Looking for Life, Love, and Laughter...And a Job #24

Hey there strangers! Okay, I know it's been a month, but I'll get to my delay momentarily. For now, settle in and get excited to hear about the magic that is the working life.

So after my last post I headed out on vacation for a while. One of my close friends from my cohort got married over Memorial Day weekend, so a group of us headed down to celebrate with her. It was beautiful and totally made me cry. After the wedding we headed to the beach for a nice little getaway before we all went our separate ways. Overall it wasn't a super eventful trip....though it was wonderful! So nice to spend time with each other and just relax before all of the changes to come. While we were there my very best friend got her job offer, so that was super exciting! Unfortunately she's moved very far away from me, and I'm already totally sad. 

After the beach, I headed back to my hometown for a while. I had planned to stay for 3 or 4 days and ended up staying for more like 9, but it was a much needed trip to spend time with my amazing family. This trip definitely felt different in a lot of ways -- my hometown and my family's house will always be home to me, but this time there was definitely a different feeling this time. I mean, honestly that was probably the longest amount of time I'll ever get to spend at home from now on, so I was enjoying every minute of it. We had so much fun -- I love my family so much. We had a great time reminiscing and whatnot...when I moved out of my apartment in undergrad I basically just threw everything into my closet back home without really organizing it, so we had a few great nights with lots of wine and laughing while going through all of my stuff. So yeah, long story short, home was amazing. Truly wonderful. I love my family so much and really enjoyed getting to spend time with them.

When I finally came back, I spent the first couple of days helping my roomie get packed and move out, and then she left. So sad. So so sad. I also started a complicated and totally overwhelming and cool process of....get this...buying a house!! Yes, you read that right, I'm buying a house! Basically while I was at home my family and I spent a lot of time crunching the numbers, and it financially makes more sense for me to do this. Now, I should warn you that I knew absolutely nothing about house buying or mortgages or equity or anything like that approximately 3 weeks ago, and now I'm practically an expert!! It's crazy!! So yes, lots of exciting things going on.

So, in the midst of all of this going on...there's kind of the major point of actually starting my job! I've officially been working for two weeks, and it's been absolutely wonderful! I am really confident that I made a good decision in taking this job opportunity, and every day has been fantastic thus far. There is definitely a lot to learn and do, and I'm already a little overwhelmed, but I'm also really motivated and excited about the opportunity to have a really positive impact. 

A recap on the last month then....vacation and home, which were fabulous. Both of my roommates have officially moved out of my apartment, so I'm all alone, which is sad. I've been packing on the weekends -- how did I accumulate so much stuff? I've also found the house I plan to buy and am putting in a contract tomorrow! Most of my best friends have gotten jobs and moved away, which has been really tough, but I'm extremely happy for all of them. I managed to navigate my way through my benefits and retirement paperwork with the help of a wonderful benefits counselor at the University, and I've survived two solid weeks of work. It's been a hell of a month to say the least.

We are approaching the end of the month, and like my counterpart, I will be taking my leave of the blog shortly. However, I do want to write a couple more entries on what starting my professional career has been like, as well as some overall thoughts on the job search process. Apologies for taking so long before getting back to y'all -- I've learned that after a long day of work that mostly involves sitting on my computer, coming home and getting on my laptop is like the last thing I want to do. Oops! But I'm getting used to it :) 

So, thanks for continuing to follow my adventures -- things have certainly been wild lately. Tune in again soon to hear more about the life of a new professional :) 

A Wish Your Heart Makes 22

Hello folks, remember me?

The month is coming to an end, and with it, my commitment to writing this blog. I hope it has been helpful to some of you out there in the internet.

I am settling into my new job and so far I love it. Of course, my inner pessimist keeps waiting for the other shoe to fall. For right now I am thoroughly enjoying it and feel like I ABSOLUTELY made the right choice.My job provides me a near perfect mix of challenge and discovery. I work with an incredible group of people who challenge me and care about me in a way that makes me want to give my very best every single day.

Today I went to the retirement celebration of a coworker. It was a little weird because I have only known her for a few weeks, yet I felt this pang of emotion. One, she is a wonderful person. Everyone had such heartfelt things to say to her and they felt genuine. And two, she's been a the University for close to 40 years. I find that to be amazing.

I lived my life as a vagabond. My mom moved me from school to school and I've called at least four states home. I had always found people who stayed in one place to be a little bit prosaic. I imagined I would get  few more travels under my belt before possibly settling down in my middle age or something. But when I was hearing about the story of this woman, who had given so much of her life and energy to this one institution I felt a growing respect for her loyalty. I too love this institution and feel bound to see it grow and expand. There may be many opportunities for professional growth in other positions but I am realizing I may be a person who is more bound to their location then their titles.

I do believe it is possible to build communities beyond borders. Our profession's professional organizations have further validated that point. And in this age where people have become more mobile and technology compensates for our face-to-face connection, it can be easy to move from state to state and institution to institution. Yet, the heart of an institution remains the same. It may still continue to attract exceptional professionals and people. It can still continue to be home.

I feel really connected to this place. The double digit legacies of the people who surround me, convince me that I am in an incredible place. It's 8:30 and I am still sitting in my office (take that work/life balance) really appreciating where I am today. Yes, I found a job but I found so much more than that. I found a community, I found a love, I found a passion, I found a reason to wake up every morning. I found myself.

Until Next Time

A Wish Your Heart Makes 21

I'm conflicted about what to write my post about.

On one hand, I am absolutely ecstatic because I began my professional "journey" tomorrow. And on the other, I know that many of my peers are still in the midst of the job search. While it can be easy to put a smile on your face as you pat the backs of your peers who have secured jobs, is there some part of your soul that is secretly crying in angst? Or maybe there are some out there floating out there on the "it's going to happen in time wave."

I had nightmares of being the last person in my cohort to get a job. Or worst, the one who didn't get one. at. all. The high placement rate of my program's grads was not enough to qualm my fears.

My job process was serendipitous. I came to learn about my job from a professional I had done an informational interview with a year before. It was a topsy turvy process and a few more options were thrown in the mix from other professionals I knew. It was relieving and anxiety provoking. Relieving because my reputation had preceded itself. But anxiety provoking because I was deathly afraid that I wouldn't live up to the expectations people had of me. To be cautious, I applied to several outside jobs and from January to April experienced a steady flow of rejection.

It was a really difficult time. That and the overwhelming stress of my final semester of grad school AND my persistent fear that I was never going to get a job really started to wear on my spirit. I would like to say things started to fall together into a perfect wonderful lovely job, but that is not exactly true. I guess I could equate it to having a garden. You do all this work (okay, I don't garden so this is going to be a struggle) and you plant and do whatever you do and then you just sit back and wait. The tough part is that all the "magic" (or whatever happens) is happening under the soil, where you can't see it, and you just have to wait till some little pop of life emerges from the soil to validate all of that time and effort you poured into your garden. When you see it, it's a surge of relief but really that little life has been developing far before you knew it existed. And it all begin with you and your work and your hope. I guess that is what the job search can be like. Because those most anxiety ridden moments are happening when you're waiting. Waiting for an interview, waiting for a call, waiting for your application status to change. And it can seem like nothing is happening at all BUT IT IS. That is, of course, because you are watering and plowing and doing whatever gardeners do.

After I accepted my job, I got two interviews for jobs that I would LOVE in wonderful locations. I feel thankful that I'm really really happy with my job, but I keep thinking of if I had let my job search been guided by fear. If I had foreclosed on a job too early because I was afraid nothing else would come along. It can be easy for me to say that, coming from a place where my job search is done-zo, but there is still truth to staying true to who you are and who you want to be.

So don't stop believing in the little life you have growing beneath your feet, the hope of some awesome  amazing job. You've done the work and it's on it's way. It's on its way.

Until Next Time