Ok, I think I can talk about my new job now, especially after having to attend this 10hr training seminar that went from Friday night on into all Saturday. Whew. More on that later, though.
I work doing fund development and community resource coordination for (*edit*). Oh, and photography, but that’s just icing on the cake. The meat of my job is grant writing, recruiting volunteer tutors, and coordinating/attending fund raisers – the last part is what I’m not really looking forward to, I mean, I don’t know how to schmooze!!! Guess I’d better learn fucking fast, man.
It’s quite the job, really. Yesterday I completed this Adult ESL (English as a Second Language) training seminar that enables me to tutor people in English… at first I didn’t understand why since I wasn’t hired on as a tutor, but after going through the motions it all made sense. The most interesting & eye-opening experience was this Foreign Language Immersion Exercise where we were taught intensive Arabic. Yup, Arabic. How to greet, count to 15, and write those numbers on paper. It totally reminded me of taking French in college… equally immersion-based, but not only did I have 2yrs of the stuff in high school, the language itself has a Roman alphabet… not many barriers to learning there. Arabic was a whole ‘nuther animal – I felt like a complete idiot trying to write these strange squiggly characters knowing full well that they were simple numbers, not complex sentences. Hello, compassion.
Thankfully that only lasted 15 minutes both days, hah. Here’s a link to the class I took if you’re interested in the gory details. I have the fear that I’m going to be required to do a similar seminar next weekend for adult basic tutoring (GED stuff if I’m guessing correctly) but if I have to, eh, that’s ok… I’ll chalk it up to job security! I didn’t get an office for nothing I suppose…
Anyway, I pissed off a friend of mine Friday night. She had this going-away party at this bar across the water (not Puget Sound, but part of the same body of water)… I made plans to attend but on Thursday I was sprung the task of attending the training seminar and with transit schedules & all (I would have had to take the foot ferry but the last run was at 8:55PM), it was just not possible. She didn’t understand. She didn’t WANT to understand. So now she’s put me on her shit list. That kinda hurts… ok, it really hurts… and there’s nothing more I can do but hope things mesh out in the future.
(as a reference point… see those 2 bridges on the rightish-centerish side of the picture? I live not far from the north side of the picture, it looks like a little bubble of land.)
I have emails to attend to & I don’t have enough time. This is giving me the blues. So why am I writing here? I dunno. Well, actually I do. A former-friend-turned-friend-again (I hope) & I were having a discussion about basically checking in with people you trust when life seems like it’s getting out of control. Hey, here I am, hah. I actually slept for 12 fucking hours last night, unreal, man. I thought everything was great, then I started getting stressed about all these damn fundraising ideas & poof – congrats michelle, you’ve got a cold sore.
I’m finding that I desperately need to find a way to balance my responsibilities before I alienate people that I love. Again. I was telling GOB today that I can completely understand how people become workaholics… it’s easy to drown yourself in something that’s less emotionally demanding than family. Family, and in that I include my deeply cherished friends (hello Barb & Jen), I tend to take for granted – and I shouldn’t. Sorry Jen & Barb… I’ll find the fulcrum.
And hello perimenopause, FUCK. I mean, I knew I was in the midst of it, but this bleeding for 7 days is just not what I bargained for, ya know? There’s that misogynist saying, “never trust anything that bleeds for 5 days and lives.” hahah…
I’m the fucking antichrist.
citizen mange 
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 8:34 am
Your job is so perfect. Well except for the attending the fund raisers part, which actually sounds like murder. Schmoozing is so freakin stressful!
And I don’t know how one would even begin to learn Arabic in short order. I mean, to a westerner, there is nothing even remotely intuitive about it. I just know I would end up writing something really offensive instead of my address or something.
That’s total bullshit about your friend (?) not understanding about your need to attend training over her going away party. Might be a different story if you had a personalized gyrocopter or something.
And hey, do not sweat the having to remain in contact part. A new job demands so much attention. We know you where you are if we need to you (you’re on that little bubble of land there).
Go knock em out in your new job!