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!