I'm working on making my sleeping schedule more regular. By working on it, I mean my mom is letting me have half of her sleeping pills. I don't intend to make it a habit, I am just taking them for now to get a better schedule.
The other night, I didn't fall asleep until almost 5 am. Since I've had a few other nights like that recently, I decided it was time to intervene.
Today I was talking to my mom about something that's been bouncing around in my head for a while. With this upcoming interview at the Japan consulate in SF, I am realizing that a belief I've had for some time really has a lot of truth to it.
It may seem like going from studying Japanese, living in Japan to studying international policy studies and development is a leap with very little connection between them, but I honestly don't believe that I've taken any detours to where I am now. Sure, I could have studied Global Studies in undergrad (instead I took just one class) and the subject matter would have been more closely related to what I studied at MIIS, but if I never lived in Japan I wouldn't have had the personal development experience I needed to decide that I wanted to go to graduate school and that I COULD pursue my interests in international studies that I harbored but never widely admitted I had. Going to Japan also widened my perspective and there is no doubt that my several visits to Hiroshima is what first got me on the path to Peace Studies (thus, ending up with Conflict Resolution as my concentration.)
I attended and graduated from MIIS thoroughly believing that there was little chance that my background with Japan would have any greater effect on my future career than that. I thought that maybe I would work for an NGO in Southeast Asia and if I had the opportunity to temporarily work with or be in communication with a Japanese NGO it would just be LUCK- nothing I should count on. It seemed like Japan and what I wanted to do with my graduate degree had loose connections, but I believed in them. I had no detours.
This upcoming interview opened my eyes. Maybe the connections between each step that I've taken are a lot clearer than I originally thought. If my Japan background and MIIS studies combine to create a job at the Consulate of Japan in San Francisco, next I might be able to grow in the field of Japan's international relationships. Then maybe Japan's international development activities? I don't know exactly how this can work, but it's a different path that I hadn't even thought of before. I could continue doing what I have been doing- collecting these experiences, bits of knowledge, and useful skills and eventually they will accumulate into something really great.
Something having to do with Japan AND International Development. How awesome would that be?
(The only thing that would make it better is if I could still have close proximity to my family. :/)
October 15, 2012
October 13, 2012
Preparations
I guess that last blog was a daily blog after all. The entire day yesterday ended up being kind of thrown off by my mom getting a high fever.
So now it's less than a week until the big interview in San Francisco. I'm working on a word document containing questions I want to ask, how I will answer questions that I anticipate, why I am good for the job and why the job is good for me. I'm also planning on studying some Japanese like might be impressive to my interviewer (did I mention this is for the Japanese consulate in San Francisco?) and reviewing what I've learned about web design over the years so that I can speak about it in a more informed way.
I got my suit together and I still need to work on what I am doing with my hair and for makeup.
Meanwhile, I am attempting to schedule a mock interview with a local job search professional. It intimidates me to seek this help (almost as much as the interview itself), but I know it will help so I am trying anyway.
I know I am a good fit for this job, so I have nothing to be worried about.
Although I do have quite a lot at stake right now....
So now it's less than a week until the big interview in San Francisco. I'm working on a word document containing questions I want to ask, how I will answer questions that I anticipate, why I am good for the job and why the job is good for me. I'm also planning on studying some Japanese like might be impressive to my interviewer (did I mention this is for the Japanese consulate in San Francisco?) and reviewing what I've learned about web design over the years so that I can speak about it in a more informed way.
I got my suit together and I still need to work on what I am doing with my hair and for makeup.
Meanwhile, I am attempting to schedule a mock interview with a local job search professional. It intimidates me to seek this help (almost as much as the interview itself), but I know it will help so I am trying anyway.
I know I am a good fit for this job, so I have nothing to be worried about.
October 12, 2012
Anxiety
This is not a daily blog. Well, it's after midnight, so if one just doesn't happen tomorrow, I can just say that this IS the daily blog. But I probably already ruined that by saying this...
I was thinking that I probably ought to go to sleep instead of typing this up. My sleep schedule has been awful, but then again, going to bed earlier hasn't seemed to help. Plus if the motivation behind everyday blog entries was to get myself INTO writing again, then if I have a time that I WANT to write a blog, I should definitely do that.
I don't know why, but for some reason tonight I am suddenly feeling kind of melancholy. I am not feeling bad about myself and my job hunting status per say, but I was thinking about how this time has been for me.
I think the worst thing about job hunting is the lack of accomplishment. Sure, getting an application turned in and even an interview now and then are accomplishments, but there is not a lot to actually feel good about. It's a thankless job. It is so hard to try to "sell yourself," your "great" personality, work ethic, and everything you have to offer an employer when there are no reminders that those things are all true except for the ones you have to constantly feed yourself to get through the cover letters and resumes. How do you, after months of nothing much more than self-assurance, go up in front of an interviewer and behave like a champion?
"Fake it till you make it" seems to have been my philosophy so far. Some of the greatest strides in my life that I've ever made were when I didn't feel adequate but just pretended until I could finally get to a place where it was a real feeling. I feel pretty certain that I will be "faking it" at my interview next week. Then again, I wonder if just about everyone is the same as me in that kind of situation.
Sometimes I feel like other people have it much easier than I do. I see some people who find it easy to "network," when I just pretend to find it easy. I've learned a lot from these people, I've modeled behavior after them, which is how I learned to appear at ease. Still, I wonder how they can do it. How they can be so self-assured that they don't stumble over words and make great impressions on people? I even stumble with my words sometimes with people I consider to be my good friends.
I've made GREAT (read: ginormous) strides over the years with my social anxiety and self-confidence, but these little bits that still exist really irk me. I want to grow out of them so badly but most of my waking hours I don't even want to acknowledge they exist. THEY DO- they exist in my sometimes lack of clarity in speech and now sometimes I start feeling uncomfortable in conversation. I KNOW THEY EXIST because I get frustrated when people point them out.
OK- so another thing for me to work on in the next week before my interview. In exactly a week from now, I will be in San Francisco and HOPEFULLY sleeping as I will have that interview the very next morning. This is perhaps the most important thing I can do for this interview and for my life. This week I resolve to try to work through my remaining social anxiety. As always, I will accept strides towards improvement as it seems like all the good change so far as come in that form.
There was a topic change at some point, but it felt natural to me so I rolled with it. :)
I was thinking that I probably ought to go to sleep instead of typing this up. My sleep schedule has been awful, but then again, going to bed earlier hasn't seemed to help. Plus if the motivation behind everyday blog entries was to get myself INTO writing again, then if I have a time that I WANT to write a blog, I should definitely do that.
I don't know why, but for some reason tonight I am suddenly feeling kind of melancholy. I am not feeling bad about myself and my job hunting status per say, but I was thinking about how this time has been for me.
I think the worst thing about job hunting is the lack of accomplishment. Sure, getting an application turned in and even an interview now and then are accomplishments, but there is not a lot to actually feel good about. It's a thankless job. It is so hard to try to "sell yourself," your "great" personality, work ethic, and everything you have to offer an employer when there are no reminders that those things are all true except for the ones you have to constantly feed yourself to get through the cover letters and resumes. How do you, after months of nothing much more than self-assurance, go up in front of an interviewer and behave like a champion?
"Fake it till you make it" seems to have been my philosophy so far. Some of the greatest strides in my life that I've ever made were when I didn't feel adequate but just pretended until I could finally get to a place where it was a real feeling. I feel pretty certain that I will be "faking it" at my interview next week. Then again, I wonder if just about everyone is the same as me in that kind of situation.
Sometimes I feel like other people have it much easier than I do. I see some people who find it easy to "network," when I just pretend to find it easy. I've learned a lot from these people, I've modeled behavior after them, which is how I learned to appear at ease. Still, I wonder how they can do it. How they can be so self-assured that they don't stumble over words and make great impressions on people? I even stumble with my words sometimes with people I consider to be my good friends.
I've made GREAT (read: ginormous) strides over the years with my social anxiety and self-confidence, but these little bits that still exist really irk me. I want to grow out of them so badly but most of my waking hours I don't even want to acknowledge they exist. THEY DO- they exist in my sometimes lack of clarity in speech and now sometimes I start feeling uncomfortable in conversation. I KNOW THEY EXIST because I get frustrated when people point them out.
OK- so another thing for me to work on in the next week before my interview. In exactly a week from now, I will be in San Francisco and HOPEFULLY sleeping as I will have that interview the very next morning. This is perhaps the most important thing I can do for this interview and for my life. This week I resolve to try to work through my remaining social anxiety. As always, I will accept strides towards improvement as it seems like all the good change so far as come in that form.
There was a topic change at some point, but it felt natural to me so I rolled with it. :)
October 11, 2012
Strange place
I woke up today way too late feeling way too icky. I ended up staying home when mom and David went to go work on the house because I figured I couldn't be too much help feeling this icky.
Hopefully this will end up being a semi-productive day, but I have my doubts. It's rainy, I'm tired, I have soreness as if I exercised but I am fairly certain I didn't. I guess I'll drink some green tea in a bit to see if I can get myself going.
I think my sleep cycles have been very short lately. I think it's supposed to be around 90 minutes before one reaches the REM part of the cycle, but I keep having elaborate dreams and waking up from them just an hour after I fell asleep. I've never been one to consistently wake up in the middle of the night, but lately it's been a nightly occurrence.
I can't think of anything else to write about, so I guess I will write about my dream.
I can't remember where we were coming from, but my mom and I were in my car on our way home when we stopped in Santa Cruz. We met up with my brother there and he wanted us to have dinner there. I was really tired and suggested we finish the drive back home first and have dinner there, but my brother said that he can't do that because he was going back to Fresno.
Somehow we ended up in the place where he was living in my dream and we were going to spend the night there. Completely unlike reality, my brother lived in a really bad area in a kind of run down place. At one point, I was in the kitchen and some random kid came in. I thought about telling the kid to leave, but then I noticed him go to the sink and put cold water and his wrist like it hurt. Then I saw a woman outside and wondered if she hurt the boy. So I went to the screen door of the place and shut it and held it closed because the screen door would not lock. I didn't say anything but stood there trying to communicate "You can't come in here." The woman didn't really react, she just left. Then I remembered that my brother only had exclusive right to his room and that this kitchen was common area. The kid wasn't wrong to come into the house and I had no right to keep the woman out (other than to protect the child.)
So we spent the night. The next morning, I was packing my things. My mom told me to pack carefully because people are often robbed in the area. When I finished, neither my mom or brother were there. For some reason, I didn't feel like I was in an appropriate place to change so I left the room still in the sweats and shirt that I slept in with my hair not brushed. I found mom and Jesse at a breakfast place down stairs where there was bagels and juice (like at a hotel). They already got their breakfast and went to a table, I went to get mine wondering where I could find a public restroom to change in and then got into a conversation with someone about something. Then I woke up never having had the opportunity to find mom and Jesse again, eat breakfast, or change my clothes.
Weird. I wonder why I dreamed that.
Hopefully this will end up being a semi-productive day, but I have my doubts. It's rainy, I'm tired, I have soreness as if I exercised but I am fairly certain I didn't. I guess I'll drink some green tea in a bit to see if I can get myself going.
I think my sleep cycles have been very short lately. I think it's supposed to be around 90 minutes before one reaches the REM part of the cycle, but I keep having elaborate dreams and waking up from them just an hour after I fell asleep. I've never been one to consistently wake up in the middle of the night, but lately it's been a nightly occurrence.
I can't think of anything else to write about, so I guess I will write about my dream.
I can't remember where we were coming from, but my mom and I were in my car on our way home when we stopped in Santa Cruz. We met up with my brother there and he wanted us to have dinner there. I was really tired and suggested we finish the drive back home first and have dinner there, but my brother said that he can't do that because he was going back to Fresno.
Somehow we ended up in the place where he was living in my dream and we were going to spend the night there. Completely unlike reality, my brother lived in a really bad area in a kind of run down place. At one point, I was in the kitchen and some random kid came in. I thought about telling the kid to leave, but then I noticed him go to the sink and put cold water and his wrist like it hurt. Then I saw a woman outside and wondered if she hurt the boy. So I went to the screen door of the place and shut it and held it closed because the screen door would not lock. I didn't say anything but stood there trying to communicate "You can't come in here." The woman didn't really react, she just left. Then I remembered that my brother only had exclusive right to his room and that this kitchen was common area. The kid wasn't wrong to come into the house and I had no right to keep the woman out (other than to protect the child.)
So we spent the night. The next morning, I was packing my things. My mom told me to pack carefully because people are often robbed in the area. When I finished, neither my mom or brother were there. For some reason, I didn't feel like I was in an appropriate place to change so I left the room still in the sweats and shirt that I slept in with my hair not brushed. I found mom and Jesse at a breakfast place down stairs where there was bagels and juice (like at a hotel). They already got their breakfast and went to a table, I went to get mine wondering where I could find a public restroom to change in and then got into a conversation with someone about something. Then I woke up never having had the opportunity to find mom and Jesse again, eat breakfast, or change my clothes.
Weird. I wonder why I dreamed that.
October 10, 2012
Doors
I am pretty bad at this once a day thing. (haha) I was helping out with the rental house in Salinas again, so I was a bit too preoccupied with that to remember this silly thing that I am trying to turn into a habit.
One thing we're trying to do is replace the door on the house. The only problem is that it is an old house and the door is wider than standard doors are now and they don't have a lot of money to spend on anything right now. My mom and I already checked the Last Chance shop at the local dump and also the Habitat for Humanity store. I used my handy dandy smart phone, google'd, and found a list of businesses that sell recycled materials for houses and we found another place in Castroville to look at doors at. Unfortunately, we haven't had any luck. The search has been kind of fun, at least in my opinion. I've enjoyed going to those places and seeing all of the things they have.
(They kind of make me wish even more I had my own place to furnish, however...)
Some people who know me well might know this, but I can be very stubborn when I get involved in a task. I keep telling my mom we should call the business on the list I found in Santa Cruz to see if they have what we are looking for. It can be hard for me to move on once I have a search going. (In fact, I just might hop back onto Craigslist after I post this.)
Consequently, I haven't done a lot of applying for jobs in the past few days. It's not as if I am wasting my time, however, since helping my mom out was part of the deal for my rent at her place to be so cheap. I like this to feel equitable so that I can feel like an adult amidst the overall standstill my life is in. Other than that, my main focus right now should be preparing for my interview, which is in a week and two days! (yayyy!) I can't believe how time flies.
One thing we're trying to do is replace the door on the house. The only problem is that it is an old house and the door is wider than standard doors are now and they don't have a lot of money to spend on anything right now. My mom and I already checked the Last Chance shop at the local dump and also the Habitat for Humanity store. I used my handy dandy smart phone, google'd, and found a list of businesses that sell recycled materials for houses and we found another place in Castroville to look at doors at. Unfortunately, we haven't had any luck. The search has been kind of fun, at least in my opinion. I've enjoyed going to those places and seeing all of the things they have.
(They kind of make me wish even more I had my own place to furnish, however...)
Some people who know me well might know this, but I can be very stubborn when I get involved in a task. I keep telling my mom we should call the business on the list I found in Santa Cruz to see if they have what we are looking for. It can be hard for me to move on once I have a search going. (In fact, I just might hop back onto Craigslist after I post this.)
Consequently, I haven't done a lot of applying for jobs in the past few days. It's not as if I am wasting my time, however, since helping my mom out was part of the deal for my rent at her place to be so cheap. I like this to feel equitable so that I can feel like an adult amidst the overall standstill my life is in. Other than that, my main focus right now should be preparing for my interview, which is in a week and two days! (yayyy!) I can't believe how time flies.
October 07, 2012
Sleepy
I didn't get much sleep last night. For some reason, I couldn't get to sleep until around 5 am. Then I woke up overheated around an hour later from probably the weirdest and one of the creepiest dreams I've ever had. I had to type it up on my phone before my heart rate would settle enough to go back to sleep. I'm trying not to nap because then I won't sleep well tonight. We'll see how that goes.
Certainly this is a good excuse to have a short blog today?
I would be applying for jobs, but I am a bit worried because I don't know what the quality of my applications will be as I am so tired. I guess I'll try anyway.
Sidenote- it's so easy to forget how great it is to make a meal of Costco samples when it's been a while. :)
Certainly this is a good excuse to have a short blog today?
I would be applying for jobs, but I am a bit worried because I don't know what the quality of my applications will be as I am so tired. I guess I'll try anyway.
Sidenote- it's so easy to forget how great it is to make a meal of Costco samples when it's been a while. :)
October 06, 2012
Ho Hum...
I really REALLY wish I had more things going on these days to talk about. It would make this whole daily blogging thing a heck of a lot easier.
Hmm...
I succeeded in applying for two jobs yesterday. Today is laundry day so that's currently in progress. I'm hoping that I might get two more applications in today, but I might end up going to Salinas again today so who knows.
I really want to see the movie Pitch Perfect which came out into theaters yesterday. I think it looks like an entertaining movie. I just wish I had people in my own demographic (female, in 20s) around to go with who I think would like that movie. I really don't think that mom and David would like it very much. Maybe it will still be in theaters when Krys (and maybe Bethany) will be visiting California later that month. Of course, in an ideal world my interview would turn out great and I would be working on moving to San Francisco by then, so who knows if seeing a movie then would be practical.
I miss the MIIS days when I had more friends around. :/
Hopefully, though, I can get a job and move soon. Then I can establish everything I don't have established now. So tired of the standstill. And watching my bank account balance go down.
Hmm...
I succeeded in applying for two jobs yesterday. Today is laundry day so that's currently in progress. I'm hoping that I might get two more applications in today, but I might end up going to Salinas again today so who knows.
I really want to see the movie Pitch Perfect which came out into theaters yesterday. I think it looks like an entertaining movie. I just wish I had people in my own demographic (female, in 20s) around to go with who I think would like that movie. I really don't think that mom and David would like it very much. Maybe it will still be in theaters when Krys (and maybe Bethany) will be visiting California later that month. Of course, in an ideal world my interview would turn out great and I would be working on moving to San Francisco by then, so who knows if seeing a movie then would be practical.
I miss the MIIS days when I had more friends around. :/
Hopefully, though, I can get a job and move soon. Then I can establish everything I don't have established now. So tired of the standstill. And watching my bank account balance go down.
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