Oh, Here it Goes Again

Several years ago a band called OK Go released an amazing music video for their song "Here it Goes Again." Those of you who've seen will doubtlessly remember their amazing treadmill choreography. Those of you who haven't seen it, you owe it to yourselves to check out this video:



Why am I talking about a video that came out almost five years ago? Simple: because the title of the song is perfect for the blog post in which I announce that I am polishing my resume, dusting off my cover letter writing skills, and generally gearing up for job search 2.0. So here it goes again. My last day at Theatre Action Project (TAP) is still a couple of months away, but this morning I took myself to a neighborhood coffee shop to test the online job-posting waters and they are not terribly hospitable-- lots of ads for executive directors and interns, and not much in between. Yikes.

However, I feel good about the decision I've made. I had the option for signing on for another year at TAP and, as much fun as it would have been to stay, it's not the right place for me at this moment. I have accomplished a lot at and learned even more, but it turns out that fine arts education just isn't a driving passion of mine-- though I'll also be the first person to say that I think arts education is incredibly important and that TAP does amazing things using it as a tool for social change.

I have no idea what the future holds, but I'm excited for it. I just hope I manage to move forward with as much flare as these OK Go guys... although it suddenly occurs to me that they don't actually move forward that much, being on treadmills and all. Hmmm. Well, I'll keep you posted on both forward and backward progress, because I suppose a bit of both is inevitable. Here I go again.

P.S. As long as I'm talking about OK Go, I feel compelled to point you, dear reader, to this link. It will take you to a music video of the only other song of theirs I know, and it will blow your mind. Seriously. Rube Goldberg would be proud and maybe even intimidated.

This is why I care so much about doing good work.

My mom pointed me to the cover article in last week's New York Times Magazine. Written by Nicholas Kristoff and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, "The Women's Crusade" chronicles the appalling conditions in which far too many women in the developing world live out their lives. You should really read the article for yourself if you haven't already, but I'll provide a very short and very incomplete summary here. Basically, Kristoff and WuDunn write, there are anywhere between 60 million and 107 million girls and women who are missing. They've been aborted after their sex was discovered via ultrasound; allowed to die as children (baby girls in some countries aren't given the same health care as baby boys); or kidnapped and enslaved, sometimes as sex workers. For perspective, they note that number is larger than the number of men killed in battle in all the wars of 20th century combined.

That's astonishing by itself, but, at least for me, the real punch of this article lies not so much in its compilation of facts, but in the way it explains the tragedy and stupidity of this "gendercide" and its implications for the rest of the world. There's a growing body of research that suggests that educating girls and giving aid to poor women may be most effective ways to alleviate global poverty. Many of the world's poorest countries are also those with the lowest rates of female education, and researchers are concluding that the two may be related: by neglecting girls' education, those countries are essentially using only half the talent available to them.

As I was reading, it occurred to me one of the reasons--if not the main reason--that I care so much about doing good work is simply because I can. I touched on this in an op-ed I linked to in an earlier post, but I think it bears repeating, especially because I worry that sometimes this blog makes me sounds as though I think I'm somehow entitled to a good job, when in fact nothing could be farther from the truth. I know I'm incredibly privileged even to be looking for a job in the first place. Had I been born almost anywhere else at almost any other time, my job would be raising children, and that would be that. So, once again, I'm not kidding when I say I feel like I have a moral obligation to find employment that will help other people in meaningful ways. And if that doesn't convince people I'm a motivated worker, I don't know what will.

Should I stay or should I go?

Certain people take great pleasure in teasing me about my wimpy music tastes. While I (grudgingly) admit that there’s a bit of truth to their claims that I only like sad, wispy indie bands, I would also like to point out that one of my favorite albums of all time is London Calling. That’s the one with Paul Simonon smashing his bass on the album cover, and it’s neither sad nor wimpy by any stretch of the imagination.

The reason I mention The Clash (other than to give myself a bit of street cred) is that one of their songs--annoyingly, not off of London Calling, which would have made for a tidier blog post--has been stuck in my head a lot lately. As you have probably gathered by the title of this posting, that song is “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” and I’ve been thinking about as I try to decide how much longer to stay in San Francisco.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” and it occurred to me one morning last week that I’ve essentially been driving myself insane out here. It’s exhausting to be on the lookout for jobs all the time; it’s exhausting trying to figure out how to spend my days when I don’t have freelance work; it’s exhausting never to be able to plan anything more than two weeks in advance; and it’s beyond exhausting when none of it gets me anywhere. I sort of hoped that once I graduated college I’d morph into some sort of bohemian who could just go with the flow and embrace uncertainty, and while I’ve gone from being a type A+ to a type A- or maybe even a type B+, it turns out that I’m still me, and that means I need a routine and a sense of direction, two things I definitely lack out here.

(UPDATE: After writing that, it occurred to me that I actually had no idea whether or not I’m a type A. I just took a personality test online, and apparently I am smack in the middle of type A and type B. This means I am well-balanced and easy to be around. Sweet. Now hire me so I can share my healthy attitude and general charm with your office!)

I can’t pinpoint precisely when I decided it might be time to stop trying to make it out here, but I woke up one morning about a week ago feeling too drained to plunk myself down in a cafe and get excited about jobs that always turn out to be dead ends. I don’t know that things will be better in Austin, but I’m ready for a bit of sanity and stability and I don’t think I’m going to find them in San Francisco. Moreover, Texas isn’t broke; I know people over the age of 30 and therefore have at least a shot of doing some networking; and Austin isn’t a mecca for highly ambitious recent college grads in quite the same way San Francisco is. Plus my family’s there, and I miss them.

So now what? At what point do I give up? Doesn’t it seem like there should be some kind of guidebook for making this choice? If I go there could be trouble, but if I stay it will be double (or even triple, as I could continue driving myself insane for months). The only thing I can imagine making me feel better about making this impossible choice would be if I could smash my Fender against a stage in front of an adoring crowd after I'd reached a decision.

Since that seems unlikely, I guess I'll just go watch another episode of Freaks and Geeks, which finally came via Netflix yesterday. I can't even describe how much I already love this show. I’ve only gotten through the first two episodes, but I’m already dreading the day when I get to the end of the season. It’s that good.

Flexing my English major muscles

I wouldn't consider myself a rabid Emily Dickinson fan, but this one poem of hers has been knocking around my head for at least the last two years, and I think it sums up my views of what I want out of a job (not to mention my life) much better than I ever could:

I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--

I wrote an op-ed about this poem for my college's newspaper a couple of years ago, and I find my assumption that I'd have my pick of job offers simultaneously cute and pathetic, sort of like in elementary school, when I was convinced I could make a fortune by mashing up mountain laurel petals and selling them as perfume. (In case you're wondering, crushed flower petals stuffed into water bottles do not make perfume. They make a wilted, stinky mess.) But I still stand by the words I wrote. I still believe--perhaps more strongly than ever, now--that I have a moral obligation to the greatest amount of good I can do. And although I'm no longer counting on Paradise, I am spreading wide my hands, waiting for something to fall into them.

A bit of background

I was born and raised in Austin, Texas with two siblings and an ever-evolving array of pets. From grades 1 to 12, I attended Saint Andrew's Episcopal School, where I learned to appreciate the humanities, community service, and Friday night football. By the end of high school, I was ready for a major change and chose to attend Williams College in western Massachusetts. I took all sorts of great classes in history, Spanish, art history, and studio art, but ended up majoring in English. (I was also one class away from a dual degree in English and art.) 

I've never been afraid to venture out on thin ice.

I loved almost every minute of college and, for a time, assumed I would become an English professor. Then some point during my senior year, my bleeding-heart liberal tendencies kicked in and I realized that I need to have a career that speaks to my keen interests in academia, art, and writing while allowing me to have a tangible and positive impact on the lives of people around me. 

Teaching at a public school seemed the most logical way to go, but I didn't want to spend more time in school getting certified to teach. I'd been a student my entire life and was ready for something else. Eventually, I decided I wanted to work at an educational nonprofit. 

I have, in fact, graduated from college.

After graduating, I accepted an internship at 826 Valencia, an absolutely amazing nonprofit in San Francisco's Mission District. I cannot say enough wonderful things about 826 or the internship: I worked directly with kids and on the more administrative end of things, and I knew within two weeks that this was absolutely and without a doubt the kind of work I want to be doing. 

Because the internship was unpaid, I took a temp job at an investment management firm to support myself, figuring I'd be able to find something a bit more permanent and meaningful within a month or two. Then the economy tanked, and, well, here I am. 

Things are looking up... and so am I, dang it!

I've grown a lot this year, both as an employee and as a person, but even so, it's been tough to keep my chin up and not despair. I know there's a recession, I know California's broke, I know social services are getting cut (oh, don't I know it!), but I also know I'm smart, motivated, organized, and creative, and that virtually anyone I've worked with or for will tell you the same thing.

Employers, start your engines. 

P.S. Thanks to my dad for helping me get this post posted. 

Sometimes, the job search feels like this. But other times, it's strangely OK.

I wish I could claim credit for this fabulous graphic, but I can't. (Credit goes, I think, to a photographer named Jonas Eriksson; his site is here and well worth checking out.) I stumbled across it when I was looking at blogs like mine to see if I could shamelessly steal anything from them. Mission accomplished! 

So, yes, it's been a frustrating several months. At the same time, however, I've learned a TON. Here are three things the job search process has taught me about myself and the world in general:

• If you need help, ask for it. I know, it sounds painfully obvious, but it took me months to realize it's fine to ask family, friends, or even complete strangers to lend a hand. Provided you're polite, most people are eager to help however they can. I've had so many encounters with fantastic people I would never have met if I hadn't shamelessly asked them to help me out. For instance, I found out about La Cocina on Yelp, decided it was somewhere I'd like to work, looked them up, and emailed a woman named Leticia to see if she'd talk with me about similar organizations in the Bay Area. A week later, I met her and we spent over an hour brainstorming places I could apply, and she continues to email me occasional job postings. I still haven't gotten a job out of the encounter, but it's improved my life in many other ways. (Example: the Street Food Festival has been on my radar forever.) How cool is that?
• I am even more disciplined than I thought I was. Since September 2008, I've spent at least six hours a week doing job-search-related work: searching for job postings, emailing Williams alumni, drafting cover letters, contacting people for informational interviews, and, more recently, working on this blog. While sometimes this effort makes me want to roar like that lion in the photo, it's also been great to find out that I have the willpower to carve out a place for myself in the world.  
• Rest is important. I sort of like setting my own schedule, but if you're never technically at work, it turns out that you're also technically never NOT at work (take that double negative, George Orwell!), which is exhausting. Lately, I've been trying hard to take one day a week to take a walk, explore a new neighborhood, draw, write, cook, or do something else totally unrelated to work or the search for work. I'm not living the life I had in mind for myself right now, but I know I'll get there eventually and in the meantime I should really enjoy being alive, healthy, young, and in a fantastic city. Besides, it totally shows if you've mindlessly cranked out four cover letters in two hours, and no one's going to hire a mindless person. Or so I'm told. 

With that in mind, I'm going to see if I can find that secret garden on Harrison Street that I keep hearing about. Wish me luck!