Resume Building Is Hard Work!

  I just updated (but still only 80% complete) my LinkedIn profile to include some more skills, past work experience, and a summary, among other things, and I think I've been at it for two or more hours! I'm not looking for another job at the moment, but as volatile as the internet business is, I think it's better to be on the safe side and be 80% prepared in case anything should happen that would put me out of work.
    Needless to say, I was pretty thorough in the parts of it that I completed. I wrote what I think is a rather clever summary (Translation: it may contain too many attempts at humor and not enough actual job experience/information), and I pretty much copy/pasted my coworker's specialties and inserted a few of my own that fit better with my job description. It's probably a damn good thing I didn't start writing this blog until I was employed or 2010 would have been a hell of a depressing year with me talking about the USA Arcade on USANetwork.com, and how unfortunate it was that nobody would give me a chance. Not many people know what the hell to think of some kid who spent four (though technically I finished in 3.5) years in college studying philosophy, let alone people who actually know what you'd study if you studied philosophy.
    I am incredibly content to be employed, though I don't quite make enough to satisfy any apartment landlords application requirements without a cosigner. I get to do interesting things at work, I work with amazing people, and every now and again I get to write or edit or come up with some creative tweak to some design or plan we're working on. I'm not even going to complain about my job, although I could--I always can find something to complain about.
    But back to the resume thing. I do find it rather entertaining that LinkedIn makes completing your profile like a game, where you have to get 100% or you can't win. I suppose job searching and networking is like a game. You have to say these words, and not those ones, have these skills, and be clever or lucky enough to get to the end of it all unscathed. (I couldn't decide between a card game metaphor or a board game metaphor, so I dodged both.)
    So, with my profile 4/5 complete, I think I'll move on to slightly more interesting endeavors this evening for the remaining hour or so that I get to stay up. Some online movies, or Stephen King? Decisions, decisions.

Decision made: No King before bed--King=nightmares!

The Heat Is On

  It was a not so sunny 85ish degrees today. One of the first (if only) days this year so far that was that warm. The moths are out in force. Four times in the past twenty four hours, I've opened my car doors and a moth flew out from the crevice between the door and the car. And there were two in the office this afternoon. (I suggested we get a cat to take care of that problem.)
    But I'm not going to talk about the weather. The heat is on because I have 29 days to find a new apartment. My lease is up at the end of June and I not only refuse to stay and pay the outrageous (to put it mildly) month to month rent at my current apartment, but I also semi-refuse to move back in with my parents temporarily until I do find a place. I was living there for about 3 and a half months last year after I got my job, but the commute is a little farther than I'd like, and I was hoping, trying to be a grown-up and all, that I wouldn't have to be in that position again.
    But it's sort of slim pickins. There are plenty of places out there, but many are either: A) too far from work; B) at the basement or ground level (I worry about flooding out here); C) too expensive for my barely double digit an hour salary; D) do not allow cats (I would like to finally bring my cat up to live with me so my dad can stop babysitting him for me); or E) just aren't very nice (old, bug infested, or in a bad neighborhood). I have a few prospects, which my wonderful boyfriend has agreed to call for me since I would rather not make personal phone calls while I'm at work. Hopefully there will be something out there. It doesn't need to be that big or fancy or modern. It'd just be nice if it had a dishwasher and would let me have my cat. I'm probably too picky, so it's good to have a second opinion along to keep that in check.

    On the bright side: I paid my last month's rent today to the apartment nazis I currently have a lease with. 

Countdown to new apartment: 29 days (or less). I hope.

Pros and Cons of Being a Grown-Up

I had a moment this morning, powering through my work and listening to my MP3 (No, I do not have an iPod, for a reason) when I felt very adult-like. Typing fast, jamming out to Suffragette City and Sunshine Highway, and being totally productive, something I'm mostly able to do now that I don't have to leave halfway through the day to go to school. It was awesome.
    While being a grown-up does suck on occasion: losing a significant amount of my paycheck to taxes, paying rent to apartment Nazis that shut off my water every other week, paying bills, the possibility of getting called for jury duty (yeah, good luck with that one--I've got so many addresses my name is connected to in the past five years!). I wish I could think of more grown-up responsibilities that didn't involve money, but unfortunately, it seems that my life does revolve around finances at the moment.
    There are some pluses to being an adult: I can legally purchase alcohol, I can pay for my own gas (that could be a negative, but for me, it's a pretty big responsibility), I can give money to charity and write it off on my taxes, I can rent an apartment, I can complain to the apartment managers and my complaint actually carries weight, and I can buy my own stuff. That may not seem like much, and much of it does still have to do with money, but being able to support yourself, even if it's rather frugally, is a pretty cool thing.
    I've been living off my parents for twenty-two years, and to be able to pay for my own movie tickets, take my parents out to dinner, buy my own groceries, and even cook some of my own meals. So, adulthood has some things going for it, and some things that are a pain in the ass. I do miss childhood though. I enjoyed high school. It was the only time in my life I really had friends. Almost all my friends are long-distance friends now.
    And I enjoyed life when I was little. My Barbies and stuffed animals, the Bailey School Kids books, R.L. Stine books, getting hooked on movies that weren't produced by Disney, learning to read and write, and learning I was pretty good at both. I think I'm still somewhere in between being a kid and being a grown-up. I only act grown-up around other grown-ups. On my own or with people I'm close to, I act like the crazy teenager I was a few years ago.
    As much as I enjoyed being a kid (though at the time, I couldn't grow up fast enough), I like being grown up too, at least 60 or 70 percent of the time. We may take on more responsibilities and have to deal with things way beyond our maturity level being older, but as long as we never lose our childish enthusiasm, we can stay young at heart. (Side note: I just quoted 2 movies and a song in one sentence. Which ones?)

Live long and prosper.

Cinco De Mayo Rant

So the wonderful people at our apartment building not only told us that they can't renew our lease (not that we wanted to, but seeing as we don't have to give notice for another 3 weeks or so, it seemed a little premature), but they broke our living room window this week. They were gutting the cabinets from the apartment above ours, which finally explains the banging, bumping, and thuds I hear at all hours of the day from up there (though I can't imagine they're the ones who were up there at 10pm and 3am and all the other odd hours...), and tossing the cabinets out the window from the third floor. One fell funny and broke the outer pane of glass on our window. That was brilliant. I had been having a not-so-terrible day up until I was walking back from class and saw that our window looked a little strange. It looked broken, but not having my glasses on, I couldn't be sure.
    I dashed upstairs, and sure enough, it was broken. Quite a big piece of the middle section is missing now, with pointy shards sticking out at the edges. Now, it was a double pane window, and the inner pane is still intact, so we're not getting any unusual weather, but it was so much brighter in here when I came in that I thought the whole window had been broken through.
    The management has told us that someone will be in next Thursday or Friday (that's right, a whole week staring out an unusually bright, broken window) to replace it. If this window is not in by 5pm next Friday, someone may need to restrain me from beating down their door. It just seems like the last straw: one pretty huge crappy thing they've done in the less than four months we've lived here. First, it was sending us a notice to vacate three months early. Then it was shutting the water off every other week. They removed the dumpster nearest to our end of the building, overloading the remaining dumpsters. They now want us to get new parking passes for the last month we'll live here. They are never in their offices when they're supposed to be. Basically, these people suck at managing apartments. Cutting costs and raising rental rates. It kind of feels like living in a boarding school or something where the people in charge are trying to control every part of your life without giving you some of the courtesies or necessities that might have been given by a more customer service friendly place.
    Did I mention the internet was out for a few days this week? Without notice? The only reason I posted a couple days ago was because I had that draft in there, Seeing Double, and I used the school computers to get online and publish it.
    Needless to say, it's been a rough week living here. But, all is not lost. Today was my last day of class, and I have a weekend to look forward to. I may still have 3 finals to take next week, but I'm not worried. Yet.

Three cheers for property managment companies. Not.