Tag Archives: career

Jul 17 2012
21 Comments
Job hunting, One minute read

The Career Search, Living in the Moment, and Ramen Noodles

This picture was taken in January, when it was the same temperature but sunny here. WTF.

Right after I pressed publish last Friday on the blog post about my Reba t-shirt, I realized that I was the worst person in the world. I had complained about getting up at 6:30 am and having one appointment. Poor me.

Most people get up at the booty-crack of dawn and have to work the whole day long, with no time for ditzels, knick knacks, or futzing. For brief moment the length of the time it takes to write a blog post, I forgot that I was incredibly lucky to have the luxury of following my dreams, which I’m still defining at this point. I think it’s kind of a long-term smelting thing in order to figure out what I really want and if it’s good and what I should want and all of that.

I’ve spent so much time trying to figure what I want to do that I haven’t been focusing on what I’m doing in the time I currently have. I’ve been scrutinizing the future so hard, trying to make sure I’m heading in the right direction and towards gainful employ/activities that I both enjoy and find meaningful, that I fell into the trap of believing that the only time that’s valuable is the time you’re paid for.

Once I realized this, I paused for a second and thought “Well, do I enjoy what I’m currently doing?” which is making phone calls, setting up connections, exploring the city, interviewing, hanging out with friends, trying to get my feet on the ground, making networks that will take me into the future, etc. and I thought, yeah, I do. I have what feels like freedom and infinite possibilities. San Francisco is my shiny, expensive oyster that I plan on cracking in order to find the best dive bars and cheap eats.

I am not my to-do list. The things I’m doing right now are also important, and these steps will lead me to a future, but in reality it’s all part of the same thing. So I should savor the whole enchilada because the minutes don’t come back to you in the end, or so I hear.

And today I put a squirt of ketchup in my ramen noodles, which tasted just as good as I thought it would and I felt secure about my future as I slurped the broth down—it was thicker than usual. Ramen noodle innovation is just one of the many signs of nascent success.

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Jul 10 2012
16 Comments
Two minute read

My Mind, The Cupcake

A cupcake from the wedding. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

My mind has turned into a cupcake. I was afraid this would happen. Instead of synapses firing interesting and creative notions from the different loci of my mind, communicating the thoughts that will drive today into tomorrow and allow me to remember to zip my fly, buttercream frosting clogs my mental passageways.

Drooling results.

Sprinkles have taken the place of ideas, and lace wrappers are now in operation instead of my hypothalamus. Keeping physical and mental balance proves more difficult daily.

All acts of thinking, consideration, pondering, and planning that used to occur in my frontal lobe have been replaced with various cream fillings, fruits, and polka dots. The only things I’m really capable of doing anymore are underarm-sweating, head-scratching, and mouth-breathing.

My brain is adorable and trendy but I now need a caretaker.

Oh god will please someone help me. I ate a poptart and peanut butter crackers for lunch today. Is that a complete meal? Who am I? What is this leaking out of my ears?

I’ve heard about cupcake brain syndrome, which results from too much time spent applying to food service jobs on Craig’s list. Letters, numbers, names blur together into a soft, frosting like combination that begins to look tasty to the job searcher. Sometimes electronic equipment begins to malfunction from the surfeit of saliva that drips over the keyboard and is sometimes applied directly with the tongue onto the screen.

The eyes glaze over, the mouth hangs, and a real career seems to drift farther and farther away into the night, which is never ending. Soon, common words take on different meanings. “Experienced,” “Go-Getter,” “Detail-Oriented,” acquire personalities of their own, are thugs that torture the cupcake brain. Nanny nanny boo boo, they say. The mouth drools on.

Yes, dear friend, this is the great San Francisco job search of 2012. How will it end? Will it ever end? Will there be just another college graduate’s skeleton decorating a sunny road near the bay? Will the dress pants ever be worn in an office environment? How long does it take for a poptart-heavy diet to result in malnutrition? Will there be super powers?

Stay tuned, for all shall be revealed in due time. When the hands stop shaking, when the eyebrow stops twitching, when the stomach stops clenching. All shall be revealed. And yes, my sister is married now but who cares? I need a job.

P.S. I will talk about the wedding more, most likely when I can get better juice from my mind grapes.

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Jun 07 2012
29 Comments
Humorous, Two minute read

7 Rumors About Snotting Black Debunked

Yippee. Happy Anniversary, bloggy-dearest.

This post is in honor of my blog’s one year anniversary, which I forgot to mention 2 weeks ago.

1. I started this blog 378 days ago after losing a bet to my cousin Darayla about whether or not Grandma would drop her false eyelashes in the potato salad again on Memorial Day.

FALSE. Darayla is a name I made up, and as per my inclusion in a “cult,” I do not celebrate the national holidays of this country, instead using that time to plan its overthrow and enjoy powered soup mixes. I started this blog on May 26th, 2011 after being begged by family members not to plague their inboxes with novellas about my time in Cairo like I had done the previous year when I was in Morocco. However, I soon stopped writing about factual experiences so they still had to communicate with me.

2.  This blog used to provide hard hitting political and social commentary about life in Egypt, and at one point the government even considered it a threat and tried to keep me quiet by to bribing me with a hot tub full of Nutella.

FALSE. I blogged about things like mosquitoes and a sandwich I ate once that didn’t give me food poisoning and one that did. Soon my mind left for flights of fancy and I was writing about unicorn carcasses and self-aware blogs. But it’s true that I did eat enough off and on brand Nutella to fill a hot tub.

3. I majored in International Relations and used to want to become Secretary of State and wear a pantsuit to work.

TRUE. Now I want to “be a writer” and am moving out to San Francisco to “make it big.” I’m still trying to figure out which career path was more realistic.

4. My entire family is incredibly supportive, reading my blog daily and sending me cookies when appropriate.

FALSE. My blog is not for everyone, especially the older and more conservative members of my family who could never understand why (everything I find funny) is funny. I learned from my sister roughly two months ago that, “Grandma doesn’t read your blog anymore.” To be honest, I was surprised that she made it that far.

5. Number five was missing in this blog post until the blogger’s mother asked her, “Did you mean to leave out number five?” after which the oversight was hastily and obviously corrected.

FALSE. There has never been a typo on Snotting Black, especially in one of the Freshly Pressed pieces.

6. 378 days is equivalent to 9,072 hours, 544,320 minutes, 32, 659, 200 seconds, and 58 jello salads.

FALSE. 378 days is equal to 9,072 hours, 544,320 minutes, 32, 659, 200 seconds, and 67 jello salads.

7. Soon, Snotting Black is going to change completely and become a paid community where I carefully curate everyone’s personal details and share them on an organized basis with the other members until all forms of privacy are completely obliterated.

TRUE. See above answer about “cult” membership. We like to call it Stew Wednesday.

Highlights of a year of blogging: Being Freshly Pressed twice (here and here), meeting awesome members of the blogosphere, re-discovering my love of writing, and using the term “blog fodder.”

Low points of a year of blogging: The post “Will it stick: Thanksgiving Edition” and the blog title “Noodle Haste Makes Taste Waste.”

Real search terms that people have used to find my blog: “I used somebody else’s toothbrush and now I have a sore tongue,” “I hate my puppy,” “Abba demonic music,” “my dirt family,” “snot in my ear,” “stump arm,” 44444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444,” and finally “chacos as deal breaker.”

Happy Anniversary and thanks for reading.

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May 08 2012
25 Comments
Modern Life, Three minute read

Why I Plan on Selling Out to the Man ASAP

Now ready for salaried work

I’m leaving Egypt for good in about three weeks. My Arabic program, and in fact my entire journey with Arabic, is finally coming to an end, having died a swift but not painless death here in Cairo. Currently, my plan is to go home and marry my sister, or rather, see her married, and then scrimp and save my frequent- flier miles, cushion change, and Chick-fil-A coupons in order to purchase a flight out to San Francisco where I want to “be a writer.”

I was eating dinner at the second-best Thai restaurant in Cairo with boyfriend, friend, and friend of friend, when post-Egypt plans came up in the conversation. I told the friend of a friend that I wanted to be a writer, and he asked what kind of writer, and I said I didn’t know, at which point he burst out laughing. And this is a man who has maintained a neutral face for 98% of his waking life. Apparently my ambitions are a gut-buster. He followed his chuckles with a question, “So when are you going to sell out to the man?”

The conversation turned away shortly after this comment and the rest of the evening was filled with heated yet useless discussion of American foreign policy in which no one admitted that I was obviously right.

At any rate, I pretty much forgot about the remark until this morning, when I was simultaneously looking for jobs and trying to think of something to blog about today. Suddenly, I was struck with my answer to his semi-rhetorical question: “As soon as possible. I will sell out to the man as soon as possible.”

The man has a bad reputation for being a soul-crusher and brilliance-suck, but he (or she) also has health insurance, a steady salary, after-work parties, socializing opportunities with kwards (short for awkward people), logoed shirts, networking possibilities, and buildings to wander through after hours.

He’s also not the only person I could sell out to. I could sell out to yuppies and become a full time babysitter that tries to write short stories at work while the young ones struggle through one of my custom-designed mazes. I could sell out to slightly older yuppies and become a tutor that teaches children to worship the god of standardized tests by sacrificing as many Saturdays as possible to the Great SAT. I could sell out to the coffee bean or tomato and become a barista or waitress, where I will be brainwashed to believe that dinners and lattes are of earth-shattering importance.

All the while, I could be typing furiously on my laptop when I return from work, quipping, editing, and submitting, until finally an obscure literary journal accepts me as an unpaid intern at which point I’ll finally have no time to blog.

So you see, sarcastic friend of a friend who thinks my hopes and dreams are ridiculous and that I need to wake up and smell the black coffee of reality, not only do I like drinking black coffee now (as long as it’s Nescafe Gold), but I also think that selling out to the man (or woman) is one of my better options.

I didn’t say I wanted to starve to death. I said I wanted to be a writer.

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Apr 04 2012
37 Comments
Humorous, One minute read

Things that Fascinate that Weird Guy at Work

And he seemed so normal.

1. Watching sailboats on the Charles River, their white sails floating above the water as in a dream.

2. The way blood beads on clean incisions.

3. Recording human reactions to his animal noises.

4. The swift transition from joy to despair when he gives children candy and then wrenches it away.

5. Logs rotting.

6. The sheer mass of nails and hair that he’s accumulated over the years, the continual nature of his body’s shedding.

7. Slicing.

8. Yo Yo Ma.

9. The taste of tears, his and others’.

10. Yoghurt smeared over coarse surfaces.

11. Seasonal sweaters.

12. Deception.

13. Fire, its complete and utter destruction, embers glowing in the ash of a ruined life.

14. Jogging.

Photo credit: stockimages from freedigitalphotos.net

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