Surrounded by water and not a drop to drink

So I had a lot of interviews last week, and this week not as much. I have been trucking along with Kindercare and I think I may get that job. I have submitted for a background check and my fingerprints, and I the center director said that I should be able to start next week, so I hope that happens. And on Tuesday, I have an interview at Wells Fargo, for a teller job, and I hope I can do that too. If I can do one in the morning and one in the afternoon, I think that would be awesome. 

SO I will keep posting, but if you want to know what I am doing about my weight, check out jessandtashagetskinny.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Interviews galore!

So this week is the week of selling myself. I have had an interview every day so far, Monday till Thursday. Monday was at Kindercare-this is the job I really want. Its full time, teaching, in a great environment and I love the center. Downside, its a hour away each way. Tuesday(today) was at United Day Care- I don't really know about this job, it is a part time position from 3:30-5:30 m-f, but it takes me almost an hour to get there, so is it worth it? In the interview, she mentioned that it could become a subbing position. eh. Wednesday (tomorrow) I have an interview at Children's Workshop- funny thing about this one is I submitted my resume at 11 am, got a call for the interview at 1:30 pm, missed it, but called her back at 4 and has the interview tomorrow. I am excited. Its full time, and in FOCO which is not as far as northglenn, but I really don't know much yet. we will see how tomorrow goes. Then Thursday, I have my second interview at Kindercare-which will involve more questions and hopefully a job offer. I have some materials I need to bring to it, like a transcript and physical, which if I can find time I will get done tomorrow. I just really hope this brings me to an offer, but we will see. 

So I am working hard, getting myself out there. I will keep you all updated. 

Wake-up call

I have just received the wake-up call of a lifetime. Now before I get into this I must say that I know that I am overweight. I also know that I have gained a significant amount of weight in the last 3 years. I am not saying that I didn't see this coming, I am saying that I didn't realize how bad it has gotten until just now. 

When I started college, I weighed roughly 190lbs. I was criticized for being fat but honestly I felt healthy. I knew I wasn't in the best shape of my life, but I was happy with myself. Since then, I have gained a lot of weight. (for privacy purposes I won't say exactly how much) I know my clothes are tighter and I could feel things getting bigger, but I didn't really notice because in my head, and when i look in the mirror, I see me, at 190lbs. What's funny is there is actually a term for this, but it is generally used in terms of people who suffer from Anorexia Nervosa. Its called Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Again, don't think I am a hypochondriac that likes to diagnose myself, but I really see a different body when I look in the mirror. It is not until photos that I realize that I do not look like what I think I look like. Because of this, I don't think I have realized exactly how much weight I have gained. Here is photo comparison. 

What I think I look like (High School Grad 5/2005)

What I do look like (College Grad 5/2009)

I am shocked. Why did no one tell me? I really had no idea until I just looked at this picture. I have thought about applying for the biggest loser before, but truly after seeing this, I will absolutely be applying. I can't 

believe I let it go this far. I am in shock.

I am on my way

So I did it. I graduated. Now, unfortunately, I just have to finish school before I can get my diploma. Sounds funny right? Well I had a class transferring fiasco, so I have to take the class I already took elsewhere, and retake it a unc. Unfortunately that means I won't get my diploma till august, but I walked on saturday. oh well. I still feel very accomplished. So many of you, like 2 people, who read this, may be asking yourselves "What's next for Jess" Well, I think that I shall enlighten you. 

So while I (almost) have a bachelors degree, it is kind of in nothing... its in "Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts with an Earth Science Emphasis and a minor in Reading". WOW what a mouthful! Anyway, this really qualifies me for nothing. I can, however, and will choose to use it to become a teacher. It gets me 90% of the way to that, so thats good. Unfortunately, in order to become a teacher, you have to have a license. This I have not. I could have continued at UNC for another 2 years and possibly gotten it, but to be frank, (who is this Frank character everyone references when they decide to be straightforward about something? can't we just say " this is what I am saying because I am a straightforward person, and not have to blame it on Frank?..... back on topic) where was I... oh! I didn't have the patience or drive to really keep working for another 2 years. SO I decided to peace out after 4, earning a baloney of a degree, in order to pursue my real passion in life! Unemployment! 

just joking...

not about the unemployed part... but about that being my dream. I am not Claire for goodness sake. 

So I am looking at a few options. They will be called option 1 and option b. 

Option 1. I could (and will) apply for my Alternative License Statement of Eligibility in August, when I get that piece of paper declaring me smart. This will allow me to look for a real teaching job under the pretenses that I will earn my license in the first year that I am teaching. 

PROS: I get to teach. I get paid. 

CONS: I am less qualified. I don't feel qualified. 

So this option allows me to jump in head first without training, and kinda "learn as I go". This is a great option, financially. But as far as my readyness to do it go, its a nogo. I have taken teaching courses, but I have never been in a live classroom. ergo, I will walk in the first day and probably be the first kid to pee their pants. 

Option b. I could (and will) apply for the Post-Baccalaureate program at UNC to obtain a license. This would entail going back to school full time for one whole year, 3 semesters, and emerging with experience teaching and a license. I would get the experience in the classroom to make me feel comfortable, and I would have a license. 

PROS: Pretty much what I just said. Confidence and License. Could defer student loans :) Masters degree :)

CONS: opposed to getting paid, I have to pay. 

So this option will allow me to feel prepared and really learn how to be an effective teacher, while getting me half way to a Masters of Education in Elementary education, which in the long run earns me about 10,000 more a year. 

So this is what I am trying to decide. at this point, I am gonna try for both, see which one bites first. I have pretty well ruled out fall hire, unless someone dies unexpectedly, so maybe a spring hire (again due to sudden death, or pregnancy) would be a good plan. 

Its kinda nice to lay it all out there, so I can really assess my options. 

OH as for the year of unemployment ahead of me. Well goodness I have applications out everywhere. I am looking at preschool teaching, working as a school assistant or school secretary, a bank teller, an administrative assistant, prostitute, everything and anything I can think of. If you know of anyone hiring in the greater denver/noco area, let me know. 

Until next time, I leave you to ponder my future. As for right now, its really uncertain. But isn't life always?

14 days

That is all I have left. wow. 

I can't believe that I made it. I have hit a few snafus on the way, but all in all this semester has been a successful one. I am rounding the last week of school before finals and as usual, I am slammed with projects and papers and all different stuff to work on in the last week. For some reason professors feel the need to put 80% of the semester's coursework in the last 2 weeks of school. I don't understand it and it really isn't very nice. Oh well. I am also working on getting a job. I have two big applications out, basically for the same jobs, but two different places. The first is for a library assistant/classroom assistant at Plateville elementary for the summer and the other is for a library assistant/school secretary at Northridge high school for the school year. I really hope one or both of them work out. On the bright side, I have a guaranteed job. I will be tutoring the girl I tutored this semester, this summer, as well as her brother. That is $15 an hour, 4 hours a week or so. That won't be enough to support us, but it will be great to keep working with her. 

I must say that if you ever need a boost, have someone write a letter of recommendation for you. I have had 3 written for me in the last week and it is really touching to see what people think about me. They are all glowing so I hope they help me get the job. 

For now this is about all that is happening. 

I will update again soon. 

Spring Break

So we have made it just over  half way. There are 6 weeks left in the semester and thus far I am doing pretty well. Classes are slightly overwhelming but its keeping me busy. This semester I have really realized what I want to do with my life. I have two classes in which I am working with students in a teaching aspect and I LOVE it. I am tutoring a 6 year old girl in reading and she is fascinating. Observing her learning is so interesting to me. She is really succeeding and her success is lighting a fire inside me. My other class is being a teaching assistant for an Earth Science class. I am working with freshmen at UNC and I love teaching them. The professor I am working under and I have a great relationship and she really lets me work with the students and they regard me like a second teacher. When I was in their position, our class didn't trust the girl in my position. She just stood in the corner. But I am really working with students and I had the opportunity to one on one tutor 3 girls for an upcoming test. All three of them aced the test and I was so proud. They each thanked me for helping them and credit me with their success. This really made me feel fulfilled and I know that I want to help people for the rest of my life. There is not a better high than knowing that something you did really helped someone. 

Other than that, I have a small beef with americans. I wish I could just shout from the rooftops that people are really kinda naive. Anyone who has taken Economics 101 knows what I am saying. WE as americans are causing the recession that we are currently in. It is driving me CRAZY that rich people are continually under scrutiny for spending their money in a time of economic crisis. PEOPLE PLEASE SPEND YOUR MONEY!!! we NEED rick people to spend money!!! Every dollar they spend is a dollar in someone else's pocket and then they will spend that money, putting it in another person's pocket and so on and so forth. Right now everyone is too afraid to spend their money because they don't have very much of it, but they really don't understand that they are the reason they don't have money. It's called the paradox of savings. If Lindsey Lohan doesn't buy her starbucks because she is cutting back due to public scrutiny, the barista will be laid off. She, therefore, won't go to the Olive Garden with her girlfriends on ladies night. The server that they would have had would then make less money so he can't pay his rent to the landlords who in turn can't fix the plumbing problem so the plumber is laid off and can't spend money for food ...etc. SO Please let Lindsey Lohan buy her starbucks. The point is that a dollar saved is a dollar wasted. Money was meant to be spent, thats how our economy works. I would bet that if the media started saying that the recession was looking up and that our economy was now booming, people would spend their money and the economy would come back. The problem is that we all have this mentality that we shouldn't spend our money so we really the cause of the recession. I am done rambling, but please for the love of everything cheese like, SPEND YOUR MONEY!

So onto spring break. I am going to Portland and I am SOOO excited. I leave Monday and will be back Saturday night. Be prepared for pictures. 

I'm done procrastinating, for real this time.

As many of you know I am a procrastinator. I believe that I was born a procrastinator. I was 3 days late. Many people in college say that they procrastinate just as an excuse to be lazy, but I fully believe that my problems with motivation have nothing to do with laziness. I can't remember a point in my life where I had enough motivation to do anything when it was supposed to be done. The earliest grade I remember is about 6th grade. I had the hardest time completing my assignments on time, for no real reason. This problem has followed me my entire life and has become so serious that I am terrified to finish anything. I panic when I get to the end of a project or something, to the point where I need to finish it. I know this is a bad example, but it took me 2 years to finish a video game that I could have finished in a month. I got through the whole game to the very end, before the big final task, then I stopped playing. It finally took Andy forcing me to finish it that I finally did. And I cried. And felt a weird sense of loss, not accomplishment. I don't know why I have this weird reaction to the end of things, but with this enormous juggernaut of reality hurtling toward me at the speed of light, I am terrified. Everyone keeps telling me that I should be excited to be done. but in all honesty I am so overwhelmed with panic that I can't even concentrate on the accomplishment at hand. 

I was thinking about my issue with procrastination recently and I fully credit it with my mediocre performance throughout my life. I start the semester off on a good foot. I work hard and it seems like it might break my habit, until about half way through. Thats when the end is in sight and panic mode comes in. I know people don't think that I am serious in that this is a real problem but I am completely serious. I wonder if I should talk to someone about it. I think that it goes deeper than just not having the motivation to do anything. 

Anyway, I am terrified to graduate and I almost think that I subconsciously sabotage everything I do in order to prolong the inevitable. If anyone thinks I should seek help, or knows how to help, please let me know. 

Thursday, January 15, 2009

So we are rounding the end of week one. So far so good, all my classes seem completely do-able, and I know I can get really good grades in all of them if I really work hard, which I fully intend to do. Waking up is becoming easier, seeing as we are going to sleep earlier. Tomorrow, I have one class at aims, then I am done for the day. I want to get some good reading in, and maybe lots of The West Wing, which is the most amazing show ever and everyone who reads this needs to watch it. 

I really want to start a book club. I want an outlet that isn't school related. I think it would be super cool to do with anyone, so if you are interested, let me know. We will read whatever we want, at whatever pace we want. It's completely up to us. 

Andy is doing really well so far being back at UNC. It's like he never left, except this time he wants to do well, which makes all the difference. I have a good feeling that we both will succeed this semester. 

As far as everything else, we are doing well. I have already leaned a lot in just this first week and I look forward to 15 more weeks of fun education. Well only 14 weeks cause one of which is spring break. 

Speaking of, I am so excited. I am going to Oregon, I already have my plane tickets. While I am there, Toni (the one from high school) and I will be road tripping up the coast to washington and we will see Seattle and Port Angelus and all that jazz. if I get my passport we will also be making a trip to canada. Then, we will head back down and my friend Megan, who I met freshman year, wants to hang out so we will probably drive down to Corvallis, where she goes to college, and see the campus and all that fun stuff. Also with Toni, her boyfriend will be flying us to Astoria, which is an island off the coast of Oregon where The Goonies was filmed. Apparently they have the best fish and chips. We will see. 

So thats the plan basically. I am super excited even tho it is still 9 weeks away. 

Also exciting, for me at least, is that I ordered some stuff online that I will be getting soon. These things include some boots, some pants and a new shirt. I am excited for these new things as well. 

So that is how things are going so far!

Second Day of School

Today is my second day of school. Yesterday was my first, but I only had one class. Today, I have class from 9:30am-7:00pm. Thats a long time. So we woke up this morning, a little late, and took a shower, got ready and headed out. We drove to class because it is freezing outside, and I guess we were a little late because there was absolutely no parking. We ended up parking on the other side of campus and walking to class, which made us 15 min late to our first classes. I walked to my classroom as fast as I could to find out.... My lab was canceled because we haven't had the class yet. So I really didn't have to be here till 12:30. I was a little mad. The least my professor could have done was email us so we didn't come to class 3 hour early for no reason. So here I am, two hours later, still in the computer lab waiting for class to start. I was about to go back home and sleep, but andy has the car keys. So I have been wasting time here.

So far, my second day of school isn't going so well.

But it has just begun, I have another 8 hours to go.

Kill me now. please. anyone? please?

jess

The eve of my last first day of college.

So school starts tomorrow. I am a little bit terrified. I have my bag all packed, my pencils sharpened and my clothes in the washer. All I need is to wake up on time to go to my first class at 9:10 am. This sounds like an easy task, but for the last week, Andy and I have set alarms to wake up at 8:00 am and still every morning, we have woken up later than 11 am. This is a problem. 

On the buying new things front, we got a new vacuum. I really like this one. It actually sucks. Which is a favorable quality in a vacuum. After vacuuming the front room, the container was full of cat hair. It goes to show how badly our other vacuums didn't suck. 

Also today, I got the most unexpected surprise from my parents. They called and told me that they were 10 minutes from Greeley and that they were coming by. It was great to see them, and lucky that I was able to hang out. We went out to dinner and then they headed back down to parker. 

Other than that, I am just getting ready for school to start and hoping that this will be a good semester. 

Also, I need to go to metro to submit my stuff so I can take my correspondence course so I can graduate. I would be mad if that didn't go through in time. I think we are gonna go down to Denver tomorrow to do that...

Anyway, I will keep you updated on how my first day goes. Luckily it's only my history class. Tuesday will be my first big day. I have class straight through from 9:30 am to 7:00 pm. We'll see how that goes. 

Keep reading, I swear this will get interesting eventually. 

Sending my love to Grandpa for a speedy recovery!

jess

Kitchen Aid Mixers, and Plane Tickets

I got the greatest deal yesterday. We found a $350 Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer for only $150. Of course we bought it. I am so excited to use it!! I have wanted one of these for a long time. 

We also made curtains yesterday, and hung them in our living room. We also rearranged the room, it looks pretty awesome. 

I also just bought my plane ticket to Portland for spring break. I am going to see Toni, the one from high school, and we are going on a road trip. I am leaving Monday March 16th, and coming back Saturday March 21st. 

I am super excited for all of these things! 

Update on the Job

The job working at Platte Valley Elementary seemed too good to be true. Sadly, this has been the case. I am the preferred candidate for the position, but unfortunately, my school schedule doesn't give me the availability to work M-F 10-noon. In order to get the position, all I would have to do is move around my entire last semester schedule. While this seems simple, it really is not. I am going to graduate in may, and in order to do so, I am already taking classes at 3 different educational institutions. Even if I were to switch around my schedule, I would have to take summer classes, because the classes I need to move are offered at the same time. So it is impossible to make my schedule work for this position. 

While this makes me very sad, I know that my job right now is to graduate and to get my degree. This position, while incredibly great, gets in the way of the job I have been working on for the last 3.5 years. For that reason, I must call Don Beard, who in fact does not have a beard, and respectfully decline his offer for the position, and ask him, respectfully, to consider me for positions in the future, including a teaching position I will be looking for in a few months. 

So I guess the search is back on. 

Resumes and Interviews

I quit the Olive Garden in January of last year. I quit because I began working at the dinner theatre up here and I didn't have enough hours to stay at Olive Garden. I worked at the theatre from January until March, when the show ended, and even though I was promised a job with the next show, I found myself jobless. This is March. I began my seemingly endless job search which has lasted 9 months now. I think it may be the end of my searching. 

In late November, I was bored one night and decided to look online for small schools that could be hiring teachers for the fall of 2009, that I could go to when I receive my Alternative License*( see below for explanation) to get hired. I need to work near Greeley, and I figured smaller schools would be more likely to hire slightly unqualified teachers (see below). In the midst of this search, I found a small school east of Greeley, in a tiny town called Kersey. Platte Valley Elementary School. I was searching their employment page and saw that they were looking for a teaching assistant, a position that doesn't require a degree, but is in a classroom. I applied. The application was ridiculous and took about 2 hours to complete, and I kind of cast it out of my mind.

This afternoon, while eating lunch at the Olive Garden, I got a phone call from Donald Beard, the principle at Platte Valley Elementary. I spoke with him and now I have a meeting with him tomorrow at 10 am. 

Shortly after my conversation with him, I decided that I should probably write up a resume. This is something I have never done. Long story short, I think it's a good resume. 

I am really excited about this job interview tomorrow. I will post about how it goes. 

Wish me luck!

* Alternative License program explanation:

Because I didn't want to be in college until I die, I have decided to pursue an alternative way to get the same thing done. I found out about an alternative license program through the Colorado Department of Education. With this program, I apply for a temporary license and upon acceptance I can look for a job, but the hiring school has to agree to mentor me for 1 year while I teach and earn money. At the end of the 1 year, if I pass the program, I will receive my 3 year license, which is the traditional license awarded to first time teachers. This will mean that I will be a real teacher. 

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Welcome to the new year. I can't believe it's 2009. This year has held such anticipation for me and I can't believe it is here. When I started college at UNC, 2009 is what they told me would be the end, but for me it was an eternity away and I could only imagine how my life would be in 2009. To be honest, it is nothing like I expected. Thats not to say that it isn't better. I have (almost) everything I could have ever wished for. I am independent financially from anyone, which I think is a huge accomplishment. I am living with the love of my life, and our 3 children (cats) named Jackson, Franklin and Teddy. I have an apartment, and a car and computer, and a 42" plasma screen tv. The one thing I am without, and have been for exactly 1 year now, is a job. But I am hopeful that our new president will change things and maybe help me out. As of today, I am happier than I had every thought possible. 

Seeing as this is the first blog, I will give you an overview of what I intend to write in this, so that you can make the decision now whether to continue reading. I am going through a seemingly endless search for a job, the application process for my alternative teaching license so that I can teach in the fall, taking 18 credits at 3 different colleges, and going through all the hustle and bustle of getting to the finish line. Graduation. I will probably talk about other things in my life, to be forewarned, and I have a tendency to get off topic, so I will try to reign it in if I am drifting into left field. 

Anyhoo, check back for updates. 

Jess