Not much going on here of late.

Missed spending Easter with my family at the beach, but had a pretty good day skiing and eating copious amounts of food with good friends, so that made me happy. The job search continues. Unfruitfully. I go through phases of being guardedly optimistic, apathetic, annoyed, and depressed. Annoyed and depressed seem to be winning out most of the time. Financially and emotionally, I need something to happen. Post haste.

Been reading alot. Rereading stuff I’ve read before and love. Reading new things for the first time. Some of it is crap (I’m looking at you military-thriller positing an islamic alliance bent on conquering the Mediterranian) and some of it is really, really awesome. (Thank you Neil Gaiman for American Gods. Just tremendous.)

This weekend will be spent in DC visiting some good friends. Can’t wait to see them.

Oddly enough, I’ve been thinking a bit about g-o-d lately. When Nick and Kate were in town, had a pretty good drunken discussion on my views on faith and it seems to have snowballed from there. Today I watched a pretty good documentary (The Education of Shelby Knox) about a highschooler fighting for sex ed in her school district that taught more than abstinance. She faced a ton of opposition from the decidedly christian, conservative community. Her opponents were so sure they were right. More and more, certainty annoys me, confuses me. Nobody has a monopoly on absolutes. Anyway, the unquestionable certainty of this highschooler’s opponents that they knew the mind of god popped a phrase into my head. I’m sure I didn’t invent it, but it goes like this: man creates god in his own image. Have to think on that more. Have to write on that more.

But not tonight. Tonight it’s late and there’s a book waiting for me resetting the Robin Hood tale in Wales during the Norman Conquest.  Book’s not going to read itself.

I have a Master of Science in Historic Preservation. Since October, I have applied for at least two dozen jobs. I have written, analyzed, massaged, and fretted over my resume. I have, and continue to, networked and shmoozed. Some days I wake up in the middle of the night with a clenched jaw wondering when it will all pay off. I currently make zero dollars an hour. I am a zero-aire.

I am unemployed.

Drives me crazy, it does. In a lot of ways grad school was a huge confidence builder. I learned what I could do, that I am a capable person. That, in addition to my vast stockpile of useless knowledge, I might have a smaller-but-more-impressive arsenal of useful knowledge that a future employer might need.  I walked out of the grad program confident in myself and confident that I wanted to make a career of historic preservation and that I would be a valuable addition to any organization.

I guess I didn’t realize that it would be so hard to convince a potential employer of that.

I mean, sure, the economy sucks and the job market right now is terrible and just give it time things will turn around and you’ll look back on these days and laugh and besides its good for your character.

Which, of course, is all true.

Doesn’t make it suck any less.

September 28th? What the hell happened? Where did I go?

Well, my friend, the answer is as unremarkable as it is true. The last semester of grad school kicked me in the ass and I didn’t have time to breathe, let alone post in this here blog.

But it’s over and I am a MASTER OF SCIENCE and I have time once again. I also have lots of things to vent about seeing as I am officially in the job market and the job market is officially a disaster.

So good times.

Nerdhut:Reloaded, Nerdhut 2.0, The Great Nerdhut Reboot of 2009….

COMMENCE!