Doing too much?

As stated in previous entries... I am trying to do a lot.

I am trying to absorb the ins and out of my new job, and figure out ways to grow and expand the scope of the position.

I am trying to remember to make time to study for the GRE.

I am trying to put together a super quick theatre production in less then a month.

I am trying to eat well and get some sort of exercise.

I am trying to sleep more.

I am trying to write copy articles in copious amounts, but am frustrated at the toll all the typing is taking on my hands.

I am trying to use my iphone successfully and set alarms, and not miss appointments or gre study groups.

So Im stressed. Its a good stress, mostly, but a bit of an overwhelming one. Before I lost my job, the summer was my total relaxation time. But lets face it. After my vacation to NOLA and a two week battle with strep throat numero 3, I had been pretty much sitting around doing nothing. SO to go from that to a super crammed super charged schedule has been a bit of a strain.

I know it will all work out. Ill put down the fast food, pick up the GRE book and somehow plan a brilliant social media plan for both my job and my theatre company and sleep 10 hours a night while working out non stop on an elliptical. Well maybe not that one.

I guess the moral of the story is to set fewer goals and tackle them one by one.

Easier said then done.I seem to be the type that has about 50 goals and tackles them bit by bit over a longer period of time, or goes full stream at one while ignoring the pressing deadlines of the rest.

My goals for this week.

1. Get hands feeling good.
2. Do 4 articles a day.
3. All social media pages up and rolling for ACoT.
4. Log food daily.
5. Study for GRE every day and attend groups.
6. Cast and make rehersal schedule for muses.Delegate responsibility to vestiger group members succesfully.
7.Go to killeen to visit victor on thursday.
8. Get an application in for a theatre program.
9. Apply for 2 leadership programs.
10. Follow up with unemployment forms.
11. Follow up on a playwrighting project.
12. Get/select all pieces for muses, find a cast and begin rehearsals.
13. Breathe. And breathe.

Yes. Thats all.

So, I guess I got a job. :)

After two weeks of hemming and hawing and looking at craigslist for hours a day, and subscribing to all sorts of job blogs, and moaning to my friends about my lack of money and generally being both revved up and totally mad at the world about my luck-- something happened. '

I had been sort of offered an additional part time job while teaching at Star, and we were never able to make it happen because of scheduling. A friend of mine reminded me of it, and rather then emailing and waiting, I called them up, stated my interest, went in that day for a meeting, and we were off to the races. I think it makes me believe, even more, in the power of the secret. I know this blog is supposed to be about cheap austin happy hours ( and don't worry, 4 loyal readers, that will happen in due time :) but I think this blog is better used to discuss the power of positive thinking. A week or two ago I sat down to create a vision board. Things were changing, I felt awkward about where I was and where I was going and I needed to center myself.

My board focused on

Career: I wanted a job I was passionate about, in an arts field
health: I wanted to get buff, work out daily, make lists of what I eat
Travel: do it
grad school; Start studying for the GRE

All of these things require motivation, of which I was seriously lacking at the time. And while in two weeks, things haven't done a complete 180, they are looking up. The job I got is a part time job ( check) in an arts field ( check) and involving the two things I like the most ( social media/ theatre...check,) and I have joined an active GRE group, made plans to apply, made plans to apply for leadership Austin, began to think-- without fear, about my future. I also found a job rewriting copy, for minimal money, but it helps pay the bills.

Not that everything is perfect. My body responds to stress, even good stress, with ice cream and hamburgers and wine and soup and.... Thats the really annoying part.

And I have to wake up much earlier then I am used to. But at least I'm not sitting at home watching ABC family shows about gymnastics and having my brain turn to glue.

And while this job is temporary for now, hopefully soon it will become a real job. And hopefully I will be good at it,and believe in my work, and help shape the future of the arts in Austin, tx. I guess after years of talkign with people about what we wanted to happen with austin arts- I have an opportunity, albiet a small one, to do something about it.


So, the moral of the story is set your eye on the prize. And dont be pessimistic, even when it feels much better to wallow in your bad luck then to get up and face the world.

And don't worry. Susie's favorite happy hours will be coming soon. Wish me luck on day two.

Saying no?

I have always been a person who liked to say yes. I think It was because middle school and early parts of high school were fairly calm for me. Then later high school hit and so did a minimal social scene, which I thrived on. In college, the social scene blew up. I hopped around. Made gazillions of acquaintances and showed up at every party or social event...because of course if I wasn't there something cool and uber awesome might happen and I wanted to be there to see it occur.

Then I moved to Austin. Its interesting here because I belong to so many different mini social groups, half of them purely on the acquaintance level, and often the "social calenders" directly overlap.

Now, the normal sane person might accept the first invite and turn down the others... but not me. It became habit to accept every invitation-not matter which side of town it was on, and attend everything back to back, overlapped and all. I had always been the person who went to three happy hours in a row. or lunch and dinner out with different groups, or a movie on a whim. The thought of saying..well I can't go to dinner with you because I went to dinner with ____ two hours ago...well..it never even crossed my mind. I remember a Halloween one year where Evelyn, Joey and I drove from south to central to north austin party hopping, and spent more time and energy transporting ourself then we actually got to spend at the parties. Plus, I ended up stone cold sober.

And then money got tight. I'm trying to learn how to say no. Saying something like. " Yes, I would love to do ____. But I just cant afford it. Call me next time." Its very hard. What if they don't invite you again? What if they think you are lying by saying you don't have cash..when in reality you really just don't want to go? What if they think that it is lame that you are 25 and cant afford to go out for drinks?

Its a what if game I am trying to play. My boyfriend and I are taking the little steps ( sometimes, when we remember.) We try only eating out at happy hours. Or buying an entree and a drink and splitting it. But dating is expensive and socializing is expensive. Gone are the days when Victor would spend the money on the dates, and for the past 7 ish months we have been splitting the cost of our active dining and social life. I have turned down some concerts, a few dinners. Tried to buy the cheap things for potlucks and only have gone to free plays. Attend every event with free food or drinks, no matter what.

And while my friends may not understand, or may view my situation as a cop out-- I hope they all keep their cool ass jobs, and don't have to count pennies. And I am certainly not as bad off as most.

Stay tune for my next blog, where I will give you the skinny on having an active social life, while being tight on dough ( I. E. Susie's fav guide to happy hours.)

Be cheap, ya'll.

No. I wont work for free.

On Monday, I ventured out from my mothers house to go to an interview for what I thought was a hot shot Search Engine Optimization company. I figure it was some sort of place where all the cool kid social media folks hung out, and well, I wanted to be one of them. I showed up at the unmarked building, using the non existent directions and found the office marked with the name of a different company. In the interview it became clear that this uber cool sounding social media intern non paid position was really more of a free standing, you do grunt work for me for a month, with no hope of a future position or upward mobility kind of position.

I worked in that interview, making notes about social media things and using words like .." buzz, SEO, PPC, target audience, tweets..." The list was endless. We took a personality test and I showed up basically equal on all facets of my personality, with no dominant strain. After the interviewers conferred in the hall, they informed us that instead of selecting one candidate, they were going to accept all three. Far from being excited about this, I felt like I had been duped. By selecting one unpaid grunt and putting them through an organized program taught by social media media whiz kids-- at least I would have felt like my time was valued. I expected to learn specific skills, get close to a social media job opportunity, network... Instead it sounded like we were going to be left all on our own, essentially to construct and implement a social media plan. For no money. With no real program or direct passing on of knowledge or supervision.

I did want to be one of the cool kids, but I would rather get paid for my time. Any other social media whiz kids want to pay me minimally, teach me skills and then have me work my butt off trying them out? I'm game. I have just had to realize that my time is valuable. Its one thing to volunteer your time for something you are passionate about, but quite another to do grunt work for a supposed up and coming company, who should have enough cash to hire someone to do a job instead of getting 3 eager twenty somethings to work for nothing.

Where do all the unemployed people go?

After a random meeting with several would be Masters of Social work students in an intake meeting at UT, I helped for a thrice weekly GRE study group. At our first meeting I realized after listening to these strangers throw common names around, that they all knew each other from somewhere. It then became clear, they were all unemployed.l They were part of a huuuuge unemployment club called launch pad austin. So newly employed savvy Susie joined said club. Which is how I found myself at 9:30 am on Friday morning taking notes about the secret ins and outs of marketing yourself online, while eating a banana and trying to absorb bucket loads of info.

The club meets at the Monarch Events Center in the Lincoln Village Shopping center. They have many mini clubs, worksheets, motivational tips and tools, which basically just tell people to get up off their butt and DO something. Volunteer, join a club, get a hobby. Hell yes, I say! My brain feels much better not turning to mush. What I learned? If you use Linked In. Well...USE it. Make numerous connections. Update your profile. Change your resume. Tweet the hell out of twitter, hash tags and all. Make face book private. Get your resume up on the web . Google yourself.

I ended up hours later in a free resume workshop produced by Workforce Austin. once a month on Fridays a bunch of passionate unemployed folks, who were waaay too qualified to be sitting int hat office, rolled in to hear very nice woman talk about the rights and wrongs of resume writing. Then we were paired up. In my group...Several dell superstars, a marketing whiz and a super smart computer programmer. They had three page long resumes, with templates from the 90's. they were too smart, too qualified to be sitting in a room with me I was easily the youngest person there.

It made me think. not just about how sad it is that these uber qualified people had been let go recently, but also about how there was no one in the room younger then 35. What do the 20 somethings think? Do they live off of unemployment? Do they take another 8 /hr job until they figure it out? Were they somehow taught these skill sin school? Or do they all work steadily, but in jobs I wont allow myself to fall back on? Or are they all working normal, adult , well paying jobs-- and I am still in the dark?

I am going to knock out a bad ass resume in the next few days and build a bad ass linked in and twitter page. Really bad ass. You will want to hire me. I'm just not sure what I want to be hired for. Hopefully that knowledge will be aquired soon.

Next blog.... Why I turned down my first Internship.

House Bill Three, and the loss of my job.

I was sitting at Book People, contemplating wasting some time by studying for the GRE or drinking the medium good coffee ( with free soymilk,) when a message popped up on my computer. It was my principal, informing me that there had been some "changes in the legislature that would affect my schedule." I was told to call her. When no one answered I emailed and was instructed to arrive at the school at 10 am. Its not like I didn't know what was going to happen. OK. Back up. For a year now I had been working as a theatre teacher for a charter school. I loved my kids, enjoyed my job, was actually USING my degree ( I know, shocker!) The money, however, stunk. There was no room for mobility. We held classes in a portable and when it rained I would run from class to class, portable to portable, uually with some old t-shirt left over from a costume project over my head. I was always allergic to my classroom. The kids kept getting me sick, and I bought an endless supply of hand sanitizer. So not ideal, but the kids were lovely, and I enjoyed the management. I was prepared to ride out the years of teaching until I decided what I reallllly wanted to be when I grew up. But then, the dreaded email that sent me to the principals office arrived. I was told that a bill in the legislature removed the 2 years of arts requirements and brought them back just to one. And they raised the years required for foreign language. Spanish in, Theatre out. And I was out. On my butt. Once again, without a job.

This week has been a turning point for me. While I spent the majority of the first few weeks of my summer sitting on my butt watching ninja video-- now I am on a mission. Unemployment groups and networking, grad school prep and resume building-- follow me as I figure out how one actually figures out what they want to be when they grow up, what you do when you really have no money and still want to have fun, and the secret tips and tricks I will learn about the job search, in Austin, along the way.