"Oh oh I want some more/ Oh oh what are you waiting for"

Oh heeeeeey Panera. I almost forgot what you looked like on the inside. Yep, since SO is done, it's back to trying to find a job. I've gotten to the point where I am just sending a resume to any company where I feel like I am "somewhat" qualified. I mean I have no experience, I have no skills, gotta do what you gotta do. And also, let's do an Observations/Thoughts since it's been awhile! Here we go (Fun fact: I always say this in Natalie Portman's southern drawl from Where the Heart Is. Bonus points if you know from which scene)!

-The best part was a job posting yesterday where you had to call a number and listen to a five minutes message from the president which basically said "I'm awesome and started this company when I was 18 and now I'm even more awesome. I believe you get what you put out so if you're not awesome, don't work here cause we only accept awesomeness." Frankly, the guy sounded like a d-bag but if I worked with him and he liked me, I'd probably like him. Yep, I'm shallow and wishy-washy with my opinions. So I spent all this time crafting a cover letter and hitting the points he mentioned in the message about his expected criteria. And so I finally hit send and I immediately get a message back. Oookay. "Due to the large volume of interest in this position, we are conducting group interviews Wednesday MARCH 24th" aka: the day BEFORE I sent the email. Awesome. You'd think Mr. Awesome would have thought to change the message or something. Oh well, he sounded like a d-bag anyway.

-So I searched for copy editor just now and "What?! A copy editor is needed in Atlanta. ONLY FIVE MILES FROM MY HOUSE?! I can totally do this. It for an outdoor magazine. I mean, I can try to fake that. I mean I ran on the IM fields occasionally in college. I sit outside and watch my nieces play. Sometimes. * continues reading * Oh I must be an expert in fishing and hunting. Yep, can't fake that. Moving on."

-And then, there was a position for a proofreader. My thought process: "Oh I totally correct people's grammar all the time (at least in my head). This was made for me! * continues reading* Must have a great understanding of html coding, and other technical talk that I can't even remember and repeat for the sake of this blog post." Soooo... no.

-All this "upload your resume and we will grab information and inset it into the application" technology doesn't work. I'd rather it be blank since I just have to go back through and correct everything.

-I have also really discovered I use Twitter to complain. I went to the post office earlier today: Someone in line did not smell good. As I was assessing the people in line, the untidiest looking man who I believe to be the culprit made eye contact and looked me up and down. Ew.

-Then I went shopping and got locked in the dressing room. And apparently the door locks/ gets stuck a lot because the employees were like "Oh it locked. AGAIN. Guess you are sleeping in the store tonight. hahahaha" They didn't tell me they were doing anything to remedy the situation and I was pulling on the door so hard the frame was popping out of the ground. Finally I got let out. I also complained about this incident on twitter.

-Since the weather has been nicer, I am inclined to drive with my window down. There has been construction all along the road lining my neighborhood since I would say June if not before. And these construction workers apparently feel obligated to live up to the stereotype of whistling, cat-calling, etc at young girls driving by with their windows open. I do NOT enjoy this. And therefore, complained about it on Twitter.

-Panera is crawling with high school students and it's only 2:30. Must have been a half day. Oh to be so young and naive. And think you are way cooler than you are. But hey, I used to be one of those so what can you do? But now I'm an unemployed college grad so I AM cooler than you.

-Chocolate chip bagel was DELICIOUS.

-I HATE these salary questions. I am a recent college graduate. I only worked summer jobs before so I feel stupid typing in "well I only made this much an hour". Then it's like how much do you expect to make? Dude, I don't care! I just need to support myself. But I don't want to sound greedy but then I don't want to lowball it. Annoying. So I just pick the lowest option and hope I sound humble and that I won't be taken advantage of.

-I enjoy so much when these sites give a progress bar. This current one does not. Boo.

-I do not enjoy when these sites send you a million emails when you submit a resume, submit a cover letter, submit your application. Just compile it all into one so my poor little inbox doesn't almost explode.

-This will mean nothing to any of you besides former roommate AW (and I don't even think she reads this). AW is sometimes confused and sometimes cheers for Florida basketball (when Georgia isn't playing) cause she used to be a FL fan before she reformed her ways and saw the light. So there was this guy, I wanna say his name was John, who made fun of her cheering for FL, we saw this guy ALL the time so we started calling him Florida Fan, even to his face (hence why I am unsure of his actual name) even though he did not cheer for Florida. So this was years ago but we would still see him every now and then in the last months of college. So then I thought I saw him at the Starbucks I frequent once I moved to Atlanta. Several times. If nothing else, it's his look-a-like. And now I'm at Panera and not even the one really close to the Starbucks and he's here! I wonder if he recognizes me. That was a lot of background for a very worthless story.

-Ultimate coincidence: he is sitting with a man wearing a Florida Gators hat and shirt. So you know, I automatically don't like him.

-But (possibly fake) Florida Fan brings me to this thought: I always just want to ask the professional people sitting around me if they are hiring anyone. I mean that's how Heidi got her job at Bolthouse; she met him in a bar (there's a little Hills trivia for you). I'm look respectable and job searching in Panera on a Friday afternoon. I'm a good person! Hire me! It could happen!

-Why does this $300/day for being an extra pop up in EVERY SINGLE job search. And not just once but like fifteen times. I don't want to do that. Why isn't this on a talent/ modeling/ acting site? Although they do film The Vampire Diaries in Atlanta.... maybe it's for them! Maybe I should look into this. Oh Ian Somerhalder. I just googled his name to make sure I spelled it right (I'm all about the quality) and I think it's so funny how "Ian Somerhalder girlfriend" is the second most popular search as it always is with all these boys. Because tons of celebs date and marry girls who googled them on the internet. If only....

-OneRepublic's sophomore album "Waking Up" is FANTASTIC. Oh UnoRepublic. I love you. Never go away.

-I also am listening to several songs from American Idol (that's right. I watch it. I'm not (that) embarrassed) thanks to a handy video2mp3 converting site. My favorites you ask? Casey James and Lee Dewyze. I can get on board with Siobhan and Crystal and Big Mike. I have the most Casey songs but I always enjoy Lee. There's my opinion. I know you were dying to know.

-Some of these requirements are ridiculous. "Must have 10 years previous experience" "Must be able to lift 20 pounds".... to be an administrative assistant? Seriously? No wonder this job posting is still around.

-Oh yeah, months later and I STILL can't log into Monster. I finally made a new account using my UGAmail address.

- It was dumb of me to put my "Job Search" tab RIGHT next to my "LOST" tab. I always start to click the LOST and have to move over. Even subconsciously, I just want to read what other people said about the Richard episode and all the little things that I missed. So tempting. Must. Fight. Urge.

-The couple next to me are talking very animatedly-- lots of waving arms and hunching over to emphasize a point and gesturing. It's very distracting.

-The man got up and he is wearing very bright blue pants. Prompting me to look at how bright his pants are. And it may have looked like I was checking out his booty. But seriously, they were freakishly neon.

-I truly love the iTunes Free Single of the Week. It's how I found out about Owl City's Fireflies, Lady Antebellum's Love Don't Live Here Anymore, and Asher Roth's I Love College. Unfortunately they have been sucking lately. Then they gave us a good one with Neon Trees' Animal and now it's back to sucking. Too bad. Here's to crossing fingers for next Tuesday!

-I have seen several girls with purple purses today. So brilliant. Goes with so many colors. I am jealous.

-I really love epic music. Like songs that are used in the trailers for movies like Lord of the Rings and, hate to say it, New Moon. And The Lovely Bones trailer had some epic music I was able to track down thanks to sites dedicated to figuring stuff like this out. I am currently listening to it and I sort of want to go partake in battle or beat someone up or something. Well not really but sorta.

-The worker keeps cleaning the tables around me, but my table was empty when I got here and it is very sticky. Maybe it was before his shift started.

-A job posting I think I could do is taking FOREVER to load. Oh what to do, what to do?

-Oh no. After refreshing and reloading the page is blank. Figures.

Alright, I'm cold. It's four and I tried. Time to call it quits.

"And sometimes you close your eyes/ And see the place where you used to live/ When you were young"

Today I did something I've never done before: I got my very own library card! Yep and I'm 22. And an aspiring author. Buuuuut, I just always used my mom's card when I was little (and trust me, we caravanned it over to the library once a week and I would beg my mom for more books each time) and then I guess when I had money, I just purchased my own books as opposed to borrowing them.

The main reason I got one is because I no long have money to spend frivolously and I still really want to read Jackson's book As You Wish. However the library won't let you search the catalog unless you have a card so I gave in. I went to the library today and searched through the YA section for Jackson's book (it wasn't there. super bummed) and a couple others. But as I was searching the stacks, I saw SO many titles that I loved when I was younger. It was so nostalgic. Chocolate Fever, Walk Two Moons, Manic Magee, The Phantom Tollbooth, the Amber Brown (Is Not a Crayon) series, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Ella Enchanted, and SO many others. Could I tell you the plot of ANY of these? Nope. But my memory was jogged when I saw the familiar titles and fonts and book covers. Sure they were nestled between the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, the Princess Diaries books, Harry Potter, and Twilight but at least they are still hanging around.

Oh and the series that I absolutely LOVED were the Wayside School books. The kids at my school were also OBSESSED. Like you knew which kid had checked them out, so you would follow them to the library on the day they had to return it so you could harass the librarian once they dropped it in the box so you could be the next owner. Well that or we would all race to the section where they were (a top shelf towards the back of the library. STILL can picture it) if no one in our class had been the lucky recipient. That's how obsessed we were. But it's funny cause no one else I've talked to remembers these books. Come on people! The school that was supposed to be 30 classrooms on one floor but instead it is 30 floors with one classroom on each (minus the 19th floor... it doesn't exist), with the teacher that turned students into apples by wiggling her tongue and ears, the friendly gym teacher named Louis, the three Erics, the girl with the cutest missing front teeth but they are actually there, the girl with the long braid that the boy grabs onto when he falls out of the window, the boy who always gets in trouble for the smallest things and has to ride home with the kindergarteners, and so many other stories. I actually found two of the books at a used bookstore and snatched those up. I can't wait for niece SD to want to read them since I'm sure she will LOVE them.

Oh childhood, how I miss those simpler times. Sigh.

"Part of you will live in me/ Way down deep inside my heart... /Please remember me"

Everyone (hopefully) has had a few influential teachers in their lifetime. Some say a certain college professor, others a teacher from high school. While I did have a few professors in college that I admired and my AP English teacher will always have a special place in my heart (and his surname was borrowed for the book), the most influential teacher in my life was my third grade teacher, Miss K.

I was in her very first class and by now she's witnessed us graduate from high school AND college. I can remember being so sad when I graduated from elementary school because it was such a close-knit, adorable little school and even in the 10 years since I left, it has managed to stay almost the exact same (with the except of the gym in place of the blacktop where I had PE and more trailers). And maybe I'm strange because I still go back to visit. I went to Family Fun Night when I was in middle school, once I got my license and a car of my own I would stop by and visit every few months after school. Even in college, I went back to visit at least twice (I never went back to my middle school and stopped by my high school once during my fall break freshmen year). It's a little sad because all of my teachers are gone with the exception of a few, but Miss K luckily has remained (not just so I can easily stop by and see her but for the dozens of other kids that have gotten the privilege of having her as a teacher).

I moved away from my hometown two years ago (managing to stop by one afternoon randomly, catch Miss K as she was getting into her car to leave for the day and chat in the parking lot the week before my family left) but met with my friend RY on Monday since he was home for a few days for spring break. I told him I would come back so we wouldn't have to navigate a new city or try to find a halfway point. And then the bright idea dawned on me: If RY and I finish up by 2:30, I could pop on over and say hey to Miss K. So I emailed her and it all worked out. We got to have a lovely two hours of catching up. It's so funny cause I almost treat it like a therapy session. I remember one time in high school telling her about how my best friend and I were in a fight and then this visit, I talked about some boy problems. Miss K truly is the best. Haha and it probably is a little strange to talk about boys with a girl she can probably still sees as an eight year old clad in overalls and oversized glasses and used to think boys had cooties (Not really, I was never one of those. Fun fact: My first crush was in Kindergarten on a boy named Matthew).

But the true reason I wanted to go back and talk to Miss K was because she is one of the driving force behind me trying to write this book and get it published. At the end of each school year, there was an award ceremony where the much coveted subject awards were handed out. Miss K presented the Language Arts award and said she would be first in line at the book signing of the recipient one day. And I was the winner! We actually talked about this when I went to see her on Monday. She said I said "Really?" with a dubious look as she handed me the certificate. I also won the Spelling award that year ("Cause if you're gonna write, ya gotta know how to spell, right?" she explained). Clearly I didn't see any potential in my third grade self when I was still reading the Babysitter Club books and writing stories about Tommy Oliver and Kimberly Hart getting married after defeating Lord Zedd and Rita (Power Rangers for those who don't know. And yes I really did write a story on MS Word when we first got a computer. I didn't understand what "Save Changes?" meant so I said "no" and it was deleted. Too bad cause that was one epic tale that the world will never know). But apparently she saw something in me and that little speech has shaped what I hope to be the rest of my life/career. At the very least, it's had a huge impact on my life for the past eight months. It's amazing that my third grade teacher has had this much of an impact on my life. But she is an amazing, wonderful person so it's not too hard to believe. :)

She and I walked down the seemingly-slightly-smaller halls to see if one of my old teachers was still in her classroom (she wasn't) and Miss K stopped to see if another teacher and I had overlapped in our years (we hadn't). And Miss K explained the Language Arts award and her speech and how I really had written a book (not yet published was immediately explained by me) to the lady and I think it really hit me then how much this woman, who claims she had no idea what she was doing since it was her first year teaching, has essentially molded a good bit of my life. So thank you so much Miss K! I hope (and know) that you will continue to influence so many other students in the years to come.

Haha Miss K also shared with me the April's Fool Day prank she played on our class. She apparently wrote us a note saying she had to switch grades and was going to start teaching the fourth grade that very day and we were going to have a substitute. She had this note waiting for us on our desks when we got to school that morning along with the scary substitute Miss Wilham sitting at her desk. She told the sub to come get her twenty or thirty minutes later to let the joke set in and really seem real. Apparently our class only lasted about five or ten minutes. One girl broke out in hives, another was sobbing on the floor, I was crying, the boys were angry and pouting in the corner, and everyone was absolutely freaking out. But then our beloved Miss K came back and informed us it was all a joke making us laugh through our tears. And then we decided to take the notes home to our parents and play the same prank on them. I didn't remember this when she first brought it up (I thought she told us they lost our ITBS scores and we had to retake the test) but once she told the story, it came back to me. I think I probably blocked it out because I was so traumatized but once she mentioned the scary substitute teacher and the fact that a girl was sobbing on the ground, it all came back to me. And thank goodness it was just a joke or everything would be completely different for me right now. And the character named Dr. Kelly in the book would be someone completely different and probably not as cool and awesome.

"Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now"

I don't understand it when people say they have no regrets in life. I mean, sure, I hope they don't regret the person they married or having a child or those other "big" life decisions. But whenever someone says in a movie (and I realize it is a fictional character) that they don't have any regrets, I just don't believe it. I mean I regret the fact that I ate twenty(....-nine) Peanut Butter MnM's earlier today instead of 5, or you know, carrot sticks.

I went to Athens for the weekend because: 1) It was a long weekend. 2) A large majority of my friends still live there and I miss them greatly. 3) Several friends who now live out of state were visiting for another friend's birthday. It was an awesome weekend and as much as I love home, it still always makes me sad when I have to get on to 316 West instead of East.

I was extremely lucky to find a great group of friends in college. I mean an awesome, amazing, hilarious, fantastic, beautiful, smart, lovely group of friends. The only downside was I met about half of them the first half of senior year and the other half the last semester. So that meant only spending four or five months with some of them before we all graduated and went our separate ways. But I'm so grateful that these friendships have kept up thanks in large part to Facebook, texting, and gChat.

But it just makes me so sad that I could have been having the time of my life for four years instead of just one. So that's one of my biggest regrets. And sure, maybe if we all had met each other sophomore year, the timing and dynamic wouldn't have been right and it wouldn't have worked out. I'll just always wonder how much greater my college experience could have been. Not that I am trying to complain, I had an awesome time. And if I keep up my streak of visiting Athens that means I get to spend time with some of the people I love most. Until then... gChat and Facebook will just have to be a (distant) second choice.

Oh and while I'm talking about regrets. My other two involving my college years:

2. I should have been more involved in college. Since I declared my major junior year and therefore had to take my major classes the last three semesters of school which meant four english classes at once for a year. And that meant 16 papers in one semester. I had no life.

3. I should have done a freaking internship. I need experience. Job searching sucks. Still.

"And there was a kid with a head full of doubt"

How to sum up trying to find a job in a single phrase: It sucks. If you want to feel like a worthless, invaluable, waste of space and life-- just try looking for a job and that will be accomplished faster than three clicks of your mouse.

And someone needs to improve this whole online process. I consider myself to be a somewhat intelligent human being and I went to a respectable university but I get stumped at some of the stuff on these career oriented websites. Considering all of them promote how "easy" it is, I have struggled trying to decide which of these predetermined areas, industries, and categories I fall into. I'm just saying, break it down a little more, please.

After a lot of hemming and hawing, yesterday I entered the rat race of trying to find a job. And I'm essentially feeling like the rat that broke her little paw getting out of the gate and I'm limping behind everyone else racing ahead of me with their interviews, briefcases, and smart business suits. Well, that might be giving me too much credit. I'm more like the rat that is cowering in the corner, crying and resisting the urge to call her mommy. I can't believe I compared myself to a nasty rodent not once, but twice. What is my life coming to? Nothing, that's what.

Now it's my own fault, I'll be the first one to admit it because I did very little to prepare myself for "the real world" in college. Especially considering I want to write or edit, you know, something that requires experience and skill. Well I lack those apparently. I didn't have an internship (Sidenote: I mainly blame this on my high school. I got lunch with my friend EC at the end of the summer and we talked about how our school did not prepare us at all for college or the real world. No one promoted internships, or work study programs, or anything of the sort. I didn't even know what an internship was until Lauren Conrad said she had one with a clothing company on the second season of Laguna Beach. At least that show can say they taught someone something new) and I didn't try to write for the Red and Black or Stillpoint or UGAzine. I respect the students who did and balanced school, more power to them. But after doing poorly in a math class my freshmen year, I spent the remainder of college desperately trying to bring my grades up so school became my main focus. My last four semesters of college I was either taking 18 hours (which you're not suppose to do. The cutoff is 17) or taking four english classes (along with an elective) at the same time. That being said, I had a bit of writing and reading to do for myself. Honestly, it became a joke. Anytime my friends called me, they would just ask me how Jittery Joe's was and how the paper was going because I was there every single day working. I know, I'm making excuses but really, consider them to more so be explanations (...of my current failures).

I've signed up for Monster, CareerBuilder, DAWGlink, and Idealist over the past two days. But it's the old chicken/egg situation: I need experience to get a job but I need a job to get experience. So..... how do I go about fixing this? Cause I searched internships for over an hour today and.... they don't want college graduates. They want underclassmen. And all of them are unpaid. I'm not even above an unpaid internship at this point, I just need something. And then you look for jobs (where there aren't a lot of postings for writers or editors just so you know) and there is always a catch. Well the catch is usually in the form of "must have at least two years of experience in [fill in the blank]" Well.... what do I do if I don't?

Back at the end of July when I went to talk to my Career Advisor, she told me to not look for just any old entry-level job like being a receptionist or administrative assistant. Oh no, no, no. She said that wouldn't further me in my area of interest. True, but is sitting here sifting through numerous websites and finding nothing furthering me? I don't think like it is. She told me to look for an internship. Thanks for that super advice (see previous paragraph).

And it's not like I'm giving up or saying that two days of searching obviously means I am never going to find anything (as much as it feels like that), I just think colleges should require students to take some sort of course about this sort of thing or be more understanding about balancing internships and coursework. Cause while I was wasting away writing my 36 english papers for my classes (give or take one or two), I certainly wasn't preparing myself for the future. Oh how I'm kicking myself in the butt over shooting myself in the foot now.

All I know is: I am unprepared, I want to cry, and I must be highly entertaining to my fellow patrons at Panera because I drop my head on my table, rub my eyes resisting the urge the cry, and scoff or act incredulous when another link doesn't work or leads me to another dead end, a couple times every hour. Oh also, don't be an english major unless you want to teach. Otherwise, you're screwed.