Now what?

I was trying to get this teaching job.

I poured everything into my application. I bothered old bosses for recommendations. I rented a car to get to the final interview.

Señor Cartmenez knows how it is.

Last week, I found out I got rejected. Not only that, but I found out that most people who get accepted are re-applicants. I can try again in August, but right now that feels like a million years away.

Frankly, I kind of freaked out for a couple of days. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I cried way more than I usually do. I was at a loss. These certain people thought that I wasn't good enough to do what I wanted more than anything. I'm trying to hard, and for what? But I've come a long way even since the application deadline. I may not have been ready to be a teacher in this position then. But now?

I was a big sad loris for two days straight. 

Since applying I have:

- Read 150+ pages with the second grader I mentor
- Volunteered more than 45 hours as part of the Education Team at the ECHO Aquarium
- Completed my teacher training (class starts in less than 3 weeks!)
- Completed my tutor training (because I'm nothing if not well rounded)

I've done these things not because they look good on my resume, but because this is what I want to do. I want to teach kids about sea stars and horseshoe crabs (in English and French, since the aquarium is 45 minutes from Quebec). I want to meet up with Ethan once a week to get further in our book about dragons. I want to teach test prep and study skills three days a week starting in February. I want to be able to tutor a student if they need it. I want to be a teacher, damn it, and I'm working on it!

Horseshoe crabs: not actually crabs. Older than crabs. Older than land vegetation. Living fossils.

There are other programs I could apply for. There's a program in Boston that trains you to be a teacher in a charter school, and then sets you up in a classroom for two years. There' s a program in Rhode Island that provides an alternate route to certification i.e. gets you in a classroom without you having to go back to college and study education. (It costs $5,000 but it's the same program Teach For America RI uses.) I can be a per diem substitute in the public school system.

I can start a handbell choir for underserved youth!

I've done so much in just a few months. Imagine how qualified I'll be in eight months. I know how the process works now. I know first hand what they're looking for and what I bring to the table. It was a let down to not get into the program, but I'm getting back up.  This is what I want to do. This is what I'm good at. This is what's going to happen, even if I don't get shipped off at the beginning of the summer. Get ready, under-educated Americans!

Growing Up Is Hard to Do

Adulthood is a strange time. My current situation seems to be compounding the inherent strangeness.

This is the library. Just one. In the whole damn city. Again. 

I find myself living in a cramped bedroom in a house full of college seniors, in a town roughly the same size as the shitty suburb I fled as a teenager. Everywhere I turn there are slutty college girls (not that there's anything wrong with that) and for a time this week it was making me feel bad.

This is a catamount, mascot of UVM and possibly extinct.

(Yes, it's basically a Lynx.)

On the one hand, I fit in perfectly. My new pursuits have necessitated quite a bit of studying. I took a Spanish test today (spolier alert: I really don't think I did well-- a bit rusty). I am studying enough math to score 50 points higher on the SAT for my new job. I read three books on Pluto for a mock lesson I taught last week. I do kind of a lot of homework for someone who graduated years ago.

Long story short, it is Eris' fault Pluto is not a planet anymore.

At the same time, I am really fucking old. I had to show one of my roommates that his wine key has a tiny little lever to make it easier to pull the cork out. (Physics!) I rented a car to drive to an interview for my dream job. I split my time between teaching real science and moderating total sci fi bull shit. This week I'll spend 7 hours and $25 commuting to a job I hate just so I can tell my awful boss that I only want to work one day a week (the day I'm in Montpelier to mentor a second grader--makes sense to make a buck while I'm down there).

On the upside, this is seriously the view from the window of the bus as we pass Lake Champlain. 

(Assuming it is not foggy. Can't see shit when it is foggy.)

I'm kind of a grown up now. I have never lived this far away from my family and friends, which was really hard at first, but it's all finally starting to click, though. I made my first new grown-up friends not through work. We met up last week to play Jenga at a bar too divey for the college kids (meaning it's perfect for late 20-somethings who've recently moved to the state). My new friends are from Colorado, which makes it extra nice because we can all complain that there's no Target or Happy Hours here. (Seriously. I should have done more research before we moved.) We're playing trivia on Wednesday, but not the douche-y chain trivia, the real trivia at a tiny sports bar (hopefully the Burlington version of Triviasco at Lucé).

I stole this photo off a stranger's Tumblr.

Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect. The new (to us) car is still in the mechanic yard after we blew out the engine moving up here, and neither of us can afford to fix it. I already love being at the museum, but it doesn't pay the bills (and food here is crazy expensive!). But it could be worse. I'm getting myself into a good spot, and I'm certainly out of my rut. I miss you all terribly. It's raining, not snowing. So much of my future is still up in the air. But I think it'll be okay.

Where Ya Been?

Just a heads up: I have a million things to blog about, and no home internet access for the next week.

Trust that in a week, after my move is done and I'm settled in the new place, I'll tell you all about it.

I promise!

Overachieving Earthquake Rates 4.0 on Richter Scale

This week was up and down. Not all bad! I mean, I saw George at the library, which was cool. We talked about National Book Award nominees. He likes Louise Erdrich (WHO LIVES IN MINNESOTA), I figure Junot Diaz has it in the bag. (Dude's got a Pulitzer and a MacArthur.) I got the last punch in my card at Capitol Grounds, so my next large coffee is free. Ben bought a car! I resisted the urge to tell him to get innie the Audi. And, on the day an earthquake started in Maine and shook its way down New England, we drove the opposite direction. 

We drove up to Plattsburg, NY. It's just on the other side of Lake Champlain, which sounds like no big deal until you realize that Lake Champlain is basically the sixth Great Lake and you either have to drive around the entire stupid state of Vermont or take the ferry. Upside? The sandbar leading to the ferry is crazy scenic. All the leaves were golden yellow. Crossing Lake Champlain is scenic too. On the way home, we cracked open the sun roof and tried to find constellations. But it also cost us $13 each way. I offered to hide in the back, thereby saving us the $3 passenger fee, but we had filled the car with things from Target.

Just a stone's throw away! Across state lines!

Oh, did you not know that? That the closest Target used to be "one block from work" and is now across state lines, $26 in ferry fees away. But we got a crock pot for $20. Also, I think I may have paid sales tax on some new tights and long john shirt, which is totally foreign to me. Oh, and work was so cold last week I bought a long john shirt to wear under my work clothes.

If work had only been freezing or only been horrific, I wouldn't have wanted to pull my hair out quite so acutely. My co-workers are pretty cool, but the job itself is a fucking joke. Did I seriously go to college to sell old clothes to rural biddies? Did I learn French just so I can tell a Canadian (WHO CLEARLY ALSO SPEAKS ENGLISH) that <<ces chaussures sont mignons>>? Non! It just feels like an enormous waste of my potential.

An opportunity has come up, though. I'm applying for a new job in Burlington. I feel bad maybe leaving this job after only a few months, but I also bust my ass there for nothing. I am the only one working six days a week "part time" i.e. sans benefits. I'm paid so poorly that it takes three weeks to make enough to pay the rent. I considered applying for food stamps this week. Our crazy ass landlord threatened to evict us, and frankly, we're kind of over Montpelier.

Burlington might be a better fit. Everyone our age in Montpelier is either spawning or resentful that they never got out of this town. There are more jobs for Ben in Burlington. It's closer to New York's Target, and a full hour closer to Montreal. It's only a 45 min bus ride if I need to come back to Montpelier. This new job would be a better stepping stone to the job I'm applying for that would start this summer. It would actually be on the path to something I want to do with my freaking life and not standing around, sorting khaki pants by shade.

We went to this gorgeous reservoir in Waterbury today. (They don't have real lakes in central Vermont. Only "reservoirs." Also, we drove Ben and Jerry's HQ.) It was cloudy and we had the place to ourselves. The mountains were shrouded in mist and it was pretty damn gorgeous. That's why we moved here. Because Minnesota doesn't have foggy mountains. It's time to start doing things with my life that make me as happy as sitting on the wet grass did today. Getting the hell out of here may be the first step. Getting back to a real city, getting a job I don't loathe every minute of, getting out of this madhouse.

We accidentally dropped the camera in said reservoir, but here's a less autumn-y perfect photo. 

We'll see if this week is as shaky. There's another debate on Monday, I mentor a kid on Thursday, and I have a free coffee coming my way. Plus, my mom just posted this picture to Facebook.

My family is so redheaded, even one of the cats is a ginger. 

They're so big now! Here's a picture from August, when they were small enough to bother the dog on her pillow.

Poor Sassy. The kitties took over her bed!  Now she can only sleep on the couch or the love seat or the bench by the front door or the bed or the guest bed or any of the heated floors or... 

Like A Boss: Ten Thoughts Thus Far This Week

Everything my boss knows about Minnesota she learned from Prairie Home Companion. She also thinks all Minnesotans know each other.

As the IT person, I got to explain to her today that her photos wouldn't transfer from the camera to the laptop if she plugged the USB cable into the ethernet port. ("Oh, that's where the Internet goes!")

Yesterday was Leif Ericson Day. She has never heard of Leif Ericson.

She bought three stamps off me and had to google the price of stamps.

When I told her I was assigned to tutor a second grader on Thursdays, she asked if I couldn't switch it to Wednesdays because her son is coming to town.

Words I've been called in to spell this week: medieval, renaissance, velour. (Caveat: I asked a co-worker if "lacey" was correct. It turns out that "lacey" and "lacy" both are, but the first one looks wrong.)

My task this week (besides helping customers, putting stuff away, and selling selling selling!) is to optimize the web site for better google results. She took a workshop but remembers nothing.

She complains about how expensive Montpelier is, then prices our products absurdly high. (Seriously, a zip-up hoodie is $64 for no reason, but a brand new tags-still-on J. Crew cashmere-cotton blend sweater is half that. Guess which one Ben is getting for Christmas.)

She feels badly about feeding her dog meat from the grocery store instead of from the co-op, even though the co-op barely carries meat because it's run by vegetarian hippies.

At least thrice daily, I get to hear how great and successful her son is. If my mother does this, I apologize right now to all her colleagues.

Getting Dressed is Hard

I'm not very good at dressing myself. When I worked at the bookstore, I pretty much just rotated a series of v-neck tee shirts with skirts. In the café, it was even easier. I literally have two black polos, two button downs, two v-necks, and two long sleeve black tees. I dress myself like a cartoon character.

I shit thee not, I'm seriously working on a flow chart so I remember what looks good together. 

This system was all well and good until I got a fashion-y job. It's dumb. The owner wears Birkenstocks and the same purple linen shirt every day; the customers typically want sweaters and jeans. And yet, we the sales girls are expected to be dressed to the nines just to sell a rain slicker to somebody's nana. Most of the ladies I work with are very chic and good at dressing themselves, but me? Not so much. I compensate by wearing cute tights and alternating same two dresses/three skirt combos.

This girl is coping my style, and pairing it with a cute hat. 

In addition to being the worst dresser at work, I'm also the fattest. Don't get me wrong, I run all the time and eat my vegetables, but everyone else I work with weighs 100 pounds. Which means they fit in these tiny vintage dresses we post to the Etsy store (http://www.etsy.com/shop/stateandmainvintage)  and I do not. At first this kind of bummed me out. Everyone else got to play dress up, why not me? Turns out my skills lie elsewhere.

This is one of our dresses. The model is 5'1". 

Somehow I have become the IT go-to person. This is less a reflection of my web development skills and social networking prowess and more because everyone else is a Luddite. I can tell myself that my English degree was worth it because I'm technically being paid to write, even if it's just photo captions and product descriptions. I know people doing worse for less. Hell, I almost wrote for a furniture catalog, where it not for the hellish and unnecessary commute.

Maybe J. Peterman, someday. 

Last week I got to email a guy back with incredibly specific measurements of a tuxedo. Intense attention to detail is my wheelhouse! With bonus data entry! I reformatted the newsletter. When we needed a song as an mp3 and not a WMA, it was I who came to the rescue. (Seriously, I think my boss was going to try to suck the music out of a YouTube video.)

Whenever I get down on myself for not being pretty/skinny/well-dressed enough for this job, I can re-assure myself that at least I got brains. And I type faster than any of those bitches.

What Do You Do With a BA in English? Pretty Much Everything

When we first got to Vermont, I spent the week unpacking and relaxing and generally just taking a vacation. Then of course, I remembered that somebody had to pay the exorbitant UHaul bill at the end of the month and I better find myself a job.

I cost more than your rent! Plus gas!

I'd been applying for stuff since last spring, but there's been a drought. Like, not even a "no thank you, thanks for applying" cursory email. I sent some applications out before we came out here this summer to look at apartments. Nothing. As someone who has basically worked at the same place since high school, this was a bit of a shock. Like, I get it, recession, no one is hiring blah blah blah. But I'm not an engineer. I'm not a computer programmer. I just want to work in your shitty little store or your dumb national park or whatever. This is why, when the consignment shop called me back within a day to set up an interview, I pounced. This is why I work six days a week, trying to get while the getting is good. At the same time, however, they encouraged me to take on a second job. The other girls at the store have second jobs. I've kept applying to places, and it's finally starting to rain.

The Co-Op called back. You may be thinking, really Marlene? You went to college. You GRADUATED from college. You speak three languages. You're smart and funny and you want to work in a snooty grocery store? Yes, yes I do. Badly. I can sum up why in one word: benefits. Yes, it's super close to my house (three block commute!), it would nice to get a discount on food, the people seem cool etc. But really, my health insurance runs out at the end of the year and I need to get on that. Plus, paid time off, paid breaks, union stuff. But mostly health insurance.


Here's the thing though: it's crazy hard to get a co-op job. My application was eight pages long with six references. The interview I did last week was only the first. There may be a follow-up. All for an on-call/substitute position as a grocery stocker. The lowest possible rung of the co-op ladder. Which of course, leaves plenty of room to work my way up, but only after they call me at 5:30 AM to cover people's asses for who knows how long. It's going to be a slog.

The chocolate factory called back too. I applied back in July. JULY. But now of course, they need someone part time in Burlington. I wasn't going to call them back, but Ben reminded me that chocolate was one of the reasons we moved out here in the first place. I could be Willy Wonka!

I will get so, so fat. Worth it.

Or at least, the retail version. I don't know yet if they want me to lead tours at the factory or just hawk their wares at the tourists on Church Street. It would be a 45 minute commute each way on the bus. But it would smell so good! Plus, last time I was at the factory, someone had parked a gorgeous All-City bicycle at the rack outside. That's a good sign, right?

Their factory is chocolate brown. Get it?

There's a chocolatier opening in town this fall, and if the commute is too much, I could go to them with my experience, right? Or move to Boston and work with the guy from Rogue Chocolates. You guys know Rogue right? It was started by this 20-something down my street in Minneapolis. The smallest scale chocolate shop in the world. He moved his operation to Massachusetts and I kind of want to be his best friend. Maybe if I get some chocolate expertise he'll let me hang out. We could talk about hotdish and snow emergencies and stuff!

These are Rogue Chocolates. You've seen them around. 

This is Colin. He IS Rogue Chocolates. You see my point? Foxy. 

We'll see how it all works out. I'm still waiting to hear back from the mentorship program I want to do. I'm hanging on to my application for History Helper docent at the Historical Society. There's a lot of balls in the air, and we'll have to wait and see which ones I can catch.

A Mansard roof! How very New England.

Oh, and if you're not up on your puppet based musical theater allusions, the title of the post refers to this song:

Now it's stuck in your head too.