In Seattle

Hello again,

Almost a week ago I flew out to Seattle to see if I would enjoy living out here and find a job to support myself. I am staying with my friend Dylon, whom I met in during studying in Germany back when this blog started, and his girlfriend in their apartment in a small town just outside of Seattle itself.

So far I have a good impression of the place, although I regret having flown instead of driven, as it's difficult not having a car here. However, that's not all a bad thing since it will force me to get used to the public transportation, which is one of the things I was looking for in a city.

Yesterday we all went to have a look around Seattle for the afternoon. We mainly stopped at little shops, but at nearly every bookstore I visited I inquired to see if they could use another worker. They all said no, but I wasn't expecting any yeses on the first day anyway, and besides it would probably be a part time job anyways. I also hope to stop at some other stores, such as Borders or Barnes and Noble, although I won't be limiting my search to just bookshops, of course.

A search is frustrating though because I feel I am at square one with no guidance. I recently found out that my university offers a class for students on how to search for a job. That's a class I wish I had had available to me when I was studying. As it is I feel rather clueless and like I'm at square one. When looking through job sites online it feels like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. So many jobs, but many of them I don't qualify for due to lack of certain skills or experience, or they don't pay well enough because they are just part time temp positions which would be nice supplements but not good enough on their own. Anyone, but especially RPCVs, what resources are you using? Just the RPCV website?

Also out here I feel like a fish out of water. Naturally I expected this transitional period to occur due to the fact I've never been out here in this part of the country before. But it is lonely. I look forward to getting out more on my own and meeting people (hence using the transit system). Despite having lived in bus-filled Germany, and combi-filled Peru, ideas of using bus lines and similar means of transport leave me reeling a bit.

Weather-wise it is yet to be seen how I'll react. Clouds and rain have usually been challenging for me, but how bad it gets depends. In Nebraska the weather was never a huge issue. I even looked forward to cloudy fall days and thunderstorms. In Germany the clouds and rain were a bit of a letdown but never a force that completely dropped me, and Germany's climate was indeed quite wet. In Peru I think it was more the isolation and difficulty of feeling from mud clean that was bothersome rather than the rain. In other words, my relationship with the weather is a back and forth deal.

So why do I want to look at Seattle? Because I've never been out here, I hear that it's gorgeous, and I'm curious about the culture. I've made no guarantee that I'll end up here, but I want to take a gander at the surroundings, see what kind of vibes I get, and see if I like it, simply put.

I will say though that I feel lonely. I would like to be around other Peace Corps volunteers from my group, and I get the feeling that a lot of them are near each other. To the people in my group who read this, is that true or am I imagining things? It seems like many of them are ending up in Boston, DC, or New York (DC is another place I'm going to potentially look at). I would like to stay in touch with my friends I made in the past two years if possible, and want to know if other volunteers will be seeing much of each other or not. I don't want to lose those connections and relationships.

Health-wise I'm getting back into running in the States. It's not fun to run in the cold, but another advantage to being out here is that it is usually warm enough to run. I'm trying to eat healthier, as I've put on some weight since getting home, and while frankly I probably needed to put on a little weight, I don't want to go down that slippery slope. I've also given up drinking soda. I still suck at this frankly, but the truth is I feel like crap when I drink it. I just feel unhealthy and depressed even. I'm addicted to the sugar I guess...I don't think it's caffeine because I can drink caffeine-free pop and still feel the same crumminess. Do I give it up completely? I'm trying to (although today I had a root beer :-S ). I realized that it's too hard for me to cut back on it, so it's either drink it or don't drink it at all. Whether or not I cut it 100% out of my life I don't know. Right now I'm trying to just quit drinking it with as few exceptions as possible.

Anyway, that's my story for now. I'll write again when I have a little to say about my trip out here.

Peace!
T

The Quest for the Mystery Job

Dear Readers,

I wanted to write an update about being how things have been at home since I've gotten back from Peru.

I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family and then for New Years I drove to Omaha and Lincoln to see some old friends and a cousin whom I hadn't seen for over two years, due to my time out of the country. It was seeing my friends that brought about more culture shock. Staying with my family didn't provoke much since family tends to stay static in many cases; my room is the same, my dog is the same, my parents are how I left them pretty much. But in my own generation, I see the differences more readily. Many of the people I visited were either engaged or married already. One of the had an 18 month old daughter.

It also felt strange to walk around on my alma mater's campus. It had been home to me for nearly four years, yet what little I saw when I went to see what professors and staff were on campus. All said though, despite feeling like I'd walked back into a time warp, it was nice to my friends from my pre-Peace Corps life.

Back home I continue the Quest for the Mystery Job. This is a challenging quest, and I feel like I'm in a forest and have to survive by gathering up sticks to make a wee fire just so I don't freeze to to weakness and be eaten by wolves.

As the case is, though, I fear I might be eaten by wolves at home, too. My parents and I are starting to clash a little bit. Seems this house is just too small for us, and I think it's made even smaller by the fact that I'm not sure what I want to do for a job. For me it seems to be a case of pick a place and go, like that kid in the movie "The Last King of Scotland" or randomly picks out Uganda (I think) to go to. I chose Seattle. Not as randomly as that kid in the movie did, and I don't plan on having an affair with the psychotic dictator's wife while visiting, though, so it's not exactly the same thing. I'll be visiting a friend and frantically trying to find gainful employment for an undetermined amount of time. What kind of work, say you? I don't know! :-( I feel - not panicky, but certainly uncertain about how to go about this process. But I have to get out there and see. That's the most important thing. I need field experience. It's an adventure. A scary one. Rather even scarier than Peace Corps because I had more of a safety net under me in the form of Peace Corps staff and other volunteers, not to mention training and a host family.

So anyways, to Seattle I go, to see what I can see. I don't know if I'll stay or if I'll even like it, but I want to see something new. I've been in small towns for most of my life; I'd like to see how city living goes.

Here's a job idea: Be an Alaskan bush pilot. Could I hack it? I'm not sure. But it looks like an incredibly exciting job. I've considered working on a deep-sea fishing boat, but decided that was just a flight of fancy. Being a pilot though I think I would enjoy. Learning to fly is one of the things on my bucket list. I think I'll do some research on bush flying and see what kind of things it entails. I have no idea if I'd like it or not.

On an unrelated note, I'm now learning Norwegian. My French and Esperanto are still intermediate, but mostly just need practice, so I can afford to start to study another language again. And as a matter of fact, I've studied Norwegian before, so it's mainly a review for the time being.

Some other observations:

American pop culture sucks harder than when I left. Sorry guys, but it does. It feels like there are only about eight popular songs on the radio right now, but they are all lousy and get played on endlessly repeating cycles. On the other hand, I'm glad to be back up to speed where I can see the movies I want. "True Grit" and "The King's Speech" were both amazing.

And one other note. I'm considering starting a new blog. I'm not sure I will, but now that I'm looking for a job, I am concerned that I can't be as open about myself as I normally am when I write. Is this a reasonable concern? In this new blog I'd write anonymously, so I'm not sure how I'd get the word out to my readers. I mostly am just concerned about prospective employers reading finding something (I don't know what) that would hurt my chances at getting a job.

That's all for now, folks!