Away From Home For the Holidays

Not a good, old-fashioned Georgia Christmas for me this year, but a (probably) stressful New York Christmas instead.  It is with some trepidation that I agreed to go to New York, my husband’s home territory, for Christmas to visit his parents.  It may sound odd that someone like myself who has been to several foreign countries and within the U.S. has traveled as far away as California, should be nervous about going to New York.  I feel like Dr. McCoy who still refers to himself as a “simple country doctor” even though he’s light years away from Earth on a spaceship exchanging witty banter with an alien.  It isn’t just New York that gives me cause for worry.  It’s where we’ll be staying while we’re there…with the in-laws…whom I’ve never met.  Yep, two and a half years into my marriage and I’ve never met my husband’s parents or siblings.  I feel like I’m some sort of embarrassing family secret.  

In reality it isn’t that my husband’s embarrassed because of me.  He just has no sense of proper social convention and customs and has neatly compartmentalized his married life as separate from his “other” family life.  In his mind, these bubbles don’t overlap.  If it weren't for me he'd probably wait to introduce me to his parents at our child's high school graduation (and we don't currently have children). It hasn’t helped that I was in the Army for the entirety of our engagement and the first year of our marriage and not always available to travel whenever he went to visit his parents.  Still, it makes for an awkward time of things now. Not only am I meeting them but I’m staying in their house for several days.  I wouldn’t even want to spend Christmas sleeping over at my own parent’s house, much less someone else’s.  I’m weird like that.  

There’s a reason the in-law situation has a bad rap in most families….it’s true.  In-laws see their child’s spouse as not being good enough and are often more critical of them than they are their own children.  In return, the spouse resents interference from the in-laws because “They’re not my parents” and any advice is considered (either correctly or incorrectly) meddling.  This makes for a tense situation.  This is precisely the type of situation I hope to avoid.  So, all I have to do is make a good first impression, smooth over any hard feeling his parents have about never having met me before, get in good with his siblings, carry on conversations with everyone over the course of several days, chip in around the house by helping to cook the Christmas meal, take care of my two pets that are coming with us, keep myself busy and occupied during the inevitably long periods of time my husband will be sleeping, and enjoy my Christmas.  Sounds easy….I got this.

Fearless Abandon

Expert rider but no expert on child safety

I never charged into battle or exhibited amazing acts of bravery or even earned a medal that would be considered distinguished for someone of my rank.  Sure, I  deployed overseas twice (to an actual war zone and not someplace like Kuwait) but I spent most of my time inside the wire, on base.  I suppose what I'm trying to say is that, despite being in the Army for six years, I didn't exactly participate in the most intense aspects of war and military service.  In the face of all that I still managed to complete my years of service a braver person than when I first enlisted. 

I will be the first to admit that "brave" is not a word one would use to describe me,  nor are "sociable" "friendly" or "fearless leader".  You have to look at where I've come from first of all.  For those of you who know me now you may find it hard to believe that I was once more reticent than I am now.  I had the annoying habit of letting people run all over me and of avoiding any difficulties that presented themselves instead of dealing with the issue.  Unless I was in completely familiar surroundings I was in a constant state of fear; fear that something would happen and I wouldn't know how to handle it or what to say.  Well, the Army cured me of all that.

I can't tell you when I changed but it most likely happened gradually.  All I know is that I somehow became a person that, instead of being told what to do by everyone, avoided listening to anyone simply because they decided to tell me what to do (and in this regard became a lot more noticeable as a member of my own family).  Aside  from this stubbornness I also developed a sort of fearless abandon.  Okay, maybe that's too strong a word but I do feel as if I'm a little bit braver and eager to prove myself.  I'm considering jobs now that I would never have considered before because I would have felt that it was too difficult for me.

I guess the biggest source of this new found bravery is the increased knowledge of my capabilities and my faults.  I have a much better picture now of who I am and what my skills and abilities are.  I also realize that my personality and personal preferences aren't likely to change much over time and that I need to follow a path that compliments my personality instead of one that struggles against it.  No matter how much I might want to be a people person, I never will be.  While it's true that working on my social skills will improve that skill, it will never increase it to the point that it comes natural to me.

Now the older, wiser version of myself is able to charge ahead with a much better idea of who I am and who I want to become.  I hope to approach things with a balance of ambition and realism from now on as the younger me probably wouldn't even know how to distinguish between the two.  Many adults still don't.  Then again, I still have a lot to learn.  I'm eager to see what lessons I'll learn as I get older.  I just have to remember to keep my mind open to the knowledge.     

Returning to College at 32

Here I am, registered at UWG as a full-time college student for the first time in ten years.  I’m back in familiar surroundings…sort of.  This University has changed so much since I was last here.  The library has been remodeled and now includes a lot more computers, electronic book check-out, and best of all –they allow food and drink in here now.  Several offices have moved to different buildings and several new buildings have been built around campus.  At least most of the buildings are where I remember them so I'm not awkwardly wandering around campus (well, at least being lost isn't my reason for being awkward).  

I feel a weird sense of both accomplishment and failure in being back at school.  In a way I feel that I have failed in my first career and that’s why I’m starting over.  Someone my age should be well ensconced in their career and not still trying to find out what they want to be when they grow up.  At the same time however, I realize that there are many people my age and much older who choose to change careers and this economy has forced many people to reinvent themselves.  I also recognize that I’m not truly starting from scratch.  I have ten years of experience I didn’t have the last time I was here and I do have most of my core classes taken care of as a result of getting my first degree.

One thing that I am surprised at is how many “useless” classes I’ll have to take.  I’m majoring in Biology now but I didn’t take a single Biology or Chemistry class my first go round.  That creates an obvious problem – or at least it should have been obvious to me if I had really thought about it.  I have to take the introductory classes first before I can truly branch out into the major.  This means that I can only take one or two meaningful classes at a time (meaningful being that they count toward my major) with the rest of my classes being filler classes or classes that would work toward a minor.  I have already fulfilled my core requirements and have plenty of upper level electives due to my first undergraduate degree.  Then why don’t I just go part-time?  Because I’m using the GI Bill which gives a housing stipend each month if I attend college full-time.  If I only go part-time I only get half of the stipend.  Why wouldn’t I take a couple more classes for fun if it means extra money each month?

I suppose I am really over-analyzing this.  I should be thrilled at the opportunity to go back to school and to have, not only my tuition paid, but a stipend as well.  After all, I’ve been wanting to go back to school since I got out of the Army nearly two years ago.  I know I will enjoy school and I picked a major based on logic, ability, and job viability in the current economy.  I suppose this first semester of useless classes will be a good way for me to determine if this major is really for me and if I can handle a full course load after so much time away from college.  Oh, to be young and idealistic again and to labor under the impression that every class I take is a benefit somehow and that a degree = a job.  Time to put on my rose-tinted glasses. 

         

Minimum Wage Is Not Enough

Photo by jpmatth via Flickr

Minimum wage in the U.S. is pretty low compared to the standard of living.  I know, most of you have probably already realized this.  The thing that surprised me was that federal minimum wage has not changed since 2009.  It is still $7.25 an hour and basic expenses such as food, utilities, etc are increasing in cost every year.  Not to mention the obvious fact that we are in a "Great Recession" where jobs are scarce and getting a home loan is harder than it used to be.  My home state of Georgia, along with Wyoming, has the lowest state minimum wage at $5.15 an hour.  However in most cases the federal minimum wage applies and not the state minimum wage, but why should the state minimum wage even be as low as $5.15? 

Another big issue facing the average American in this economy is that it's very much an employers market.  Employers can afford to be picky when it comes to choosing employees and the current employees feel they are privileged to even have a job and therefore put up with working conditions they normally wouldn't have to.  I know, I know...life isn't easy and working has always been hard and employers are always mean to their employees and we should just suck it up and stop complaining.  I get that.  I have no aversion to hard work....well, maybe I do have a little bit of an aversion but I'd still put in the effort.  That doesn't mean I'm not justified in being a bit frustrated. 

I suppose it's this type of frustration that leads many young people to camp out in local parks and get arrested as some sort of hippie initiation rite.  I have no qualms with the aims of the Occupy Wall street movement and other spin-off movements (even though those aims are often vague ideas instead of bulleted points but don't try to regulate our thoughts man) .  What I'm not so sure of is the method to the madness.  The Occupy movement wants to overhaul the entire political and economic system which can't be done by camping out.  A large enough protest can lead to changes in widely unpopular policies but something else has to happen for change on a revolutionary scale to occur.  To be honest I'm just not ready for a revolution.  I guess I'm a little past the age where the idea of a coup d'etat is appealing to me.  If I was an idealistic young person looking to create change on a national level I suppose the first thing I'd do is to make sure I educate myself on the issues, vote, and encourage others to vote as well.  If I was unemployed and in need of work I think a better way to spend my time would be looking for work instead of camping out in a park all day and all night long.  I also think that a big social statement could be made in the form of organizing, not to camp out in a park, but to volunteer at a soup kitchen or in some form of community outreach program. 

I know I'm being hypocritical here as I'm not a member of an outreach program and I'm not actively involved in any political organizations.  I do intend to vote on issues that I feel are important and I feel obligated to educate myself on the issues even though it sometimes feels like I'm getting mired in a molasses of ideas and posturing.  I guess if there's anything I want people to take away from this is that there are many ways of bringing about change and very few of those ways are instantaneous and complete. Enthusiasm is good as long as we temper it with a bit of realism.            

Stalked By Bad Luck

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I must have the worst luck ever.  Or at least that's the way things seem from my perspective.  Every task I've undertaken lately, no matter how simple it seems at first, always ends up being 10 times harder than it should be.  I could go into detail with my encounter with the harpies that work at the DMV (or DDS as they now call it...probably had to come up with an alias due to multiple death threats from disgruntled customers).  However, I am too upset as a result of my five visits across the river Styx to really comment on it at this point.  Maybe at some point I'll acquire a GA driver's license, but until then at least my VA license still seems to like me.

You may be one of these annoying people who want to tell me that it must be due to negative thinking that these bad things are happening to me.  I can assure you that on multiple occasions I have happily walked into the DMV, called someone, emailed someone, etc expecting no problems whatsoever only to be blindsided with problems that only Hades could invent.

My husband, on the other hand, has the best luck.  He often gets special treatment, easy breaks, and rarely runs into unexpected problems.  As a result, he has the annoying habit of expecting that everything should go great for me too and believes that it must be a result of something I said/did or possibly a genetic predisposition to bad luck that causes me to have such difficulties.  He also tends to overreact and exaggerate claims which leads to conversations like this:
Me: "The DMV said they wouldn't accept the document because it doesn't have a stamp on it and so they won't give me a license."
Husband: "What?! What is the matter with those retards?! If that happened to me I'd take a shit on the counter and tell them to shove those papers up their ass!!"
 For the record, he would not actually take a shit on the counter and even though he may make a smart-ass comment to them, he wouldn't tell them to shove it up their ass either.

 Today was one of those days when it comes to a head for me.  I have reached the limits of giving a shit and aren't quite sure if I should yell, cry, just give up trying to fix things, or lay on the couch for the remainder of the day eating junk food.  I compromised by getting a large Mocha from McDonalds and telling myself to set aside all this angst for the weekend as there isn't anything I can do about it until Monday anyway. Essentially I'm doing what humans tend to do best which is to ignore problems and hope they go away. It's been my experience that this works better than beating your problems to death because they'll just come back as zombie problems anyway and try to eat your brains. When that happens you become the zombie that just causes problems for other people.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zaxl4/167271115/sizes/s/in/photostream/

Black Hole of Indecisiveness

I didn't know what to do. Like any true liberal arts graduate I wavered back and forth between going back to college to pursue a second Bachelor's degree, to pursue a Master's in History, or to forget school for now and focus on continuing my career in the Intelligence field. I applied to a college in Virginia as an undergrad with the intent of picking up a few more history courses before charging in as a graduate student. I was accepted but didn't register for classes. Between the time I applied and time for registration came about, my husband and I had decided to move back to Georgia. So, I focused on applying to intel jobs in the Atlanta area....of which there aren't many I assure you. After a couple of promising interviews and emails I met with a wall of defeat. It turns out that this economy isn't the best in which to look for a new job (who knew?). So, now I've come full circle to applying to college again, this time as an undergrad in Georgia.


This year of insanity has provided a lot of insight into my tendency to be indecisive. Because I can't figure out exactly what I want to do I end up not doing much of anything. I even stopped writing because I felt that it would distract from my job search and that it wasn't productive so why bother. I was being bitter basically. So now I say screw it. I should just do what I've been wanting to do for 2 years now....go back to school. I'm not totally abandoning logic here. A BA in Anthropology isn't much use even in a good job market and my 7 years of intel experience is restricted to the military field and civilian employers don't give flip about that it seems. I have no intention of going back overseas or moving all over kingdom come again to hunt down an elusive intel job. So, changing careers seems like a good move as long as I pick a degree that will give me good job prospects after graduation. I have no problem working a dead-end hourly job as long as I'm in school and working toward something better.


For those of you who even read this and have wondered what I've been up to this past year the answer is simple and boring - nothing. Well, I have made significant strides in fitness. I took up running (I needed to see progress in some area of my life) and I've since competed in a 5k, 10k trail race, half marathon, and marathon. My next race is a half marathon on Thanksgiving Day so at least I'm physically better off than I was a year ago. I tend to have a one-track mind so focusing so intently on improving my running has resulted on everything else being out of focus. "I have a two hour run in the morning! I don't have time for anything else!" That's how my messed up brain works. A multi-tasking corporate mogul I'll never be.