A quote from the pastor's sermon last Sunday: "A church is like a city bus."

I ask myself, why do I even bother? I went to a job interview this morning. Actually, I went to fill out a job application, but then they went ahead and gave me a short interview. I forgot what a tablespace was. I was totally imprecise in what I talked about, I thought I sounded like a flighty dilettante with no experience to speak of. I wouldn't hire me.

Funny thing is, I thought this job sounded right up my alley. Java, I know Java pretty well. I know SQL. I've done some web stuff. Too bad I didn't realize the gaps in my knowledge are the size of the Grand Canyon.

I'm like the world's least competitive person. Let's face it, I have never managed to impress anyone with my knowledge of computers/programming languages/technology. I know nothing about networks. I couldn't fix a computer to save my life. I know about for-loops. I know how to pass a test. But who cares about that when it comes down to the real world?

Last night I started thinking about what I wanted in a job. This is what I came up with.
Job requirements
1. Reasonable commute (< 30 min.)
2. Good people to work with
3. Non-depressing environment
4. Not evil (i.e. no oil , tobacco, or bomb-making entities)
5. Job duties somewhere between mind-numbingly boring and on-edge at all times
6. Not dangerous
7. Reasonable pay and benefits ($12,000 +, health benefits)
8. Reasonable hours ( < 50 per week)
9. Don't dread going to work
10. Feel useful and not getting paid to sit around

I think those are fairly broad. I guess I have a pretty good idea of what I don't want, but not a clear picture of what I do want.

Then I came up with another list. Jobs that I think are cool/Ideas I have had that might be good (I admit some of these are kind of far-fetched and/or ridiculous)
Photographer
Editor
Science writer
Work at a small business
Retiree
Sailor
Drive across the U.S. in an RV
Ride bike across Texas
Environmental activist/educator
War protestor
Help people lose weight
German tutor
Actor
Write news summaries
Take care of plants
Set up computer networks
Watchmaker
Set up and administer scholarship fund
Any job where you work from home
Selling books
Career counselor
Real estate investor
Teach people grammar/writing
Help people overcome shyness
Study environmental problems
Set up computer simulation models
Study plate tectonics
Study brain differences between men and women
Fix computers
Work at Starbucks
Help senior citizens

Note that programming computers did not make the list, though that is about the only marketable skill I have at this point. Even though I probably won't do a lot of these things, (e.g. ride bike across Texas), I think all of them have at least some merit. So that's some food for thought, maybe now just to narrow it down a bit and focus on making one or two of them a reality.

Things that I don't want to do:
Go to UPS store to fax a letter
Go to library to return books
Exercise
Brush teeth and floss
Take shower
Clean bathroom

I am feeling sooo lazy right now. Must admit it is boring to stay at the house all day. Watching whatever happens to be on the tube, taking care of odds and ends. Seems like it should be a 24/7 vacation but not really. I try to get some "work" done every afternoon, even if it is just writing a business letter or making dinner. Speaking of dinner, yesterday while making some fish, I turned a piece of fish over and grease spattered all over my wrist. Score another one for my stupidity. I haven't burned myself like that in a long time. It really hurt. That's all for now, let me now get on with my day of boredom.

I have been having so much trouble focusing lately. At work, I make obvious mistakes and I don't really know why. Now I'm having double anxiety thinking about how I'm doing everything wrong and everything I do is going to be scrutinized in detail. Today I tried to be really focused, do everything slowly and do it right the first time. It seemed to work pretty well, though of course I still made at least one obvious mistake (that I know about, at least). I'll find out tomorrow if I made anymore that I didn't catch that will make me look like an idiot.

There are a lot of good things about my job. The pay/benefits are not among them. Just before I went to work I got a bill in the mail. Apparently I'm going to have to pay an arm and a leg for my visit to the emergency room last year. My cheap-o health insurance won't cover a lot of the costs, even after the deductible is paid. This is exactly why I should get a better job. A full-time job with BENEFITS. Wonderful, lovely health benefits, so that if I get into an accident or get sick I don't have to deal with all this crap.

Yeah, I'm pretty disgusted. I went into work feeling angry at the world. This is what happens when corporations out to make a profit are put in charge of people's health care. I'm angry that the US has such a stupid system of health care. I'm angry at the hospital for charging me thousands of dollars for what amounted to a few stitches. I'm angry at the insurance company for being utterly stingy. I'm also angry at myself for not having a better job or at least trying to get one. Maybe I should move to Canada.

I saw "Glory Road" yesterday. Everyone in America must see this movie. I thought it was great and I loved the shots of UTEP. Finally El Paso gets on the map. People in the theater actually applauded at the end of the movie and I was tempted to join them, it was that good.

So, presentation yesterday went well. It was my third time presenting this material, so I knew it backwards and forwards. I answered questions from an audience full of professors and I didn't do a terrible job. I was in a much better mindset about the presentation this time than I was last time, when I was dragging and just wanted to get it over with. So it wasn't as bad as I expected. Finally, school is over with.

It's Friday morning. The bad thing about working nights is that the night seems to last forever when you're not working. I suppose this is how people who work in the day feel about staying home and watching daytime TV. Guilty, like they have too much time on their hands.

So it's back to reality, kind of. Living with my sisters, well, we were all in the same boat this past month. It was fun, we hung out during the day feeding off each others' laziness, watching Oprah, staying up until 2 am watching Iron Chef and Project Runway. That might never happen again, what with getting jobs and responsibilities and such.

Now I see other people going back to college, and for the first time in six years, I am not (well, beyond tomorrow's unfortunate presentation, I mean). I don't feel sad about it, not really. I don't belong there anymore. If anything, I should have quit a couple years earlier.

I'm enjoying life much more now that I don't have the pressure of school. I'm not in a huge rush to get a full-time job. OK, I'm lazy, but I am not tired of the free time, I'm not out of money, I'm not feeling as guilty as I probably should about living at home and not contributing to society. I got to a point of being like a zombie. It's like when you are jogging and you push past the point of tiredness and soon you don't even feel the exertion anymore, you are just moving on pure inertia. That's how it was.

I guess I'm having that crisis, that "I need to find myself" crisis. I'm questioning things about myself, questioning why I have to eat two or three candy bars each night and blog incessantly, and does it have to be that way? I can see the voids in my life so more clearly. I guess it always surprises me how people actually have fun in life, have fun at work, because I am always so serious about everything. I think about things far, far too much, I think about the bigger picture and what does it all mean, but one doesn't need to do that every day. Too much analysis, I analyze things so much and I don't actually live enough. If I spent the same amount of time thinking about some subject as I do thinking about myself and my problems, I'd be a freaking genius in that subject by now.

Thursday. Stress level is up. My sisters are off to college. Makes me pretty sad. I'm going to miss them. The good news is that I now have total control of the computer and TV. And peace and quiet and solitude, something I've missed.

After some waffling, I have decided to go to that career fair thing-y today. If nothing else, it will at least give me some idea of what jobs are out there. I can put on a brave face. I know if it doesn't interest me I don't have to pursue it. It's not good for me to hide in the house all day, might as well see what this is about.

And tomorrow is thesis defense, part II. The faculty is making me give my defense presentation again because I neglected to advertise it the first time. Needless to say, this is not something I really want to do. In fact, it is fairly humiliating. I have a feeling they are going to ask me some tough questions. I'd better be prepared. But once I get through this I will be home free. Never have to worry about it again. I can't wait until that chapter of my life is shut for good. Until then I am having 24 hours of panic, fear, and trepidation.

I'm reading Bridget Jones's Diary. Is that not how every single woman thinks? Embarrassing to admit how much I relate. Especially the weight/food intake recordings. Yes, I do that. Yes, I'm shallow.

Monday. It's looking like snow weather. I hope it doesn't snow while I'm at work. Getting home could be treacherous.

I was ready to go to a job interview today or tomorrow, but the person in charge of hiring called me and said they already hired someone else. Oh well. I'm going to a company "open house" on Thursday. Maybe I'll find something there. We'll see. I'm feeling a little more optimistic, I suppose. I'm really concerned about making the right decision about what career to go into. But I don't want to wait too long and shut some doors in the process. Right now I'm thinking maybe I should just do something, anything, even if it winds up being stupid, I can move onto something else. On the other hand, even if it takes me six months or a year to figure out what I want to do, that is nothing compared to committing to something I don't really want for an extended period of time. Priorities, you know. It's all in my head, there's really no impending crisis.

My sisters are going to be leaving home again in a few days. That means it is going to be a lonely, empty house once again. Can't do much about it, we all have to move on with our lives. It wouldn't be good for us all to be living at home all the time. That includes me.

Is this me? If I were Japanese and male, it probably would be.

My dog is sick. I hate that. I hope she gets better and doesn't have anything seriously wrong with her.

I keep forgetting what day it is. My watch stopped a few weeks ago and I haven't bothered to change the battery and I haven't even missed it. It is wonderful not having school or work to worry about. I know what a privilege it is, I know others are working hard and busting their butts at school. It's scary how I am so used to having days free to schedule things however I want. I'm not used to working hard anymore. I heard once on Dr. Phil that after a year of unemployment, only ten percent of people find a job. Is that me? I'm employed part-time and I've been in school, but I have also been a huge slacker for most of the past year, sleeping in and procrastinating and what-not. Am I turning myself into a bum? I'm sure life will intervene and I will cry when I have to face the harsh reality of things. I am 100 percent sure of that.

Books that I definitely have to read: Blue Blood by Edward Conlon; Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky; Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding; The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion; Stiff by Mary Roach; and some book I picked up at Barnes and Noble and decided not to buy but now I regret it. It's about an MIT professor who lives like the Amish for a year. No technology. And I cannot remember the name of the book or the author and I have searched for it on Amazon but to no avail. Oh well. Maybe I will come across it again some day. I am so frenetic about books. Like I want to read so many books but actually getting through a book ends up being harder than I anticipate, so many times I will stop reading mid-way through a book, esp. if the book ends up being not as good as I expected. It's rare when a book ends up really affecting me. I don't know if that's because of the way I read them or if it is because there are so few really good books out there. Or am I just reading the wrong books?

Interesting day. I ended up having lunch with two of my former professors. By accident. We were all in the lunch line at Subway. What do professors talk about? Photos, it turns out. Digital vs. film. Photo enlargement at Wal-Mart. It was weird. It was so, well, normal. Of course, they asked me, what are you doing in your life, and I was like, I'm still looking for a job. Which is true.

It seems I am in a bit of a pickle. Don't want to go into details. But it occurred to me, I need to face up to this situation and not be such a coward. Harsh, but true. I have felt so much shame about myself and the stupid stuff I've done. I can't remember the last time I felt proud of something that I did. It's time for me to step up. It has been a long time since I've had any personal goals at all. Even just to be a better person, to develop the qualities I want to see in myself. To take pride in what I do. I need some of that.

Something cool I discovered: lemon-scented paper towels. Don't really see the point of scented paper towels, but it is nice to know they exist.

Didn't accomplish much today. I went to the bank. I made tomato and cheese sandwiches. The end. On the agenda for this week, I have some things to take care of at school, I have to get my car's wheels aligned and the inspection sticker updated. I have library books to turn in. That's about all, actually.

Did anyone see Lost tonight? It was a great episode. I love that series. It is still good in Season 2, which surprises me.

I can't believe I bought "A Million Little Pieces" and found it so affecting at the time I read it. Now I'm looking back and thinking, do I have the word gullible written on my forehead? Apparently, it is full of exaggerations. I thought there was something kind of weird about James Frey on Oprah. Like he seemed like he could be a con artist. Is the dentist scene true? I doubt it. How could you survive that without passing out? I read a lot of nonfiction and I suppose that is the problem with it: you're trying to make sense of real events, you're trying to make a story out of real events that often have no rhyme or reason. An author has to take a certain view of events and there's no way of knowing if that is an accurate picture of what really happened. In this case, the facts were in some places outright falsified, which is wrong and which is different from remembering things wrong or deliberately leaving things out, but I guess in any nonfiction you take the author's word at face value and don't really question it.

Another Monday. I don't know why I'm so bummed out about my job as of late. I guess it is that I am bored with it. I've pretty near mastered it. And I guess it's OK for awhile to have a job that doesn't really challenge you, if you can stand it, but I can't help thinking, what's my next move? I don't really see myself getting another job there, in another department. It would be a long, hard road, to try to work my way up.

I just feel in my own little world. I go to work, say practically nothing to my co-workers/bosses, do my work in silence, feel bored, answer the phone once in a while, and that's about it. Same thing every night, pretty much. I get out late at night and it doesn't feel real to me. It feels like a dream, from the time I get to work to the time I get home.

I suppose that this is not a great way to live. Not really healthy to work nights and sleep until noon, not good to be so shut off from everything, not good to not at least try to talk to people at work. Not great to work at a job that I could do in my sleep that requires little in the way of creativity.

Maybe I should try joining some kind of club or group, or take a class or something. Find a creative outlet outside of work, you know. But I am pretty lazy and don't know if I want to make the effort. So much easier to watch TV than to drive somewhere and pay money and sacrifice one of my nights off. I should do that, but probably won't.

I guess I am just frustrated right now. I'm way overthinking this, as usual. I don't really have a reason to be annoyed at my job other than just being bored with it and wanting to try something else. The people are OK, I'm used to the hours by now, it's a cool place to work and all, it's fairly interesting even if it is boring at times.

These are some strange days. I'm content to be stupid. Really. I don't care about how things work anymore, as long as they work. And the thing is, I'm finding that it is very possible to go through life like that. Not caring about science or math, being more in tune with people and emotions and spiritual things, practical concerns, rather than with inanimate objects or scientific facts. I don't want to look at another math problem. Too much effort. I don't want to read another journal or conference paper. It makes my brain hurt. Who really enjoys reading those things? No one, I think, they are things that must be slogged through so that scientific progress can be made.

Anyway, so last night I made a bad mistake at work and was temporarily shaken out of my blissful vacation from the real world. I got home, ate a king-size Kit-Kat, and the thoughts returned. I'm a failure, I'll never find a good job, everyone hates me, I might as well not exist. I'm fat and lazy and I am emotionally dead. I had a good cry. How am I going to survive? I don't know what my career options are if not in IT. Work at a call center? Sell real estate? Management? Teach at a crummy community college? Maybe it doesn't matter, as long as the bills get paid and I have plenty of free time outside of work. Seriously. Even if my job is not my life's work, well, does it really matter? Work is work, it's not really meant to be fun.

On yet another totally different note, my cousin is getting married at the ripe old age of 26. My family doesn't think much of her fiancee, to be honest. He's a frat guy with lots of opinions. He has said and done some pretty immature things at our family get-togethers, i.e. giving my 12-year-old cousin $2 to drink a two-liter of Sprite. I think a lot of us are thinking, how could she marry this guy? She's a beautiful girl who also happens to be smart and confident. I bet she could find a lot of guys more mature than this one. Is there some kind of rule that you have to be married by age 27? It just doesn't make sense to me.

So. Friday. I have been fabulously unproductive. I stayed in bed until 1:00 today. Guiltily. My sisters and I, we're all a bunch of bums. Sleeping in, making Mom pay for college and living expenses. This is why I don't want to have kids.

I love being home. This is where I can be myself. But I guess it's not going to be good to be here all the time. I can see this getting old. Sigh.

I'm getting to know where the phrase "young and stupid" comes from.

The past few days have been weird. So there was the lackluster New Year's. And then on Sunday I had a PMS-influenced meltdown. I hate when people ask me about my plans for the future. That was the trigger. I was starting to feel OK about things, OK with keeping a part-time job while I try to figure some stuff out when I know like I could be doing something better, or I should be doing something better anyway. People ask me what my plans are and I get very emotional about it. Like they are confronting me about it, even though they are just being curious or just trying to help. It brings back all the confusion of the past few months. It's just a question, it seems most people have an answer but I do not.

I heard my mom chatting to her friends on the phone about the status of my life and it's like, well, she graduated and she works at the paper. The end. I wish it all made sense, that I had graduated and landed a great high-paying job that I was really excited about. But that didn't happen. Instead I'm going through this weird numbness, and who knows how long it will last? I have nothing and I am a failure.

What about money? I don't make enough to live on. I make enough to pay the few bills that I have, but I still have to rely on my parents. I'm going to have to face the world as a poor person. It's scary to have nothing but this skimpy medical insurance that will pay for a disaster but won't pay for me to go to the doctor for a check-up. That freaks me out, it makes me want to run out and get a job like the one I turned down, even if I think I will hate it.

I don't know what to do. I don't even know what I want to do. I know I can't go another day feeling like a fraud. I can't go through another job interview feeling the way that I felt the last few months, where I am not even serious about it and have not bothered to prepare for it.

It's not just indecision, it is basically having no confidence in myself. Having no connections, having extremely poor social skills, having no direction as to what I could do or what I want to do. Feeling like the world has seen what I have to offer and that it is not good enough. It is having no drive, no motivation, no ambition. Basically, I am in a bad place. I'm lucky to have good parents who will not kick me out of the house. Maybe they should, maybe then I would just pick something out of necessity and not go through this stupidity, or go through it later on in life. I don't know. So there it is, people, my angst, in condensed form.