have applied for admin positions at every foreign policy, or foreign policy related think tank in DC.  As well as various other interesting places.

There are a number of places where I want to work where I don’t care what the job is – I just want to work there! These positions pay about half of what I’m making now, but I’d manage. Someone just has to hire me first. My fear is that in order to move to DC I’ll have to take another legal assistant job (or worse) which isn’t really my field and I’ll just get trapped in it because all my experience on paper is in it.

The other thing V and I were lamenting is “entry level” is both a misnomer and a double-edged sword. For example, these positions will claim to be “entry level” and they will pay entry level wages, but then they will ask for three years experience and in the end it’s basically an admin position. On the other end,  I have been viewed as “too experienced” for entry level. The number of times my snobby Masters degree has raised the eyebrows (and not in a good way) of the hiring person is astounding. They question why I’m applying to an “assistant” position and they question why I’ve been working in as an assistant.

Existential crises aside, do these people not understand having bills to pay? I’ve been at my current job for a year and a half. A year and a half ago, I was running out of unemployment and I couldn’t afford to shop around for the perfect job. Now that I’ve built up some savings (and I have the luxury of looking while employed) I can be choosier. But my experience, particularly my type of experience, is generally looked down upon.

I know that this all sounds defeatist and terribly know-it-all-ish. Who am I to claim that I know the workings of a hiring manager’s mind? I could be projecting, right? Thing is, I truly feel I’m being pragmatic and realistic with all of the above, and that if I let myself think otherwise then I’m being delusional.

Which perhaps is another puzzle. I believe I experienced this when I was job hunting immediately post-college. That is when I was interviewing for every receptionist/assistant position in NYC. Including one at a glue factory way the hell out in Brooklyn (seriously, it was a looooong ride on the R train) staffed solely by Orthodox Jew.

That was an awkward interview.

On the plus side I put $500 in my savings account this paycheck. On the negative side, I spent an obscene amount of money on clothing. On the plus side, I will be returning a large percentage of it, so no harm done. Mostly.

Now, to get a job in DC, so I have a place to wear all my cute clothes. Suburban Jersey + no dress code at work means I’m wearing jeans and plain sweaters everywhere.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/02/17/shes-a-highly-specialized-key-component-of-operational-unity/feed/ 5 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/01/23/woods-and-clearings/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/01/23/woods-and-clearings/#comments Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:24:06 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6535 I’m running on too much caffeine and not enough sleep, for no good reason. I could join the Facebook group “I’m Always Tired Because I Stay Up Too Late for No Reason.” I click mindlessly around the internet and have been known to hit “reload” on my email, even at 1:30 in the morning.

I drink a cup of coffee, and then pick up another on my way to a therapy appointment, even though that’s all I have to do today. Half of a large iced coffee remains on the table next to me. My hands are a little shaky from too much caffeine and not enough to eat. Pause to eat half a sandwich. Better now.

My neck and shoulders are cramped and sore from too many hours hunched over at a desk or laptop. I am grateful for the relief of the weekend (I spent nine hours on Friday formatting contracts) but impatient with the way it interrupts the job search – there are no new job postings on the weekend.

My therapist gently bridged the subject that eventually, I’m going to have to date again. I brushed that off, saying I’m not interested in dating now, and what’s the point of it, given that I’m trying to move to DC sooner rather than later.

His point, of course, was that I’m not going to meet any boys spending my time as I’ve been spending it. Abstractly, he’s right. Day to day, I’m not interested in doing that, not now. My desire to go on polite dates is in the range of zero to negative 10.

I have an application to craft, for THE organization I want to work for. The chances of me getting so much as an email rejection are practically non-existent. But, as with every application I submit, even to the less than perfect jobs, I can’t help the wishful thinking. I can’t help but start to do the mental financial planning on how I would survive in DC on about half of what I’m making right now.

So it’s been a really long time since I’ve been on a date (or even done some making out. There is a definite lack of making out in my life) and I don’t see that changing in the near future. And I’ve only been at the search for a career change for a few weeks, really. It’s far too early to get frustrated because I haven’t submitted enough applications to be a contender in the number games.

Besides, all my personal experience shows that job offers, like boys you want to make out with, come along when you are least expecting it, when you’re at the rock bottom of frustrations and shattered expectations, and when you can’t picture how things are ever going to go right.

That’s when you get the phone call. That’s when you realize he’s deliberately sitting closer to you than he needs to.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/01/23/woods-and-clearings/feed/ 2 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/01/09/too-much-thinking-for-a-saturday/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/01/09/too-much-thinking-for-a-saturday/#comments Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:14:24 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6517 I don’t mean to go on blogging breaks, but work has been insane, and then, what do I have to say, really? I am still stuck. Oh, and it’s Saturday night, and I have no plans besides picking up some sushi, doing some laundry, and the SVU marathon.

I have basically become ok with the fact that my weekends are like this. I have gotten past judging them as “pathetic” and making self deprecating comments about them. I would just rather be spending my weekends doing nothing in DC (or NYC) and then I would have the option to do something that wasn’t nothing.

I think I might want DC like the way I wanted New York when I got out of college. Back then, I was also craving independence and the opportunity for a social life, to be sure, but I wanted New York because of HWSNBN. I think I want DC, and there’s not even a boy there. I suppose my therapist would say this is progress. Of course, it’s entirely possible that I have just forced myself to not want NYC, because I know that career wise, DC is the only place that makes sense right now. And, given that, there’s no use wanting what you can’t have, or torturing yourself with what cannot be.

HWSNBN still texts me very occasionally. He asked back in September when I’d be in the city next. I said December. He told me to let him know when, but I never did. I didn’t see the point, really, and also all the vain, shallow reasons like I want to be nothing but 100% together if I ever see him again.

So for now, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. I have a phone interview on Monday for an organization that pays probably half of what my current job does, and who’s political orientation is possibly opposite of my own. Still, they do some interesting work in the security/foreign policy realm, so I’ll give it a chance to see what happens. Already, in my head I’m making excuses for why this is a terrible idea to even consider, and of course this is mere projection, because the phone interview hasn’t even happened yet.

When I moved to New York, I was actually pretty gutsy. Despite growing up 30 minutes away, I didn’t know the city, and I certainly didn’t know the boroughs. I spent the first half of the summer of 2005 job hunting and apartment hunting in the sweltering heat. I learned the neighborhoods of Brooklyn (where I never wound up living) by google map directions and walking. I learned the subway by following the colored lines on the map with my finger. HWSNBN and I were long over, and I didn’t have any friends in the city. I just did it.

“You have to take a step before you’re ready. Because if you wait to be ready, you’ll never take that step. “

Perhaps I would do well to remember this.

“Hey There Delilah” just came on my iPod. I listened to this song constantly when I first moved back to NYC after grad school. It was one of the few songs my roommate could legitamately play on his guitar. And this decidedly-not-in-NYC boy used to sing the first line to me over the phone (What’s in like in New York City?/You’re a 1000 miles away/But girl tonight you look so pretty” )YES, I KNOW, SHUT UP.

This ties perfectly to what I started to write about yesterday and was distracted by work disaster, among other things – New York City. I really want to compose articulate essay-type work on the subject, because New York is so many things to me. But I’m also not sure what it is to me. I read Joan Didion’s essay about arriving in, living in, and leaving New York, but that is not quite appropriate for me, because I lived there briefly (too briefly) moved for grad school, moved back, and then my life sort of fell apart. I had plenty of romanticized experiences my first go around in New York and it was without a doubt the happiest time of my life. When I moved back there after grad school, I rarely left my apartment, other then for work.  

But I’ve said all this before, and that was years ago now. On the way to work I heard on the radio about them putting up the X-Mas tree at Rockerfeller Center, and even though I don’t see the magic of XMas in NYC (mostly, I just see even MORE tourists getting in my way) I worked in Midtown Proper and there was something to being there at Christmas.

The city is something it’s easy to be a romantic about and so I have to catch myself. It was this attitude that sent me scrambling back to New York after I finished grad school, even though it was clear even then that with my interests, I’d be better off in DC. Perhaps I’m paying for that now, though I still wouldn’t call it a mistake. It does emphasize to me that even if this Libertarian Fellowship doesn’t work out, I really need to give DC a chance anyway. Basically, after grad school I had the choice between giving love a second chance and a career. I chose the former, and it crashed and burned.

This metaphor is entirely tiresome, so I’m going to quit now. But I hate the notion that New York is for the very young, the place to come after college and live out your cliched dreams, and that if the opportunity ever presents itself to move back I’ll be too old and too jaded to really enjoy it.

I managed to do laundry this weekend, and get rid of some junk as part of my continued attempts to not be such a pack rat. This is fairly impossible – I am a 3rd generation pack rat, and my parents attic is filled with boxes of my stuff. My nostalgia will not let me throw anything out, although I bet I wouldn’t miss it if I actually did. But, it’s in the attic, so it’s more trouble than it’s worth to drag boxes down a ladder.

The phone interview is tomorrow. I’m not nervous about the actual interview; my biggest worry is what to tell my boss(es) about why I have to take a phone call that will last an indeterminable amount of time at 11am.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2009/11/01/welcome-to-november/feed/ 0 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2009/10/11/want/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2009/10/11/want/#comments Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:27:09 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6294 I am listening to the Kelly Clarkson song “Already Gone.” Every time I hear it, I wonder what my life would have been like if The Ex and I had broken up at the end of high school instead of making it almost all the way through college. Because that’s really what I want to be thinking of a Sunday morning.

I’ve mostly spent the weekend angsting over my application. This fellowship is the first thing I have wanted — really, really wanted — in a very long time. Yes, I wanted my current job – I wanted it to go from temp to perm, but if it hadn’t, it would have been due to bureaucratic issues and no reflection on my worth. Plus, there wasn’t such uncertainty – I knew I was doing a very good job, I knew my boss liked me, and so I wasn’t afraid to basically demand the company hire me. (In retrospect, I don’t know when/how I decided to grow a spine, or where that spine has gone since then)

Here, I have no idea if I’m doing a good job on the application. I have no idea if I am what they are looking for. I have no idea how I match up against other candidates.

I’m not good at admitting when I want something. But good lord, I want this. I want this because it would be my dream job in every sense of the word. I want this because it would force me to live in DC, the city I have refused to move to because it’s not New York, but would probably hold much better career opportunities than New York ever could. I want this because although I like my job I don’t want to be here the rest of my life. I want this because I need to get out of suburban Jersey.

I want this. And that in of itself is pretty terrifying to me.

This is one of the questions I have to answer for my Libetarian Application. I have an answer in mind, but it might be a little too snarky. But the “safe” answer (“The ideal government is limited to common defense and arbitration of dispute between citizens”) is way too boring. Also, there’s one question that doesn’t have a word limit and so I’m writing what I guess is a “Statement of Purpose” except not really. I don’t know. At this point I want to give up on the whole thing because I feel like all my answers are garbage and I have no idea how to make them any better. It’s been a very long time since I’ve done an application.

Also, I never do anything risky, because I am a freaking Hobbesian, so I’m afraid to be even the littlest bit creative or snarky in my answers, even though it could help, if I am knowing my audience correctly, so to speak.

I guess I need to sucker some people into reading over my application. At least it is mostly short answer (as in, 100 words or less). I really need to get this in final draft shape so I can meet the first application deadline. Because really, hitting the early deadline feels like the only way in hell I’ll have a shot at this.

Kim at Perfectly Cursed tagged me.  I am terrible at tags, because I overthink my responses in hopes of saying something creative, but since I’ve been blog-stalking Kim, I thought I better complete this.

• Dave Matthews
• Michael Moore – I loathe Michael Moore and the noble lie that he’s the only one ‘telling it like it is’
• Julia Roberts
• Karl Marx – I would bring him back from the dead just to see him destroyed by vicious dinos.
• probably Sarah Palin. But then again, she might help contribute to further GOP-ist downfall, which would be good. Decisions, decisions.

Five drinks I love:

• Seltzer 
• Coffee
• Red Bull
• Coke, but only from a can
• Seltzer  

Five favourite quotes:

• “I build my peace through strength; that’s the best weapon you’ve got” – Dar Williams
• “The question isn’t “who’s going to let me”; it’s “who’s going to stop me?” -Dagny Taggart, in Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
• “There is no reason for anthropological optimism” – Carl Schmitt
• “We all spend so much time not saying what we want, because we know we can’t have it. And because it sounds ungracious, or ungrateful, or disloyal, or childish, or banal. Or because we’re so desperate to pretend that things are OK, really, that confessing to ourselves they’re not looks like a bad move. Go on, say what you want. … Whatever it is, say it to yourself. The truth will set you free. Either that or it’ll get you a punch in the nose. Surviving in whatever life you’re living means lying, and lying corrodes the soul, so take a break from the lies for just one minute
  -Long Way Down (Nick Hornby)
• I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of the New York City skyline – Ayn Rand
• One more, as a bonus: “Laugh at the things that formerly bound you” – a college professor of mine, in our ‘Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom’ class

Five things to do before I die:

• Fall in love
• Live in NYC (again)
• Go to Russia 
• Have a research-y position
• Be part of the Libertarian Revolution (or at least live to see some substantial reductions in government – Pipe Dream, I know)

• Christopher Meloni as Elliot Stabler
• Jon Stewart
• Christopher Meloni as Elliot Stabler
• Hugh Laurie

Also, I HATE HATE HATE AT&T. I just spent an hour on the phone with them trying to get one of our accounts sorted out (for work) and it still is not solved. It is times like this that I am really glad I went to grad school…

Libertarian-esque-application continues to go slowly. I need a rough-final draft by this Thursday, I think. The problem is, the word limit is VERY low (we’re talking 100 words) and I don’t know if there is a danger in being too specific. Because while I would really LOVE to do A, I would also be perfectly happy doing B,C, and D. I’m afraid if I make my application too specific, they’ll think I can only do A, and if that’s not realistic, will cast my application aside.

After being so good about my spending in August and September I just went on a bit of an online shopping spree.  Money I don’t have on clothes I don’t need. And shoes. I bought 3 pairs of shoes. In my defense it was under $100 total for all 3 pairs.

Anyway. So this thing I’m applying for. It’s a year long program. No, I would not be collecting yet another degree, but it does have an educational component to it. The best description I can give is that it’s like an Internship for grown-ups. I believe you actually get a living wage. I actually applied to the Summer Internship version of this in college. I was a finalist, but didn’t make the final cut.

I’m struggling with the application and struggling more with the idea of potential rejection. First cut is finding out if I get a phone interview, and then the next step would be an in person interview, and if your interests match up with one of their partner organizations, then that organization interviews you. The website warns that its an extensive interview process, and I realized this weekend, that I could go through the entire interview process (which would require me to take vacation time from my current job and make an expensive trip to DC) and still not get a position. That is depressing.

Allegeldy, I’ll know whether I got a phone interview or not by October 31st. But first, of course, I have to finish the application. I no longer have any idea how to talk about my research interests, potential career path, and “what I hope to gain” out of a program, or how to make it relate to liberty/free market oriented solutions. Oh, and did I mention the answers are supposed to be 100 words or less?

The only one I have down is the ideal role of the federal government, and I just deleted my answer on the very, very tiny, tiny off chance that someone else who is applying for the same program stumbles across my blog, because I don’t want anyone stealing my oh-so-brilliant answer.  

I basically spent last night fretting over aforementioned work mistake and babbling about my work mistake to a couple friends. Diagnosis: “You’re just being Rachel.”

I admit, it makes me smile a little that there are people who know me well enough that “Being Rachel” is a catch-all for my delightful neuroses.  I am actually far better than I used to be. I was able to watch Flash Forward and L&O SVU last night when in the past I would deny myself anything enjoyable until I knew for 100% certainty that whatever I was fretting about was resolved.

And now it’s Friday. I would really like to do something productive this weekend. Or, just to be novel, something fun. I am so sick of suburban New Jersey and general isolation. I miss NYC. And while this Libertarian-esque fellowship I’m applying for would be the best thing in the world for me, professionally, if I got it, it would mean NYC is at least that much further away.

Matching flip flops to your t-shirt is, I suspect, not very high fashion. In fact, I think it may fall under slightly more insulting titles than merely “bad fashion sense.”

 Not that we had too terrible a summer, but the cool weather is delightful. This morning on the radio, the weatherman called it a “perfect New York City day.” Insert longing sigh here. Yesterday, I was actually paging through Craigslist listing for apartments in my old neighborhood.

I’m not quite sure why I am indulging in this brand of self torture when a move back to NYC is not going to happen in the near future, or even the far future if I choose Career instead of…whatever it is I would be staying in New York for.

Normally, I hate reading the typical” NYC-ers insult Jersey” expressions, but poor fashion choice is usually among the offenses committed by the bridge and tunnel crowd and it is a definite plus to not have to worry about how much I’m not living up to impossibly high fashion standards.  I don’t think this look would fly, no matter how spot on my color coordination is.

It would be nice to say I don’t care that I’ll never be one of those girls who can stroll down the street in stilletos (at 26, I still can barely walk in heels. High heeled boots are about as far as I can go) or that I never compared myself to other people on the morning commute. But I think in New York City, about the best dressed I can hope to be is boring, bordering on inoffensive.

And I hope “no flip flops after Labor Day” is not a rule (I suspect it’s “no flip flops EVER”) because I basically wear flip flops from April to October.

All too frequently lately I am finding myself full of Regret, yes, with a capital R. I Regret that I was such a painfully shy recluse in college; I Regret that I didn’t take advantage of the opportunities, because I didn’t realize that that was one of the most free times of my life. I know this is fairly silly;  I am who I am because of how I lived for those 3.5 years, but still. When I’m lonely, I think that maybe I would be less lonely, had I made a bunch of friends in college.

All of these are counterfactuals, of course.

It also scares the hell out of me that The Year, the one that Richie and I proclaimed would be Important (and oh how Important it wound up being) started a decade ago. Ten years ago, I was nearing the end of one of those cliched coming of age summers. I had a crush on this guy who was 5 years older than me and probably the first guy about who I thought “Oh my god, he is SO hot.” Apparently I’ve always liked them older. He’s my friend on Facebook now. He’s married. He’s still hot. But anyway, that was all a decade ago, and I have no idea what to think of all that.

(this is the type of post that I will look at in a few days, cringe, and probably make private)

I think that what would make me happy right now, more than anything, would be to be back in NYC. But maybe, that’s borne of nostalgia. Migrating my entire livejournal over here has required more than one trip through my archives (and I’m nowhere near done) and I’m reading all about my adventures in NYC pre-graduate school. I write about how happy I am, about how I never dreamed my life could be this good.

And then there is Regret because I gave that all up and went to grad school, because I was supposed to and who the hell turns down a scholarship from University of Chicago.

Absent from the archives  (or at least, never public) are the miserable months between getting my post-grad school job and moving back to Jersey, tail between legs. Those months may have turned the city into a hostile environment for me. I don’t really know. There’s no record of them and even less memory.

 Maybe it’s the weather (it’s cool out – it’s perfect Back to School weather), maybe it’s my boredom. But I’m reading those entries, and I’m thinking of That Year and how both times I basically had to pinch myself to prove that it was real because it was so good. And because there’s no other way to say it than with a song lyrics I say “and I wonder…if anything could ever be this good again.”

Because I still wonder. Even though the habit has passed pathetic and is bordering on dangerous.

The problem is that Law School has begun to seem like an inevitable instead of a want. 

Originally, I was going to go to Law School right after college. This Plan was in place fall of my junior year of college when I was still with The Ex and still thinking I would marry him. And then I broke up with him and wound up in Grad School by way of New York City instead.

I feel like no matter what I do, it’s a “delay” to whatever I want to do or am supposed to do. Let’s say I find another job in NYC and move back there, like I think I want to. Well then I’m putting off law school/moving to DC (where I might actually USE my MA degree) and “settling” in the career realm just to live in NYC. And I’m going to have to go to law school eventually, and I’m not getting any younger.

Or lets say I move to DC for a Dream Job. Then I’m still putting off Law School and I’m not living in NYC, and how am I ever going to the opportunity to live a charmed life in NYC again if I can’t find a way to live there? And I’m going to have to go to law school eventually, and I’m not getting any younger.

Or lets say I apply to law school next fall, for Fall 2011 admissions. The job market is terrible right now. Who’s to say it would be any better when I graduate? And where would I even GO to school? It’s not like I’m Top 10, or maybe even Top 20 material. Rutgers-Newark is the school that actually makes sense to me, because I plan to stay in the region and it’s super cheap (relatively speaking) then any other school in the area. But Rutgers Newark is something like 89th in the rankings.

(If my 16 years old self could see my 26 year old self obsessing over law school rankings, she’d be REALLY MAD)

I don’t know why I just can’t get it together and make A Plan. I feel like I’m wasting my time blogging about it on a Sunday morning when I could be taking a practice LSAT test, and then I’m annoyed that I’m in suburban Jersey, because if I were still living in Astoria, I’d have somewhere to go this morning, and damnit, I just want to live in NYC again, why does that have to seem so far out of the realm of possibility right now?

I don’t know where to go from here, but I feel like no matter what I do it’s going to come down to a choice between happiness and what I’m “supposed” to do, and that the overachiever inside of me will not let me settle down until I suck it up and commit myself to three years of potential misery with no guarantee of potential happiness.

I love my co-workers. They are the best part of this job and always have been. And I go through bursts where I can get tons of non-work related stuff done at work, but then I burn out and I just don’t care and so I basically do nothing all day. Too much nothing is bad for the brain. And I’d been keeping this job with the understanding that it was only going to be through September, and now that’s not happening so…

So I don’t know. I’m overeducated and/or underqualified for just about everything. So I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I am taking the step to admit that I am Not Happy with this job. For some reason, that helps.