Update!

I've been neglecting my poor blog, but I'm alive, and with a lot of news!

{First of all, it's 6:30 am and I've been at work for half an hour already. I switched shifts with someone and that was probably a terrible idea on my part because this is normally my day off.}

I got my letter from Kansas City declining my acceptance into the sign language interpreting program. I was a little upset when I found out it was a no but I think it's definitely for the best right now. I wasn't really fully prepared to move 3 1/2 hours away from home and BF hasn't gotten any interviews for a job in that area so the timing just wasn't right on that. I'm at peace with it and hopefully I will be able to apply for next year!

Speaking of BF, he got an interview at a private school here in town for the band director position, which definitely isn't his ideal position - they don't have an assistant director or any sort of support position, so the entire responsibility for concert band, pep band, and marching band falls completely on him. Not only that, but the current director is working from 6 am-6 pm every day, plus games in the evening, and BF is definitely not crazy about such long days every single day. A couple days after his interview, he found out that the head band director at one of the public schools in town, whom he has been long-term substituting for, is leaving to go to another school, and the current assistant director at the school does not want to step into the head director's position, so the director is really pushing for BF to fill her position! He hasn't heard anything yet, but hopefully good news will come in the next couple of weeks, one way or the other.

But my really big news is that I finally quit my job! I know I've mentioned it on here a few times (and complained on my twitter every day for at least 6 months), but I'm super unhappy at my job and have been looking for a new one. I got hired on at a local bank and I start in two weeks. I'm so excited to not have to work at a job that I hate!

That's about all I have for now but I'll update again, hopefully in less than a month :)

I hate my job.

I know everyone says this, but I don't think it's true. I hate my job. I have had three breakdowns at work in the last two weeks, where I end up sobbing in the bathroom because I'm so stressed and miserable. The supervisors are totally lazy - they refuse to take calls, they avoid work at all costs, and it's next to impossible to get any sort of help from anyone. I've seen people get promoted just because of who they're dating or related to while people who do their jobs well get passed over multiple times. Most of our raises and warnings are determined off of our quality assurance scores, and not only have they made the criteria for a good score nearly impossible to get because it's almost completely subjective, but they mark us down for things that shouldn't be marked down for - things that we are supposed to do, we do them, but then we're told that we didn't. Hello, the calls are recorded, don't tell me I didn't do something when I can hear that I did.

They give us extra work to do but no time or tools to do it - we're just expected to find time on our own, even though our schedules are dictated to the minute for us. We have about 15 goals every month to meet, and if we meet 14 of them, we don't hear a thing about the goals we did meet, we just get yelled at for the one we didn't meet. If you miss a metric by one point, you get yelled at. They don't reward progress, you either make it or you don't. I got passed over for a promotion because of something that I didn't even know was an issue until after the position had been filled - not the first time they told me I had to fix something but wasn't given even one day to do it. We aren't allowed to go to the bathroom or make a phone call or anything unless it's our designated break or lunch time, we aren't allowed to have any sort of personal items on our desk, but again, the supervisors can come and go as they please, take smoke breaks, play football in their office... it's ridiculous.

I've been looking for another job but no luck yet. BF told me not to quit this job until I have a new one lined up, but I don't know if I can hold out. When does having a paycheck outweigh the cost of your mental health? Obviously, making my car payment and phone bill every month are important, but I think having a job that you don't 100% dread going to is also important. I've never ever dreaded going to work before, but here I do. I know that no workplace is perfect, and I've had my share of jobs where I don't get along with a coworker or a manager, but I've been physically sick over this job because I'm so miserable.

So I guess stay tuned. Hopefully I'll be able to put in my two weeks' notice soon and get out of here and to a job that I enjoy and look forward to!

Your pillow is not your boyfriend.

You know when people try super hard to convince you that they're okay with something and they go so overboard that it's pretty impossible to believe them? Like, "I'm so excited for this diet! This diet is going to be so great! I love this diet! I'm totally okay with not eating cake while all my friends are! This eating only salads thing is going to be so worth it!" and you just know they're sitting on Pinterest pinning a bunch of cookie recipes while tweeting these insane I LOVE MY DIET!!!!! tweets every 3 minutes.

Recently, it's been the "I'm sooooo glad I'm single!" tweets. When every other tweet is about the guy you like blowing you off or texting you first or making you mad or making you smile and then you're like "single is the way to be!!!!", no one believes you. FYI, guys aren't really going to bang down your door if all your tweets are "I like being single cuz I don't have to share the remote!" and "who needs a man when I have my puppy?"

Also included in "no one believes you":

"It's national boyfriend day but I don't have a boyfriend so here's a pic of me and my bff!! I love her more than any man ever!"

"Rainy days make me wish I had someone to cuddle with but I'd much rather cuddle with my pillow than a man!"

"Can't believe I've been single for 6 months... best 6 months ever!"

"My cat is a better boyfriend than my ex and he doesn't talk back!"

If you constantly find ways to bring up your singlehood, it's pretty obvious that you need to find a boyfriend STAT before you draw a face on your pillow and start having date nights.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for girl power and independence and not needing a man to validate your life. However - if you are not one of those people, it's probably best not to act like you are. It's okay to not be okay with being single but you should try finding other ways to fill the "I don't have a man" void. Go see a movie by yourself (no really, it's okay!), take up a hobby like painting or archery, or enroll in a class where you can meet nice, normal men, like ballroom dancing or a book discussion group; and for heavens sake, don't try to meet your future husband in a bar or at a club and then wonder why he's only into a hookup.

I'm not going to turn this into a dating post because that's a soapbox I'll never get off of but I really hope people will learn to be okay with their relationship status, whatever it is. You'll find a man when the time is right, but posting "DAY 425 OF BEING SINGLE YAYYYY I HATE MEN!!" isn't the reverse psychology you're going for.

Don't be this girl. No one likes this girl.





Photo Dump

So a lot (read: almost all) of my recent posts have been in huge violation of the #1 blogger rule: a lot of words, not a lot of pictures. Plus they've been typed while I was at work, and my two favorite sites to pull photos from are blocked on our work network (boo!), hence the lack of pictures. So to catch y'all up, an Instagram photo dump while I'm chilling on the couch with my feet up, watching my alma mater Wichita State take on the Ohio Buckeyes in the Elite 8. Apparently I haven't done a photo dump in a long time so I'll try to keep this short :)

Okay... wasn't that short. Sorry :)

All About the Rut.

Have I mentioned this before?

I'm in a rut.

Even my blogging is in a rut. (If you haven't noticed...) I've actually posted more regularly in the past couple of weeks, but I just don't really have anything to say. Work has become less of a "ha-ha what a funny customer" thing and more of a "OMG I'm going to punch someone" thing. It's frustrating when new rules and regulations are put into place at work that seem designed to set us up to fail. I've got to make a change with my work life soon or I'm going to lose my mind. I always thought you should like your job - maybe it's not your favorite place to be in the world, but you should at least be able to get up in the morning with a good attitude about going to work, right? Unfortunately, I don't have that. It's completely dragging me down and I'm constantly exhausted, both physically and emotionally. All I want to do at the end of the day is go home and watch TV. Productive, right?

I don't miss the homework or the projects, but I miss the atmosphere of college. I missed knowing that even if I hated a class, I only had to get through it for a few months and then the semester would end. But working full-time feels like the beginning of a looooooooooooong, 40-year tunnel. I hate it! I want to enjoy life and find good things about any situation I'm in, but this isn't a good situation for me. Something needs to change.

Almost every blogger I follow loves their job. They're doing great things, following their dreams, working their dream jobs, and I'm answering phones for 40 hours a week for barely over minimum wage and working weekends and holidays. I'm over it.

I need a vacation, but my job makes it virtually impossible to get time off. Add on the fact that I can't actually afford a vacation, and it's pretty obvious it's not going to happen. I've seen a lot of couples lately who complain about the cost of a wedding (and for good reason!) but get to take fantastic honeymoons to tropical resorts or other countries, and I'm so jealous. If I had to pay for a wedding rightthisminute, I'd get as far as some DIY wedding favors and half the cost of a wedding gown and be done. Argh! I thought being an adult meant you can pay for things!

I mean, I'm almost 25, I live with my parents, I have a tiny amount of savings and am pretty much living paycheck to paycheck. I'm almost certainly going nowhere in my current job and have no idea if I'll get into the Kansas City program, much less if I can afford to go... and we won't even talk about if I have the courage to go, because the answer is almost certainly no. It's one of the things I hate about myself - the desire to travel and try new things and see new places and live life, but I completely and utterly lack the courage to do so. It's like my brain and my heart don't match up, which isn't a new thing for anyone. I am so bad with change, BF has had to calm me down before every major thing in my life - college graduation, moving, job interviews... I'm not so good at it.

I have a tendency to write "life is so hard but I will overcome!!" posts. This isn't one of them. This is an honest, raw post about how life is sometimes hard, even when it's just because of boredom. So I'm off to find my inner peace, learn to be content with what I have, and learn to chase after what I want, with reckless abandon.

A sense of entitlement.

Few things drive me nuts more than people with a sense of entitlement. It's a big problem with my generation and I fully believe it contributes to the laziness that plagues us 20-somethings. People graduate from high school and feel entitled to be completely supported by their families and/or the government the entire time they're in school because it's just too much to ask to expect a full-time student to also have a job. Then the minute they graduate, they expect to be handed their dream job in the field of their choice, and settling for anything else is just out of the question.

News flash: if you refuse to work until you can have the exact job that you think you deserve, you will probably be very poor. Unless you are one of those very few lucky people who manages to go right from college into a great job, you have two options.

1. Entry-level work. This means that if you were an advertising major in college and you don't get a job as an executive at a major company, you take whatever job you can get and work your way up. Key word: work. If you're given a project, do it. Don't whine and moan that you should be doing more important work. If you have a bad attitude, your superiors will notice, and your chances of getting promoted go way down. If you can't do a small task without complaining, they sure won't trust you with the large tasks. Pay your dues, keep a smile on your face, do what's asked of you, and you'll go far.

2. Whatever it takes to pay the bills until your dream job does open up. If you've chosen to go into a field where the applicants are plentiful and the job openings are few, you might just have to suck it up and work at Target or wait tables until your big break. Case in point: show biz. I've got a bunch of friends who've moved to New York or LA to be an actor and are doing the classic waiter-until-I-get-cast thing. You aren't going to step off the plane and land the lead in a Broadway musical or new sitcom. Patience is a virtue, and you just have to keep paying the bills until you're finally "discovered". If you're going into the arts, you need to be prepared to have a million nos until your first yes, and you aren't doing yourself a favor by refusing anything that isn't a million dollar movie contract.

I attribute a lot of this to reality shows. People see the Kardashians, who are basically famous for doing nothing, and want to be equally as famous for equally as little work. As appealing as it is, I personally think that a sense of purpose and accomplishment is even more appealing. Being handed mountains of money just for your last name may seem like the ideal career, but eventually, it would get old. And if you are fortunate enough to have the mountains of money, please do something worthwhile with it! Donate to charity, help out with a children's foundation, something to make an impact on the world besides being a pretty face.

I will digress with a final point - a quote from Condie. Absolutely genius. Get off the couch and do some work!

“If you are taught bitterness and anger, then you will believe you are a victim. You will feel aggrieved and the twin brother of aggrievment is entitlement. So now you think you are owed something and you don't have to work for it and now you're on a really bad road to nowhere because there are people who will play to that sense of victimhood, aggrievment and entitlement, and you still won't have a job.” ~ Condaleeza Rice

The Interview.

BF and I headed up to Kansas City on Thursday afternoon for my interview at Johnson County Community College for the interpreter training program. They scheduled me for 8:30 am on Friday, and it's a 3 1/2 hour drive, so we decided to not leave at 4 am and go up the night before instead. I picked a hotel that I thought was close to the campus, but it was 25 minutes away... whoops. It was a decent hotel but nothing like the nice hotels that we stayed at when we went to Texas or Kansas City the first time, which was a little disappointing. I've been spoiled by these luxury hotels, and I'm looking forward to staying at another Embassy Suites when we go to Tulsa in June! In true Emily fashion, I got homesick the second we got to the room, and BF had to convince me that we weren't going to make the long drive back home after we had just arrived. He's so sensible.

We had dinner at Jack in the Box since we don't have one here, and it was okay. Not fantastic but still good. We got it to go and headed back to the room to watch some Netflix before passing out at 10:30. Exciting vacation! I had set my alarm to go off at 7 am, and I was so anxious that I woke up at 6:30 and laid in bed until my alarm went off. I'm not a morning person by any means, but my nerves were going crazy and I didn't feel tired at all. So I kissed my man goodbye and headed out to find the campus in this strange, unfamiliar town. I'm the kind of girl that gets lost in my hometown, so even with my handy little iPhone map, I still get lost.

Miracle of miracles, I found the campus with no problem at all and even found a good parking spot. At my alma mater, WSU, parking was awful, but on this campus, they had parking garages (what a novel idea!) and parking lots close to the buildings. That wins 10 points in my book! Let me tell you, this campus is nice. They keep the property up really clean and tidy, they don't allow smoking on campus except in your car, and they obviously have a lot of pride in their school. Now, WSU has quite a bit of money coming in, but they only put it towards sports. We have this amazing basketball arena, the baseball team just got an indoor practice facility, and the cheerleaders go to a ton of conventions every year... but the art building is literally falling apart, the theater building's balcony has been condemned, and the pottery building is infested with asbestos. Priorities. But the JCCC campus looks brand-new and they keep the buildings clean of trash and life-threatening diseases. I was instantly won over. Maybe moving to KC won't be so bad...

So I get to the interview and I'm met with three deaf people, one hearing person, and an interpreter. WHAT? This wasn't part of the deal. Instant nerves kick in. I'm told that the first part of the interview will consist of them asking me questions in ASL and me responding in the same way, the second part will be me retelling a story that we were supposed to memorize, and the third part will be in spoken English, just basic questions about my knowledge of ASL and the deaf culture. Whew. Okay. The signing part goes pretty well - I had to ask them to repeat a question a couple of times and I made stupid mistakes on my signing, but overall, I think we understood each other fairly well. They asked questions like where I was from, what languages I speak, where I graduated from and what my major was, how much ASL I knew, things like that. The story retelling part went fairly well, but it's hard to read the facial expressions of deaf people because they use their face to portray different emotions than hearing people. The last part was the nerve-wracking part - they were asking me how I would handle interpreting in situations where I was morally or ethically opposed to what I was supposed to interpret, or how I feel about deaf culture, how I would respond to people who say that deaf people are disabled... Yikes! Then I had to read two articles and paraphrase what I read (to test my English skills), and that was that. I hear from them in May.

After visiting the campus and meeting the people, I feel a lot better about moving to KC for two years. My only thing is the money situation - when I had an apartment here, I was paying less for a one bedroom than I would for a studio in KC. And if I'm going back to school full-time, I'd only be able to work part-time, and I don't know that I can afford to live on my own where the cost of living is higher than what I'm used to.

All I can do is wait and have faith in God's perfect timing. He knows my heart and what I want and need, and He knows what I can and can't handle. I am unusually calm about this, and I'm at peace knowing that it's completely out of my hands.