Reason #5: I am kind of a big deal already.

Well, OK, I'm not. But Peanut Butter Plan is! Check us out (and see the back of my head--I'm in the red sweater) in this fabulous article in today's Chronicle.

Woohoo!!

Experiencing technical difficulties

I apologize for the lack up updates this week. We currently have no internet in the apartment, though we just discovered that we do have mice to keep us company while we try to keep ourselves entertained without computers. Lovely.

Update: Perhaps I should mention that when I say "we," I'm talking about my roommate and myself--not just myself in the royal we.

Mission Mission is my hero.

Not only do they offer consistently entertaining and unexpected coverage of what's happening around the neighborhood, they also graciously agreed to add me to their blogroll. And then they were still gracious when I made a total fool of myself by asking again to be added when they'd done it already. (I'd checked to see if I was on there and failed to notice the link... maybe those alphabetizing skills have atrophied a bit in the past couple of weeks.) Thanks so much to Allan and all the other Mission Missioners.

Woohoo!!

Here's a link to their super-cool blog.

Adventures I've had while waiting for full-time employment

(Sadly, I have not received free coffee, donuts, or soup.)

Adventures in the Mission:

• Gone on a mural tour.
• Eaten the best and most creatively flavored ice cream of my life.
• Participated in the spontaneous block party, complete with dancing in the street, popping champagne, and embracing complete strangers, that erupted when Obama won the election. (Also very cool: On November 5, approximately 70% of the student body at Mission High School appeared to be wearing some sort of Obama t-shirt or pin or carrying a newspaper with his image on it.)
• Survived the bajillions of illegal fireworks set off on the 4th of July (and, since it was the Mission, also the 3rd of July and the 5th of July).
• Watched the Carnaval parade, which happened to take place on my 23rd birthday.
• Gone to a climbing gym with my roommate, who makes bouldering look easy. (It's not.)
• Discovered the free farm stand and not one, not two, but THREE secret gardens. (No links because they're secret.)

Adventures on Public Transportation:

• Been applauded by the entire bus upon finally catching it after a three-block chase (the 49).
• Received free transfers (for the 48 and the 14).
• Witnessed two fights (BART) and one arrest (also BART)
• Finished up my cross-town move in the middle of the Folsom Street Fair (the California Street cable car and the 49 bus). Traumatizing.
• Overheard a 30-something couple break up on the seats directly in front of me (the 48 bus).
• Transported the following home-cooked food via various modes of public transportation: chocolate chip cookies, a strawberry-peach pie, queso, pasta with cherry tomatoes and proscuitto, chocolate cupcakes with Bailey's frosting, and olive oil salt bread. Carrying food on the bus is a good way to make friends, especially if you're taking the 48.

Adventures with Famous People and Fancy Stuff:

• Been an extra in a friend's Scary Cow-funded film. Once she becomes a big-deal director, which she will, look for me in the party scene of the yet-unnamed project. I'm the one who directs the drunk girl to the kitchen.
• Sampled so much fancy chocolate I can't believe I don't weigh at least 400 pounds. Highlights include a bacon chocolate bar (don't knock it 'til you've tried it), camel's-milk chocolate, sheep's-milk chocolate, goat's-milk chocolate, pistachio-chile bark, sea salt caramel chocolates, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, blue cheese truffles (again, surprisingly tasty), rosemary chocolate, and many, many more. All this thanks to the incredible generosity of Cady and Jack at Chocolate Covered, San Francisco's finest chocolate store.
• Seen and/ or met Michael Chabon, Alice Waters, Dave Eggers, Amy Tan, Sam Mendes, Maya Rudolph, John Krasinski, Neko Case, Michael Pollan, Harold McGee, and Gus Van Sant (all thanks to 826).
• Made friends with people even cooler than those listed above.

Adventures Related to Jobs:

• Learned to write fantastic, if (so far) ultimately ineffective, cover letters.
• Tutored some amazing kids.
• Become a pro at fixing copy machines and alphabetizing files.
• Started this blog!

I'm on another blog!

My high school college advisor and personal hero recently completed an Ironman (!!!) and I wrote her a congratulatory email because, well, clearly congratulations were in order. It was the first time I'd been in touch with her for a couple of years, so we emailed back and forth a bit, which was lovely. Then my dad emailed me today to tell me that she quoted one of my emails on her blog! How cool is that? Check it out here.

Phew, that's all for today. I'm back from what turned into a five-hour volunteer shift at the Street Food Festival. I was taking orders at the Estrellita's Snacks booth, which was serving pupusas, tamales, and agua fresca. It was INSANE. I took well over 400 orders and was the only person at the booth with a solid command of the English language (thank goodness I speak Spanish!), which meant I never stopped talking for more than about two seconds at a time. Believe it or not, it was also fun, albeit the kind of fun that makes you want to lie down and watch trashy TV for the rest of your life. I can't imagine how Maria and her helpers are going to make it to 7:00. They are way tougher than I will ever be. But I knew that already.

The universe might be out to get me, but I'm still determined to track down my dream job.

Sorry for the lack of recent blog posts--there will be a lot this week, I promise--but I just had to share my latest job-search snafu. This morning, I added the blog's URL to my resume and blithely began sending it out as an attachment. After sending the first couple out, it occurred to me that I should double-check that the link was working, and I am so glad I did. The link did not work, and it took me longer than I'd care to admit to notice that the auto-correct had kicked in and changed "blogspot" to "bloodspot." In other words, I'd been directing potential employers to http://www.hireelizabeth.bloodspot.com, which makes me sound like some sort of serial killer for hire. Great. 

Anyway, I sent out follow-up emails explaining that I'd found a typo and was attaching an updated resume, so I'm hopeful that it will be fine, but I can't help but feel there's some sort of cosmic conspiracy to keep me unemployed.

On a happier note, I finally found the secret garden on Harrison Street today! I had pretty much given up on ever locating it when I walked past an unlocked gate--definitely a rarity in this neighborhood. Certain I was trespassing and about to be attacked by deeply territorial dogs or possibly even people (I mean, it is the Mission), I poked my head inside and found myself in a grassy alleyway with murals on the walls. The street noise melted away and it was like I'd stumbled into someone else's daydream. The alleyway opened up and suddenly I was surrounded by plum trees (with people in them, picking the fruit and also causing it to rain down on everyone on the ground), vegetable beds, more murals, and a whole bunch of seriously cool neo-hippies. I was too dazed to do much other than give the woman in charge my email (I said I'd come help them pull weeds next Saturday), but the whole thing was so spectacular it almost made up for the bloodspot fiasco. Almost. 

Reason #2: Multitasking is my life.

About 99% of the job descriptions I've read in the last twelve months stipulate that applicants must be able to multitask and manage competing priorities. My cover letters tend to outline ways in which I’ve succeeded in doing both those things in a professional environment, but secretly I always want to include a sentence or two that says something along the lines of, “Of course I can do this—can’t you tell that multitasking and prioritizing are a way of life for me right now?”

My résumé shows clearly that I’ve been working four part-time jobs for the past few weeks and that, since August 2008, there’s never been a time when I’ve worked fewer than two jobs. What it doesn’t show is that I’ve worked all these jobs while searching for and then moving into an apartment, learning to navigate an entirely new city, making new friends, shopping for groceries, applying for jobs, volunteering, keeping up (for the most part) with current events and old friends, cooking dinner at least four nights a week… I think you get the picture. None of this feels like a big deal while I’m in the midst of it—in fact, I usually feel like I really ought to be doing more things with my time—but that list looks pretty impressive when it’s written out like that, right?

By now you may be wondering why I put a photograph of a tomato plant at the top of this post. That’s my big, beautiful tomato plant, which I got months ago from the free farm stand when it was just a tiny seedling that could be housed in a single-serve yogurt container. Managing not to kill a single tomato plant--and also a couple of basil plants, a fuschia, and some thyme, sage, and rosemary (the parsley went to seed, thereby preventing us from having a Simon and Garfunkel song on our front stoop)-- may not seem like much of an accomplishment. But think about it: when I decided to grow these plants, I took on responsibility for the lives of seven other living things, and I've taken that responsibility seriously. They aren’t sentient beings and don’t require as much attention as, say, a toddler, but they are still gloriously alive and still dependent on me to make sure they that stay way.

I’m not saying anyone should hire me solely because I’ve managed to keep myself afloat and my plants alive on a messy schedule full of freelance work. What I’m saying is that I’ve managed to keep myself and my plants not just alive, but also thriving in the midst of what I sincerely hope will turn out to be an anomalously turbulent time in my life. Imagine what I could do if I wasn’t spending so much time and energy on the job search. 

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!