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Job Searching and Wonting

Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day!  My outlook sharply contrasts with the dreary, cloudy day, because I have hope.  After 9 months of unfruitful job searching, I have finally been granted an interview.  Even though this is only a first interview via Skype, it represents much more than that; it represents hope of a promise of personal fulfillment.  It means I am not wasting my time.  It means my MLIS degree was not a waste, but a fruit from a tree which has been tended.  Well, sort of...

I waver between chomping at the bit to get back to work, and putting more efforts into my bakery endeavors.  Coupled with my other responsibilities, these two dreams cannot exist simultaneously.  I feel like I'm an undergraduate again, torn between academia and my art studios.  So many general education classes are required, but a focus is also necessary.  Each discipline demands your full attention and devotion, yet leaves you sort of empty, not really fitting in anywhere, even though everybody else thinks you do.  The history teachers recruit you to be a historian, the oil painters want you learning about your predecessors while you crank out paintings.  You really like them all...

Some weeks I spend my free minutes scouring the web for job postings and submitting applications.  Other weeks, I scour cookbooks and the web for recipes, then get in the kitchen and test, test, test.  All the while, I feel like crap because I'm not able to channel my creative and intellectual energies very far, and because I'm tired as a mom of a young tot.  I even wrote a conference paper, got it accepted, only to realize I can't afford to make the trip because I'M STILL UNEMPLOYED.

Even though there are glimpses of light at the end of the tunnel, it's still a Catch-22- gotta have money to make money.  That dividing line between the haves and the have nots is wide, yes, even in the first world. 


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