I finally made some plans

Over the last several months, I went from being really happy to be coming home the United States, to very very frustrated at the fact that I couldn't find work or a way to support myself. It seems like bad things just keep happening to me, with great frequency, and good things are very few and far between. To add to my list of things that just keep knocking me down, on top of having no job, having my car getting broken into, having the insurance company not cover pretty much anything in the car, I found that a few weeks before moving to France, I had gotten a speeding ticket. I was never aware of the ticket, because I *moved to France,* and I didn't have my mail forwarded to my new address, (if I even could have done it to another country.) So I went down to the DMV a few weeks ago and was told that I had an outstanding ticket, a failure to appear in court over it, a revoked license, and a warrant for my arrest. Yay! I think at this point, I was just thinking "okay, fine..... everyday I wake up to something new that is worse than the day before, so it doesn't even phase me." I explained my situation to the DMV, that I had no knowledge of this ticket, and the reason it went unpaid for so long was because I was out of the country, and they let me leave as long as I promised them I would go to court and take care of it. I went to court a few days ago, waited for seven hours, and tried to explain to the judge when it was my turn, but he gave me the full penalty of $600, for doing 80 in a 70. I pleaded with him and got him to "reduce" it to $450, but.. it's still four hundred and fifty dollars, and it's just one MORE thing to add to my list of suck.

There are some good things to report though. Some GREAT things to report actually. Rebecca's family offered us two plane tickets to fly to Sydney and stay there with her sister. The job market over there is better than San Diego, and I can get a visa to live there and work there legally for one year. I'm excited about this, really excited, because I think it will give us the opportunity to jumpstart ourselves into a new frame of mind, being near the beach in a new country where everyone talks funny, and Rebecca's sister has been asking around and trying to help us a LOT to find work and make this transistion comfortable.

I think in all honesty, because we have a way to get there, if I can find ANY type of work there, it's a great option. It allows me to get closer to Rebecca and develop my relationship more with her, and also allows me to have a wonderful life-experience, meet new people, have new experiences, and finally find out if toilets really do flush in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere. I have been researching stuff the last few days, and I'll be applying soon for the visa I'll need to get over there and work. I think we're trying to set a timeline of one to two months to get everything in order, and then we're off!

I'm moving to Australia!

Finally something exciting! I'm excited!

Fact: Koala bears drink Fosters.

FML

So I bought a $4,000 Honda Civic about a month or two ago. It's a piece of crap. It gets me from point A to point B and I've been very happy with it. Included in the package was a stick shift that actually fell off while I was driving, but I can use the metal piece to drive it, and a weird tire/brake problem that makes my car squeak each time I put pressure on the brakes. No bigee - it adds character. The third magnificent piece was an OLD after-market CD player that no longer played CDs. The radio worked, but I got commercial CDs to play about one in every twenty attempts.

My car got broken into tonight. It really sucks. They stole the deck, (the CD player/radio thingy,) and totally jacked up the inside of my car. They also stole my $700 guitar - one of my last valuable possessions. I'm really bummed about that.... Last week, a friend of mine who was leaving the country gave me a free subwoofer that cost like $200 or so, and they stole that too.. but it's okay, I didn't have enough money to install it anyway so it was just sitting in my back seat. My car still runs, but the whole front section is just a mess of wires, and I think they broke a few things as well. But, as long as the engine turns on, and the wheels move, I guess it just gives me something else to laugh about in my life right now. I think - with everything else going on - is a missing car stereo and a free subwoofer I wasn't going to use really worth getting upset about? They (luckily) didn't open my trunk, cause I have like $1000 worth of stuff in there, (where else am I going to store it?)

But at least some kids now have a deck that doesn't work at all, and a cool new subwoofer they can put in their car to make loud noises that will make them all go deaf. My initial thoughts were that hopefully, one of them will feel really guilty about it and decide to make some huge change in their life that leads them to go volunteer for the Peace Corps or something and make a difference in this world. Minus that, I guess they could all get gangrene, or have erectile dysfunction on their prom nights or something. :)

I wonder if my insurance covers this.......

Back in it!

Well I decided to not let my pity party last for more than a few days, and I'm back to looking for work and eating a lot of rice and vegetables. I had a job interview last week, but I haven't heard back for a second round, even though it sounded incredibly promising on the phone. I'm thinking that I might need to leave San Diego after about three or four more weeks since I'm going to run out of money again. If anyone, in America, knows of any jobs near them, let me know! I'd be happy to move somewhere other than here, even though San Diego is my home now, for the opportunity of a job. But we'll see - God is still good, and maybe some of that will trickle down to me right now.

At the very least, I've got my head back up, and I'm trying to stay positive and find work.

So I guess the worst isn't over yet....

Just when I thought my life couldn't get any worse.....

ben..peut-être un Master...........

English Translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http://holycrapiminfrance.blogspot.com/2009/08/benpeut-etre-un-master.html&sl=fr&tl=en&history_state0=

Alors, je réfléchis et je réfléchis... c'est pas trop dur quand je n'ai pas d'un boulot ni un appart, mais, en fait je suis très content que j'ai des amis à San Diego qui veulent m'aider. Etre pauvre maintenant, en fait, sans-abri, c'est quelque chose difficile, mais pas impossible. J'ai plein de temps pour réfléchir à propos de ce que je veux faire avec ma vie.

Selon mon dernier message, je voulais étudier et avoir un certificat pour enseigner l'anglais à ceux qui en apprend, parce que c'était logique. J'ai travaillé déjà dans un université, j'ai bien connu le directeur académique, et avec le certificat je pourrais avoir enseigné l'anglais en France et gagné assez d'argent pour survivre, mais maintenant que j'ai été viré, je ne pense plus que ça marchera. Vous savez que ça fait un bout de temps que j'ai envie de revenir en France, mais il me semble que je n'arrive pas à trouver un façon pour faire ça. Je ne pense plus que être professeur marchera, mais j'ai eu une autre idée!

Depuis longtemps je m'intéresse à obtenir mon diplôme de maîtrise, mais en fait, je n'ai jamais été sur ce que je voulais étudier. J'ai mon "licence" en High Technology Management, ça veut dire le management de ceux qui programmer, mais le diplôme était très très... comment on dit ça... "partie gauche du cerveaux?" Il était très analytique, logique, rational, mathématique, et le diplôme ne s'est focalisé sur la "partie droite du cerveaux" - les choses intuitive, culturelle et créative. Toutefois, ces choses, lesquelles de la partie droite du cerveaux, sont très important a moi, et je trouve en fait qu'ils ont devenue plus et plus important comme je vieillis. Maintenant que j'étudie tous les jours le français et c'est évident que j'aime bien cette langue, je pense que peut-être je veux avoir une maîtrise en la linguistique de français. La linguistique m'intéresse beaucoup, et c'est très moins cher en France avoir une maîtrise, moins qu'aux états-unis au moins.

Je pense, maintenant, que j'ai choisi ce diplôme parce que j'ai grandi parmi tous les asiatiques. Tous mes amis étaient asiatiques au lycée, collège, et école. Donc, peut-être j'ai choisi quelque chose technique et analytique parce que la plupart de mes amis se sont intéressés par les choses mathématiques et logique, et moi, je les ai suivis parce que... je sais pas... parce que j'ai cru qu'ils étaient intelligent, et qu'être programmeur ou analyste ou comptable était "un bon choix" pour survivre, gagner d'argent, et, le plus important: réussir. Mais, "réussir" veut dire quoi? Peut-être "être prospère?" à l'âge de 16 ans, à l'âge de 20 ans, même à l'âge de 22 ans j'ai cru que ma réponse à cette question était simplement "être prospère veut dire être prospère! Il n'y a qu'une signification! Gagner de l'argent, acheter des trucs, et être heureux." Et puis j'ai déménagé en France et ma vie est toujours sans dessus-dessous. En fait, c'est bizarre comment j'ai changé depuis vivre en France. Je pense que j'ai finalement trouvé qui je suis. Comment ai-je pu habiter vingt-six ans aux Etats-Unis sans me connaître, et puis déménager en France pendant une année et trouver qui je suis et ce que je voulais faire avec ma vie? C'est pour ça que je me sens... trop... attiré par la France. C'est en France que j'ai trouvé qui je suis! C'est en France que j'ai arrêté de chercher. 26 ans sans me connaître, 26 ans d'avoir beau chercher des réponses de la vie, et finalement je les trouve dans un pais qui n'est pas le mien, où je ne parle pas la langue, où je ne connais pas la culture... et je trouve que je suis pris entre le marteau et l'enclume. Peux-je vraiment décider de retourner en France et démarrer à zéro? Peux-je sacrifier ce que je possède ici aux états-unis pour un rêve ou un possibilité d'être heureux en France? C'est abusé... Je me sens coincé. Je veux vraiment y revenir, mais la question n'est pas si je veux ou veux pas, mais si je peux ou peux pas. Si j'ai un boulot dans un mois, et je mon propre appartement, je peux commencer de réfléchir à propos de ce que je devrais faire.

Je pense, au moins, revenir en France pendant deux ou trois ans n'est pas un problème. Même si j'arrive à n'aimer pas la France après trois ans, je peux toujours revenir aux états-unis, avec une maîtrise, avec parler couramment une deuxième langue, et travailler soit avec une compagnie qui a besoin de quelqu'un qui parle anglais et français, soit une compagnie françaises qui a besoin de quelqu'un qui parle les deux.

Mais encore, je me sens comme j'ai besoin de... quelque chose... je peux pas décider.

well shoot.

So here I am, in the same boat as I was three months ago. I got fired from my job a few days ago, and I'm completely blown away. I was working as an RA (Resident Advisor) at an international school here in San Diego, part-time, supposedly 12 hours per week, and I was pulling about 30+ hours per week. When I got hired, I was told I'd be able to find another job in conjunction with this, since it was only nights 6-10pm, a few nights a week, and weekends. So... I ended up working so much at this job that I was unable to find anything else - then I get fired because my boss didn't think I was working hard enough. I talked to a free lawyer service here in SD yesterday, but for some reason they said they couldn't help me, I didn't meet their requirements. So... they fired me on Friday, and on Monday I was out, which means no more income, no more place to live, no job... I'm back exactly where I was when I moved back into the country.

I'm not sure whether to cry, to smile, to be angry, to lose hope... I'm staying at a youth hostel with a bunch of international travellers right now until my money runs out in about 4 days, then I have a car to sleep in. Each day I apply for tons of jobs, drive around and apply in person at others, and then each morning I check my email to find that no one has responded to me.

I am just - so frustrated. I am smart, I have a good track record, I have good job experience, I have good references, but it's like the universe is just set against me succeding. I don't like to complain, because it won't change anything, but I mean... life just sucks right now. When you have nowhere to go, and you're scared about sleeping in your car because it's illegal and you don't want the cops to get involved in your already-screwed up life... you kind of start to lose hope.

So that's where I am.

CELTA, teaching English, Life

The whole "life" thing is becoming a common thread about which I write, so here I go with attempt number 15-and-counting, maybe I'll get it one of these days.

So I got a job as a Resident Advisor at a school in San Diego for international students. I took the job after three-plus months of looking for something that has to do with my major, a B.S. in High Technology Management. I applied for job after job after job and heard nothing. I went on interview after interview and wasn't offered anything. Short of feeling absolutely retarded and useless, I did get offered this job, but I make $300 a month and get a place to live in exchange for working with the students. It's good, but I need to make more money... I can barely survive much less pay off my debt ($7000 now) making this. So, I was speaking with the academic director of the school about the possibility of using my teaching experience in France to teach English here to the international students, and she said it might be a possibility, (I'd have to interview for the position and submit my résume, which the thought of just scares me. I think my résume is cursed - if I submit it to a job, there's like a 120% chance I won't get called back... such is life though I guess in this economy.

I mean, I know there a lot of people, seemingly, in my boat, but I don't know anyone else who just cannot, for the life of them, find a job, other than Rebecca and myself. It almost makes me feel like I wasted 6 years in college, putting in a lot of hard work, for nothing, if I can't get a job. I mean, I applied to good jobs that i was underqualified for, jobs I was perfectly qualified for, and jobs that I was overqualified for (front desk receptionist?!) and I got nothing, for three months, so I'm not sure what i'm supposed to do. Do I wait, not being able to pay off any of my bills, or do I do say goodbye to my education and take a new path?

I guess that is one semi-new crossroads that I am at. I still have the desire to move back to France, it's still there, very strong, but I'm just not sure how to make all the xs cross and actually do it, but I refuse to get stuck into a job and a career that just "makes money" for the sake of keeping me alive - that is no way to live life. I have the opportunity, maybe, to become a teacher here, and the money wouldn't be too great - but it would get me something, and I could use the teaching experience in that to get back to France and teach there. In fact, it might be one of the only ways that I could actually go back there and make some type of living for myself. I don't speak French fluently enough to work a real job, (my last blog post took me over an hour and a half to write,) although my French is getting a lot better.

I think if I take this route, if I get this CELTA certificate, (like the TEFL but more accepted world-wide,) I would be able to work here for a year, giving me a total of two years' teaching experience, then I could get a job that pays the equivalent of about $35,000 a year teaching english in France. My plan then would be to save up and get my Masters degree in France (is Masters capitalized?) which would allow me to get a better job, but I am feeling more and more drawn to the education field the longer I live. I feel that my personality, the way God made me, is not suited to the sale and production and marketing and advertising of widgets. I want to feel that at the end of the day, i have made a real impact on people, made a change to someone's life, and the thing that frustrates me so is that I've known this for a long time. How are you, at 18, when you go to college, supposed to know what the rest of your life should look like and what carreer path you should take? I chose HTM because I thought it would net me good money and that I'd be a nerd forever, but I find myself caring less and less about computers and technology everyday and more and more interested in people, in culture, in life, in art, in drama, in music, and in the things that give life purpose, not 1s and 0s.

So I could keep trying for jobs here that have something to do with my major, but each time I read over a job, I just look at it and I get this nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach thinking "I would hate doing that - why would I apply for that?" "oh - money, that's right." And then I turn around and look at the massive amount of hours I put into my current job which pays me pennies and feel that I don't mind working extra because I love doing it, and if I were able to teach here as well, that'd be pretty good. I figure I would love a teaching job here because the job I had in France teaching was the first job I had EVER had that I really, really, really liked, felt comfortable in, naturally good at, and that satisfied me at the end of the day. Every other job I've had in the business world left me feeling unsatisfied, left me feeling that no boss really cared what i did or how I felt or whether I put in extra hours here and there, they wanted numbers, products, solutions - and I can't stand the way people talk and act in the business community, all the little catch-phrases and hotwords that they use.

So, I don't know what to do.. still... it's been what... 3, 4 months since France was winding down, and I'm still caught in this afterparty of lostness, trying to figure out where my life should go. I hope that with more time and more thought, something will dawn on me- I have always been SO logical in my ability to parse things and take mounds of thought and come to a conclusion that is satisfying to me, but this time I just feel like it's too overwhelming. Each decision I make to take a step forward introduces two new problems that set me back, so I tread water and get nowhere, and I have not moved upstream in three months I feel.....