Home Alone Wednesday

IT is the lull between the end of summer classes and the beginning of Fall semester. The lines of people wanting coffee at the shop I work at has begun to thin and our work hours have been cut. Next week, I don't have to report for work at all. This gives me a break to concentrate one more on applications. Recently I have not been motivated. Turning down a job offer can be emotionally taxing. Thankfully, this was easier but nonetheless draining.

I am looking forward to Sunday because that is when I leave for Denver for a job interview. The institution is in Boulder but I'm staying in Denver because the airport is there and Denver downtown seems to be a better place to explore. Also, I've got a date :)

And unlike my Las Vegas China Town date, I feel more detached about this one and I think that that is a good thing. No more filling in the blanks with the description of your own personal concept of "the right guy". I am just going to meet with him briefly at a coffee shop and maybe make a friend. I feel that I'm too busy or too preoccupied right now to think of romance.

In other news, I am home alone right now and am trying to recover from a very bad cold and a sore throat. I think it arose from a very bad combination of throat singing in the car, a cold virus, sleeping late, stress and PMS.

Bleagh.

Messy Messy Monday

It was last Monday. I came to the twin cities to take an actuary test. The test was on the afternoon, at least I thought so. I bought an 8:00 greyhound ticket from Duluth to St. Paul.

Since I just moved into a new place, I was tired unpacking and slept soundly the day before. I did not hear the alarm. It was around 7:30 that I wake up. I was not sure how many ID cards needed for the test. So I searched for my passport vainly for 10 minutes. Time's run out. I stopped searching and rushed out and drove speedily to the greyhound station.

It was 7:55 that I boarded the bus which was ready to go. 'Hi W~!' Surprisingly Ms. C was on the same bus. I sat beside her and began to check my stuffs. "No calculator? Oh I forgot it at home ... No cell phone? I just saw it... must be in the car." I ran to my car and was back with the cellphone within 1 minute. If I knew what would happen in the day, I would not bother to fetch the cellphone at that moment.

In the St Paul bus station, I got lost. From the info I got from the web before, the bus station should not be there. It should be 2 blocks away from the test center. (Later I checked the address, and the guard told me long long ago, that is, 5 or 7 years ago, the station moved.) Obviously the greyhound website has not updated for quite a long time. Luckily some kind staff in McDonald told me a bus can take me there.

I got off the bus and found I lost my cellphone in the bus. The only number I could remember was my own number, so I called it. I was so happy that the bus driver answered the phone. She told me to go back to the stop after 2 hours and I got it back.

Then I went to the test center. The guard was puzzled since he did not know there's any tests going on on that day. I called the number of the test center and the staff was off office. Then I called CSA and got the answer that the test should be on Wednesday. Oh Snap!

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This Monday Ms. W and Ms. C met in the twin cities again, in another SAS test center. Ms. C passed the test. Congratulations! Ms. W failed. Cheers!

The Gut Knows What the Gut Feels

FUNNY how a bodily organ so unrelated to logic can be such a valuable guide in life directions and life decisions. There's that overused saying: "trust your gut." You know how you feel about something but can't explain the logic or reason behind it. You just know. You feel it in your gut.

That's how I felt about the California job, especially when I got a really low salary offer. The job description was great, the location as not so great and the salary offer was worse. Objectively, I would not be able to have any kind of decent savings with that one. But they were offering to sponsor a work visa. Dangle something like that in front of an international student and well, you might just get everything you want out of her or him. But the operational word is "might".

Today I turned down the California job offer. I realized, well, if I wanted to I could always scrimp and save. I'm pretty good at handling expenses anyway. I was all knotted up and kind of scared of continuing on with the uncertainty of life without a full-time job. The pressure had been building up since Saturday when I started procrastinating about writing the letter. But this morning, as soon as I clicked on the send button, my stomach muscles relaxed. It felt good and freeing.

Manila does not seem scary anymore. Ms. W and Ms. C, I assure you I am not giving up on the job search. I am just finally opening myself to other possibilities. :)

Not Today

IN a while I will examine the SoCal offer one last time and decide whether I am going to take it or not. In a while I will sift through my job application bookmarks and look for openings again. In a while I will draft a follow up letter to the Boulder company with which I will have an onsite interview the next week, and another one to the SanFo company that I still haven't heard from. In a while I will try to decide if I should change my application strategy. In a while I will wonder about starting to look for jobs in Manila. In a while...

But not today.

Today, I will sit here in the coffee shop and admire the so very nice looking barista behind the counter. The one that makes me quite speechless and causes a silly grin from me while I order. Today I will not worry about jobs. I will just do things that I love doing regardless of my job situation. I will write. I will ruminate. I will people watch. Today, on this Saturday, I will just be. And I will befriend that specter called uncertainty.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree

YESTERDAY I consulted a friend who is an immigration lawyer and she said it would be very risky to accept the offer from SoCal because the employer is not 100% cap exempt. I've realized that I've been barking up the wrong tree all this time. Well, at least a lot of wrong trees. Now it doesn't quite matter how many applications I've sent. What will matter is how many I send to the right employers. My targeted application process has just become more, well, targeted. The clock is ticking and part of me is kind of scared. But the other part is unfreezing.

Ms. N gets an offer

YESTERDAY at around 2:30 p.m. I listened to a message left by a woman who had interviewed me. I was being offered the job. It was kind of surreal and I was definitely unprepared. I wasn't expecting to hear from them till late this week.

Now I find myself in unfamiliar territory. I had been offered a job before, but I turned that one down. Now might be a different story. And so I've scrambled to call friends, compute cost of living comparisons and such. I've finally gotten to ask the dreaded work visa question and will hear back about it tomorrow.

In other news, Ms. C. also had a panel interview today in Rochester. Go, go Ms. C! I'll be calling her later today to trade news.

Got a movie date with Baby Sister. And Friday is Karaoke night at Coffee and Beans (the one that's got that gorgeous Fil-Am looking barista :) )

A Collapsed Bridge, Coffee and Waiting

YESTERDAY, a bridge section of I35W collapsed, plunging cars and other vehicles into the Mississippi River. I worry about friends who travel to Minneapolis. Yesterday, I checked on the Ex and he's okay.

It's a peculiar feeling of worry. Kind of like when I receive news of some disaster in my home province in the Philippines and my hometowns. I feel like rushing there to help. I think about friends who live and work there. I feel the same way about Minnesota. I guess part of me considers the state one of my homes.

As I type this I am also think about a phone interview I finished this morning. I think I did well. There were some sections where I rambled. But all in all, I was more relaxed and it was more of a conversation rather than an all out sales pitch. I was also able to ask some good questions.

So now I wait.

I wait for final results on the SoCal job.

I wait for possibly an on-site interview for the San Francisco job.

And I wait for an on-site interview invitation from the Boulder, Colorado job.

I need to shape up and attend to my thank you cards. And I just discovered that I made date error on my SoCal job application. I'll be attending to these tonight, tomorrow and over the weekend.

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In other news, I'm getting better at making coffee. Getting the hang of blended frappuchinos and I've been starting to learn espresso drinks. Today I made my first cappuchino and I'm pretty sure it was a correctly made one and adhered to the 10-second rule. I like the people I work with and I look forward to coffee and the company.