Frustrated again...

Well, it's almost the end of January, and I have looked everywhere for jobs, and I have not found one. I am beyond feeling like I am chronically-unemployable, I just feel hopeless now. I came to Australia because I heard work was more prevalent here, I got the visa, started looking before I got here, and have now spent countless hours tuning my resume and applying for hundreds of jobs. I haven't gotten a single call back yet. I've applied for cafés, fruit-picking, admin work, project management work, and applied to several jobs in universities trying to cover every possible facet of the job market, thinking "well SOMEONE has got to want to hire me," but no... no one has.

It's nice that Rebecca found a job, it means we may possibly be able to survive while we're here, after the $1000 a month rent at minimum that we're finding. I just... hoped this year would be different from the last. I spent so long in San Diego looking for a job, and I don't know what to feel other than completely useless when I can't get a job anywhere. I don't know what I am doing wrong. I'm not sorry I came here, it's a great experience, even if it sucks right now. Culturally, I'm perplexed by Australians. I don't seem to get them, and they don't seem to get me. We speak the same language, but after conversations I always feel like I came across poorly, or I offended someone, or half the time I feel that people just don't like me, and I'm not really used to that. I feel like since graduating college, I haven't really had a great job. My job at EMN8 really allowed me to grow, my job in France was fun, and I feel like I did such a great job and made a lasting effect on people, but I am hungry for a full time job, doing something that is more than just answering phones or pushing papers. I came here so I could have a better life, and I really thought that that was possible, but now I am not sure... I am just getting depressed, every day a little more... frustrated by the hours and hours I spend in front of the computer working on resumes, looking for jobs, and hearing nothing, over and over again. I just want something.

I've spoken with temp agencies, searched job sites for "work visa" and "462" (the number of my visa,) and I've heard nothing. I'm at the point where I'll take anything now, just to survive, but "just surviving" is really frustrating after spending 5 years in college, and having 3 years of post-college work experience. I feel like I could have done 90% of the jobs I'm applying for when I was 15, so I ask myself why I even went to college if this is what I am getting out of it. I am tired as well of everyone telling me that "it will get better," or that "the job market is just bad right now," I know it's bad right now, but everyone else I know seems to have a job... I just feel retarded that I can't get one. I am a smart guy, I have a good resume, and I'm a good person... I am just tired of waking up every morning to another empty inbox.

This is pretty much what I think is happening to all of my resumes.

So I'm not sure what to do. I know that as each day goes by, my visa runs out further and further, and if I'm not finding work, Rebecca and I can't save for our future - we can barely rent a place to live. I am tired of living in other people's houses, feeling like a bum who is lazy and unemployed, but I don't know what else to do. Maybe I need an encouraging word, maybe I am just writing this because I can't stand the sight of job websites right now, maybe I am just fed up, I don't know.

Rebecca and I have made such detailed plans with what we want to do in the future; we want to move back to France, get jobs, get masters degrees - but all of that starts with saving up and paying off our debts... I have tried everything I can think of, and nothing...... I'm just stuck, and hopeless-feeling.

Christmas in Adelaide!

So Rebecca and I are flying down to Adelaide this afternoon to spend Christmas with her parents and family. I am really excited! I've heard mixed reviews on the city, but the most important thing to me is that her family will be there, I'll get to see her elementary (primary?) school, see the place she grew up in... figure out why she's so weird, and have Christmas with an actual family, which is much better than our original plans to stay here and chill with each other during Christmas and New Year.

Things in Sydney are going a lot better since my last post. It seems that I'm getting adjusted to here a lot faster than I did in France. Albeit the language is the same, and I can actually understand whether people are being nice to me or not, and Rebecca has gotten some job interviews, which is GREAT for us. We've seen a lot more of the city, and we've found a few places that we both really like, that we might want to live in, so that is really good. Now we just have to wait until the holidays are over and we can get started more seriously on our job search. I'm happy to report though that everything is feeling better and better each day, and more and more comfortable. I'm really happy Rebecca is here with me, and we're moving forward with our future, (not plural).

Holy Crap I'm in Australia

Well, my plans seem to have changed a bit over the last few months. I went from doing everything I could to get back to France, to realizing that it might be better to wait a bit, to having an opportunity to move to Australia for a year and taking it, to settling here in Sydney, in a cute little suburb called Maroubra, hanging out with Rebecca, her sister and husband, and their three boys.

It's been hard adjusting to the new time zone, to leaving the States, and there has been added stress from everything here being SO expensive. We can't find rent cheaper than $1200/month! And that's for like.. a shack.

To be honest, I haven't written since I've been here because there doesn't seem much to report. It feels like San Diego with Australian people, but everyone is driving on the other side of the road. I want my own place, I want a place where I can get away when things get too complicated here and when I don't feel like being around other people. I need a lot of personal space, and a lot of time alone, and I don't have that at all here, which is probably one of the hardest things. I want to listen to music, but I can't because I'm never alone. I want to go out with friends, but I don't have any. Sometimes I'd love to go somewhere other than the house, but I can't because I don't know how to get anywhere. I guess I can go to the beach, but that gets old soon. I guess after being unemployed for so long in the States, I was hoping I could come here and find work, but I haven't found anything yet. If I'm in a good mood, which I'm not right now, then it's fine.. I stay positive, but other times, like right now, I feel like maybe I didn't think this through well enoguh before I came. I have no idea what I'm doing here.. it's like France all over again. I know I hated France when I first got there, and I went through a long, drawn out period of mourning before I started to really like it, then I started to love it, and now my heart aches for it and I miss France every day. Maybe Australia will become like that as well... right now I just feel out of place, and unable to do anything about it.

Long Road

Well, it's been a long road up to this point. I remember getting to come back from France and wondering what my life would be like when I came back to the States. I had no idea that four to five months later I would moving again, to Australia. These past months of joblessness, scattered homelessness, frustration dealing with auto insurance companies and banks, and frustration over where my life was headed and the inability to eat at times has taught me a lot I think. As to patience, diligence, humility, I have learned that there is always room to grow as a person. I'm happy, excited, full of wonder for this next trip and next step in my life, but more so, I am just thankful. Most people who have helped me, either with money, with housing, with free dinners, with moral support, read my blog, and those who don't, I've tried my hardest to thank.

I guess now, I am finally going through the last steps of preparing for this trip, which has seen so many more difficulties than I saw before leaving for France. Rebecca and I have both sold our cars, cancelled our accounts, gotten rid of things - that has been a huge one - Rebecca has lived here in the State for 9 years, and packaging everything down to two suitcases is a tough job when you have so many memories, but we will be creating new memories, we will be forging new dreams and putting ourselves out there for the world to deal with once again; and we are both happy about that. In a few weeks my life is going to change forever, again. I can't put into words what living in France for a year did to me, I guess someone (who was really bored,) could go and read all of my posts and could up with a summation of how my views did, but there are no words that can describe what goes on in the human heart, the change that desperation, lack of ability to communicate, longing for home, and then finally a discovery of oneself, but at least I know what happened there. I can't wait to see what happens on this next journey. If it will be the same, no one can say. I think the non-language barrier will be a huge factor in how I change, and how easily I grow accustomed to my new place. Also having my best friend and love there with me, (or I with her to be more accurate,) will make this a much different trip.

I guess the largest question I have now is when this desire to travel, see and experience the world will end. Will it be with Australia? Will I move back to France? I know that deep down my my heart still beats to return there, and I, like Rebecca, never want to settle for a life I'll take when I can push for a life I want. Especially in today's world where international affairs are so possible and plentiful, I consider Australia not as an end, but as a step to finding out the future.

So to all who have helped me these last four months, you have no idea what you've done, and how much you've helped me. Every dollar, every night on a couch, every meal, every encouraging word. It has meant the world to me.

What about the future?

J'aimerais bien savoir ce que je devrais faire avec l'avenir... Je vais déménager en Australie, mais après, devrais-je retourner aux états-unis? Puis-je retourner en France? Je préférais revenir en France honnêtement, je veux étudier français là, parce que je ne veux pas perdre ce que j'ai appris, et je me sens que je suis déjà en train de l'oublier. J'ai besoin de pratiquer avec quelqu'un, mais Rebecca a trouvé plein des écoles à Sydney où je peux continuer mes études, donc, pour le moment c'est pas grave, mais je meurs d'envie de parler français, je meurs d'envie d'être plus Français, je meurs d'envie d'y revenir et encore vivre... Je me sens vide depuis partir de la France, et je veux y revenir... mais je rabâche... Je suppose qu'il faut attendre, mais on ne peut attendre qu'un temps. Éventuellement je vais oublier la France, et je vais encore devenir américain, et j'ai peur de ça. Je vois, maintenant, tous ces problèmes avec mon pays, avec la mode de vie ici, mais je sais si je reste trop de temps ici, j'oublierai les problèmes, j'oublierai ce que j'aimais de la France, j'oublierai mes amis là, et je serai triste, sans savoir pourquoi, je serai mécontent avec ma vie. C'est déprimé! Et je veux pas ça! Je suis coincé...

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.......