Abecedarian's Post

My name is Andrew. (Hi Andrew.) And it's been 2 weeks since my last post. (Mild clapping ensues.) Lately I've been really getting the urge to post daily, sometimes more than once a day, but I've stayed strong, held off the hounds of hellish social media and networking. (Oohs and aahs ensue, briefly.) Lately, I've just been doing the job hunt thing again, supplemented nicely by a healthy dose of grocery shopping for 6 on the weekends, meal planning for 6 on Saturdays, a college Bible study group Sunday nights, and some geocaching thrown in for good measure when time and transportation present themselves. Regarding the job search, mostly my efforts have remained fruitless, though I have received some calls from "marketing" companies searching for people to promote who-knows-what for minimum wage through telemarketing. Not my thing. I've never been one for just cold-calling sales. Put me on a floor somewhere, with knowledge of products and specs, and I can sell products just fine, but over the phone, I'm not good. I also got a phone call today from a security guard company needing security staff for some event coming up, but I would have needed a "guard card" which I do not have. Might be something to look into getting, though, if those types of opportunities come up more often. On Monday, I did turn in an application to Mesa Public Schools to be a substitute teacher for the district. That quite literally almost made me want to go postal on quite a few people. Quick rundown of the day: 9am - Andrew calls AZDOE to get info on getting a sub certification license and is told it is obtained at MPS headquarters. 10:30am - Andrew arrives at MPS only to be told he has to go to the AZ Dept. of Education to pick up his license, over 20 miles away. 11:15am - Andrew arrives at AZ DOE offices, is told he needs a $60 personal check, cashier's check, or money order to process his application for the license for the MPS application. (AARGH!) 12:00pm - Andrew arrives at Bank of America, takes $60 out of the ATM after spending 15 minutes trying to find out how to park in downtown Phoenix, and is told that because BOA isn't HIS bank, he can't be helped there. 12:30pm - Andrew arrives at a park in Phoenix somewhere (only God knows where exactly), kicks a few trees in anger, and calls Dad to have him look up where the nearest Compass Bank location is. 1:45pm - Andrew arrives at Compass Bank, gets his cashier's check, and gets back into the car. By this point, having expended so much energy on frustration with the system, Andrew decides to go to nearby IHOP for pancakes. 3:00pm - Andrew arrives BACK at DOE offices, obtains license. 3:30pm - Andrew arrives BACK at MPS offices, turns in completed application. Is told that he cannot be eligible for substitute teaching until taking an orientation class for MPS -- ON MARCH 25th! 4:15pm - Andrew decides to go home and go to bed because the day really, really, really couldn't get any more obtuse. Epic, I know. In lighter news, the whole meal-planning, shopping, cooking trifecta (I just wanted to use "trifecta") is going well. I like most of the things I've tried to make. Earlier in the week it was a sour cream chicken enchilada dish with onions and red bell peppers in a sour cream-jalapeno sauce. Really delicious. Two nights ago I made pork chops with an apple-caramelized onion topping, which was probably me second favorite dish. I also tried a veggie casserole side dish which was so-so, but not everyone enjoyed it. I'm not sure what it was, but the topping didn't set like it was supposed to.... Oy vey. Tonight we're either having a turkey chili or bowtie pasta with bell peppers and sausage in a tomato-garlic sauce. We'll see. The Bible study has also been enlightening. It's a group of college-aged under-30 people on Sunday nights at the church I've begun to attend. Since it's been so long since I was last "attending" church regularly, I wasn't certain of what to expect, but the people are great - there are even a few politically-minded people there who make for great conversationalists, and even one other geocacher, which was slightly surprising. Currently, the group is studying the Book of Revelation, so though it's extremely interesting, I sometimes feel like I'm beginning my own study of the Bible at the end of the book. Tribulation, Death, destruction, God's wrath poured out upon the world. Things you really wouldn't expect from a conventional reading of almost any other part of the Bible; least of all those passages talking about Jesus Christ or God Himself. Frankly, I'm still not entirely sure of what I believe. I'd like to believe in God and put my faith in Him, but it's still a little unsettling to feel like I'm giving up control over a part of myself to a being whom I cannot see, touch, or converse with. My journey has begun though, so I am anxious to see where it leads. Finally, geocaching. I had good luck last weekend, finding 14 caches in or within a mile of Skyline Park out in East Mesa. I intend to go back this weekend to find the 3 I didn't try for on Saturday. One is apparently rather difficult and requires tools to access it. I think I know what I need, now I just need to see the site for myself and have at it. I also found a couple on Monday on my way back from MPS, just as a mechanism to calm me down after the stress of the day. So I'm at a grand total of 40 found thus far, and I might try to hike Usury Mountain to the Wind Cave to find the 5 caches up there this coming Saturday. (Scott, Ryan, Chad, you are welcome to join me if you so choose!) Anyway, that's life up 'til now. Time to go do some more dishes and pretend to not be bored until I go to bed. I look forward to writing more often in the near future!

My First Day of School

Today has been one hell of a day. It was good, it was bad, it was funny, it made me want to cry, I loved aspects of it, and I loathed others. All in all, it was a day. At least I didn't die (though, it was pretty iffy there for a few minutes)! Today was "Mr. Meeusen's" first day of substitute teaching for my mom's 5th grade class. She had a doctor's appointment, and her charter school was willing to accept me as a sub without the teaching certificate so long as I had fingerprint clearance. Without boring you all on the details, it was kind of fun. I got to teach math, introduced a new class book for reading, helped with spelling/vocabulary practice, screened a "Goosebumps" movie during "game time," held a Writer's Club meeting at lunch, and discussed voting and basic election facts for social studies. The kids were great, very quiet when they needed to be, and respectful all day. No major or minor problems among any of them. That was a big plus on my day. At the end of the day, my mom picked me up on her way home, and we got a phone call that my aunt's car was out of gas, and could we drive a few miles out of our way and bring some to her? Yeah, sure, why not? Easy enough. Go buy a red gas container, a gallon of fuel, put it in, send her back on her way to north Scottsdale, right? WRONG! You know how every family has that one crazy relative? The wacky one who wears the Hawaiian shirt and socks and sandals to Thanksgiving dinner? The one who cracks the WORST possible joke at the worst possible time? The one who thinks "pull my finger" is still funny? Um, yeah. So we put the gas in the car, and then she decides to tell us that the car won't start, too, and could we jump it? Ugh, slightly more hassle, working out in the sun in a parking lot, yadda yadda, but what the hell, I've got nothing better to do for an hour, right? So she gets out her jumper cables, and proceeds to hook them up to her car. I'm not watching this, getting my end ready. I hook the red cable to the positive side and hook the black cable to the... ZAAAPPP! And the cable starts to smoke and the rubber wire coating starts to MELT off the cables! My aunt had hooked the + wire to the - port and vice versa, shorting out the battery, and just about electrocuting me with a nasty voltage! So while mom and my aunt are freaking out about the Incredible Melting Jumper Cables, I ignore the fact that I could be dead right now, grab a cardboard box quickly from the car, and proceed to very quickly smack the cables off the battery terminals, thus cutting off the electricity. But, of course I'm not finished yet. I get "volunteered" to run to Wal-Mart a few blocks away (still nervously making sure the second-degree electrical burns on my hands are imaginary) and buy some NEW jumper cables so we could try this again. Upon returning, you better believe that my mom and aunt were not allowed within 20 feet of the batteries! However, the jump didn't work (possibly because my aunt's mistake fried the car), and we drop my aunt off with my grandmother and go home to see if my dad can help fix anything. At this point, I started to relax, getting into the groove of "House, MD" and watching the DBacks beat up the St. Louis Cardinals. Around about the 6th inning, I get a phone call from mom. "Your dad and I have to come home, will you come and watch your aunt here until the tow truck comes?" It's 7:30 at this point, and if you have been paying attention to entertainment news lately, you'll recognize that the "Heroes" season 3 2-hour much-anticipated-for-6-months premiere is TONIGHT at 7:00! VERY reluctantly, I agreed to help out, and I finally got back home at about 8:15, over halfway through the show. There was just no point in picking it up from there, so I have missed it. I know blood is supposed to be thicker than water, but come on.... it's not like I was really looking forward to this for a few months or anything (please note the inherent sarcasm in this remark). I can't wait to get my own place....

Catching Up Is Hard To Do

So many things have been going on and finishing up recently that I figured it was time to post and update the few people that read this. Primary election day was this past Tuesday, and while I put in my 14 hours helping with phone banking, precinct walking, and standing at polling locations around CD-5, it proved not to have been fruitful, as Jim Ogsbury lost the election. He garnered about 11.3% of the vote. David Schweikert ended up being the nominee with about 30% of the vote, followed closely by Susan Bitter-Smith, then Laura Knaperek and Mark Anderson. Only Lee Gentry, the independent pseudo-candidate did worse than us. But, I have no regrets. It was fun working with the Derr brothers and their crack team of people, and I hope I will have the chance to work with them again someday. Also, even though he lost the CD-5 election, Jim Ogsbury was a great guy to have volunteered for, and I firmly believe his door-to-door campaign is something more candidates should do to meet their constituents. Around 8:30pm Tuesday night, the volunteers, staff members, and friends of the candidate and campaign gathered at the Canal restaurant in Scottsdale to await the results. I admit I was fairly excited, because even the photographer from the Tribune said that her bosses were expecting him to do well. But alas, at 8:30 or so, Jim came in, asked for everyone's attention, and said he had just gotten off the phone with Schweikert and Bitter-Smith congratulating them on their race (it was too close to call between them at the time) and said that he was conceding the race. C'est la vie - such is life. You can't win them all. I wish Schweikert the best of luck in challenging Harry Mitchell for the seat, and I hope I get the chance to help out where I can. For those of you wondering about it back in District or elsewhere, I have not yet garnered my dream job, or even a random intermittant job at this point, though not for lack of trying. To date, I have submitted 579 resumes and applications to companies and campaigns since March of this year, and obtained 32 responses, almost all of them the standard "other candidates met our qualifications better" letters or emails. Lowering my expectations seems to be in order now. I am applying at Blockbuster, receptionist spots at doctors' offices, drugstores, OfficeMax, and other retail spots in the hopes that I find something to bring in some pocket change while I continue my hunt. Oh, and my laptop broke, which royally ticked me off last week. Someone dropped it while I was out of the house, and ripped the adapter plug out of the DC jack, breaking it. That jack is apparently attached to the motherboard, and will cost at cheapest around $75 to fix. Not to mention the $32 I just paid for a new adapter. So that was very disappointing, especially considering that most of my resume stuff, cover letters, and nice Microsoft Office 2007 programs are on there. No damage to the hard drive, though, so if I can get the jack repaired, theoretically, all the data should still remain okay.

My Almost-Job

Yesterday, I received a call from the Arizona Republican Party's Political Director Mecum after five days of trying to schedule an interview with him - in all fairness, he was driving the AZGOP RV alongside Chairman Pullen for three of those days, so it was a bit crazy. He asked me to start work today as a manager of the AZGOP call center at their headquarters. I'll admit, it came as more than a bit of a shock to me, since I had been trying to get in the door with them forever. After a couple round robin-esque games of phone tag between him, the party's Executive Director, and myself, I finally got the details of the job: 10am-8pm Monday through Saturday basically recruiting volunteers for the call center all day and working on scheduling times for groups. At this point I was pretty happy, if for no other reason than that someone finally returned my phone calls and emails. (That, by the way, marks response number 10 to the 400+ resumes I've sent out, so you can understand why just getting a phone call was thrilling!) However, for the pay proposed, and with my forty-five minute commute one way to the HQ, I needed to talk with my family about it, since I'd be using their cars and had responsibilities to them that I couldn't just shrug off. I was finally - and disappointingly - forced to conclude that with gas prices, family responsibilities, the 60-hour work week, and the 90 minute daily round trip commute, there was really no way I could give my full commitment to that particular job. Brett and the party needed someone who would be able to be there to staff the call center all week, and I simply can't do that from where I'm at (both geographically and in my life) right now. So, it's back to the drawing board, I suppose. I'm probably just going to have to suck it up and do retail for a bit until I can buy a car and move to a better location - whether that be in Arizona closer to the political action in Phoenix and Scottsdale, or out of state to someplace like DC. Ugh.

My New Hobby

Playing backgammon instead of looking for jobs online. Microsoft was nice enough to load "Internet Backgammon" in the "Games" section of the start menu, so I'm taking full advantage of it! In other news, I'm still looking for a job. It's been a few months now of not having full-time employment, and I'm starting to get the idea that I'm not really qualified to do anything but answer phones for a living with my American Political Studies degree. Seriously, I know I want to work in politics, but how the heck am I supposed to find a job that *PAYS* real money when the only thing campaigns and elected officials want is volunteers? Mostly to just make phone calls all day? How am I supposed to be able to GET EXPERIENCE to get a higher level job than "Volunteer Telemarketer" for a campaign if there is no work available? I truly envy those friends of mine who were able to get jobs in their fields right out of college, because with the combination of Arizona's political job market, my only experience coming from a guy who was indicted for fraud and the CRs who still despise me, and a bad overall national economy, this is perhaps the worst possible time for me to have graduated school. And here I thought it would be a bit easier, being an election year and all! I know I've got to get out of Arizona as soon as possible, never hopefully to return except to see my friends in Flagstaff. It just seems rather hopeless and bleak right now. I've put out over 700 resumes and applications since March of this year, and I've received a grand total of two letters, two emails, and four phone calls in response, most of which were "Sorry, but your experience didn't match what we were looking for" letters/calls. Depressing. If anyone has any leads either in Arizona or out of Arizona that a broke college grad without a car could possibly apply to, please forward them on! At least my Diamondbacks are still on top in the NL West!

One Month Later

Due to lots of stuff that's been going on lately in my life, I haven't the time nor the energy to post more on this blog until now. Sorry for the wait to all who have been trying to read my updates (basically just Chelsea). Here's a quick summary to get you back into the loop, and then I can continue with regular updates from here on out! First things first: graduation! I am now officially an alumnus of Northern Arizona University with a Bachelor's Degree in American Political Studies, emphasis in Public Administration! The graduation ceremony was a good time, with everyone decked out in blue and gold. We heard from our keynote speaker Dr. John Wettaw (coincidentally the guy who gave me my first tour at NAU before I was officially a Freshman, so it was kind of cool to begin and end college in that manner). We all got called to the stage, and I shook the hand of NAU President Haeger when I received my diploma - the first time I'd ever seen the man.... Um, yeah. Chelsea, you know what I'm saying. My folks came up for the celebration and we did dinner and breakfast the next morning before they took off and I began the tedium of packing and getting things ready for the final move-out of NAU. During the ceremonies, though, I'm sad to have to report a few low points. First, people, AIR HORNS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE AT GRADUATION CEREMONIES! Sheesh! Secondly, I found out I was only one of five APS majors graduating this year, and really beyond one or two other people, I didn't recognize a lot of the names being read. I guess I should have spent more time with other political people in the SBS department instead of just with CRs. On the positive, though, a couple of my favorite professors were there to lead the procession for SBS, so that was cool - like Dr. Buckley. Either way, I'll post a graduation picture once they come in and I can scan it into the computer! So after graduation, I packed up my stuff and finished up my RA duties: checking each room on my floor for damages and uncleaned things, even though it should have already been spotted by the RAs who did the checkouts. I really was pleased to not find much beyond some trash in a couple rooms and the hallway, one or two fridges that needed to be scrubbed better, and a few broken blinds and torn mattresses - the usual stuff. I did get the honor of re-cleaning one dirty toilet, but it wasn't too bad, and I had TONS of Lysol to use up! Sunday night, after I was finished with most of my RA stuff, I was invited to hang out and party with some of the campus's RHDs and my fellow RAs who were still there (and over 21!), so I did, and we had a small fire going in a chiminea, some cheap alcohol, and lots of laughs from the past year. I will sorely miss things like that. I started on Monday morning around 9am, and purposely took enough time so that I wouldn't leave until about 6pm so I could make sure to say goodbye to my RA friends, my RHDs, and a few other people in Flagstaff. I really didn't think it would be so hard to go. If you didn't know this about me, I tend to be really bad at goodbyes. I'm stoic at funerals, but with people I've become really close to, I get pretty choked up when it comes time for things to be over. The really sad part is, because many of those people aren't into politics and are in some places I don't ever get out to, I may not get to see them again unless I take a trip out there. So suffice it to say that the streak of depression that runs in my family really hit me hard throughout graduation weekend and I didn't start feeling better until about last week. But, I saw a couple Diamondbacks games during that time, caught up with some old high school friends, and started the great job search, which I am still doing now. The job with Coleman Dahm didn't pan out the way I hoped, with them not securing enough business to justify hiring a new employee, so I got hosed on that option. I'm currently looking for work, so if anyone has any leads, I'd love to hear about it! There are a few jobs I found while perusing things like Jobing.com and Career Builder, which would be up my alley for an entry-level position, but if truth be told, I doubt I'll find anything until I get out of this state. There's just no jobs in Arizona that I want. I am again sorry this is almost a month late, and I hope to do better from now on! 'Til next time! ~Reperio Vulpes

A Challenging Exam

Well, I have but a few things left to accomplish in the next two weeks, one of which is taking the JLS130 challenge exam with the NAU Counseling and Testing Center on Tuesday. The exam cost me $90 to take for three credits worth of JLS130, the final three credits I have yet to get. If I get a 60/100 on the exam, I get three credits; less, and I will be taking one more class at NAU and waiting a semester to get my diploma. Apparently, three people have taken this particular challenge exam, two of whom passed it. It was definitely "reassuring" to note, though, that the description of the challenge exam in the CTC booklet noted that "if you don't know what a preposition is... don't bother taking this test." Nice. I can't believe I have just 14 days to go until I am an NAU alumnus. Also, for those of you curious, I have no new news from the job hunt front. Still waiting to hear back from a couple places.

RIP Tom Campbell

On Tuesday morning, my grandfather, Tom Campbell passed away from natural causes. I didn't really know him well, and I haven't seen him in over a decade. But still, it touched my family because, well, he was my mom's father. So my parents are flying out to Michigan today to go to his funeral. I will be staying in Flagstaff finishing school up and staying relatively close to home in case of an emergency here with my siblings or my great-grandfather, who was hospitalized last weekend with severe pneumonia. Apparently, he was intubated and placed on a ventilator for a while, and is now off it, but may not make it through much more than a couple weeks, if that. So that sucks. In the meantime, I am trying to finish up my last 16 days of school before graduation, which includes 5 tests/quizzes, 3 papers, and a Challenge Exam for JLS 130 which I have yet to schedule. If I survive these next 16 days, I am pretty sure I can do anything!

Lock It Up!

Time to do it: lock it up like a Flagstaff bicycle, bear down like a starting pitcher, concentrate like a can of OJ, focus like the Hubble Space Telescope, get ready like Jimmy Kimmel before he goes Live!, prepare for victory like.... aw, you get my drift. There are now, as of today, 35 days left until my last final and my graduation ceremony. I have plenty to do now, and I really need to get back into concentrating mode to get it finished, because frankly Senioritis has set in BIG TIME, and I actually could be in danger of not passing one class if I don't bear down. As it stands, here are the numbers: 6 = papers left to write, 5 = on-call RA shifts left to do, 4 = tests left to take, 3 = credits left to pass (via the CLEP test), 2 = number of things to buy for graduation (cap & gown set and announcements), 1 = number of group projects left to complete, and 0 = number of job offers I've received for after graduation.... I'm frankly both supremely excited and scared out of my wits. On the one hand, I'm finally graduating from college, getting ready to move into the "real world" - something I've never fully done yet, and will be starting on the rest of my life with a background in something I love (politics and communications). On the other hand, I have to find a job, an apartment, a source of income to pay for deposits, a car or other transportation, finish school, take my final CLEP test, pack all my stuff up for yet another move, survive the Phoenix heat for another summer, and then make the decision about where I will go from here. I won't lie and say I've had an easy time dealing with it. The anxiety I felt on Thursday was almost overwhelming, and I basically shut myself up in my room for about 6 hours after I took a class quiz and tried to calm down about my future. It's a very difficult thing not knowing what is supposed to come next. Do I focus solely on school right now, or do I look for a job, an apartment? What AM I going to do in 36 days? What if I can't find employment right away? Will I have to go back to Mesa and live with my folks for a while? Yesterday, I got a little help from one of my professors. I went in to see him to talk turkey about my grade in his course, and I told him that I was feeling really overwhelmed with the courseload from my final four classes. He gave me some really solid advice, and I think he was feeling the same way, because he's in his own last semester about to retire: he told me that I needed to focus on just paying attention in class and focusing on completing the final paper. Same goes for all my classes: focus on completing the papers, and let the final chips fall where they may. A little anxiety can be a good thing if you can direct the emotion to finishing strong rather than worrying the time away. So that's what I'm going to attempt to do: finish strong, and let the chips for after I get my diploma fall where they may fall.

Snappish!

So, the next time you are considering staying up until 6am to watch a baseball game live televised in the Tokyo Dome at 3:05am in Arizona, maybe think again. Or maybe that's just solid advice for myself. I'm tired, though, admittedly, the game was pretty darn good. Couple of homers, couple of really good defensive plays, great pitching from Rich Harden....

Unfortunately, now I have to go to class and try to think about.... ugh.... organizational psychology. A topic which, if it wasn't actually a requirement, I would just blow off entirely. I'm done with school right now. Done entirely. I want to get out into the workforce and start making something of all this "learning" that I've supposedly been doing over the past 22 years. Though, frankly, I don't see how learning about some of the stuff I've been learning is ever going to help me. Like calculus. Serious, who fucking uses calculus outside of nuclear physicists and boring, stodgy old guys wasting away as math professors at podunk universities?

So basically, to link this to the title of this post.... little sleep makes Andrew a wee bit snappish toward things. I was asked today by my supervisor in our weekly meeting what my goals were for the staff here for the remainder of the year, like having a good fundraiser next week, maintaining strong relationships with my fellow staff members, etc. And you know, the only thing I could think of was: "I think those are just fairly obvious things, not really goals. I mean, of course I want our staff to remain strong over the rest of the year. I'm not going to say I don't want our fundraiser to go well, you know?" In hindsight, I hate doing that, but really, that's what happens when I stay up too late. I'm going to bed early tonight so I can get some shit done tomorrow. Papers and stuff.

Oh, and apparently I have a library book that was due in October still in my possession. I think the library is screwing me over. All I can say is that this better not fuck with my graduation or I am gonna be ticked.

From Stress Comes.... Good Grades?

After getting back from class a bit ago, I was reflecting on the last few weeks here as my final semester of undergraduate college comes winding down, and I really noticed a pattern of me just seeing stress, deadlines, and rushing to complete my work. I've really not gotten to bed before 3am anytime in the last four weeks, and missed class a few times to take naps to supplant my lack of sleep. I was eating unhealthy, and rushing through some of the stuff I actually enjoy doing just to get papers done for my capstone, writing course, art course, and psychology courses. Well, within the last 24 hours, I found out just how much all that hard work paid off. I had four assignments due this weekend: a four page essay exam for my capstone, an 8-page paper justifying the use of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, a 3-page art critique, and a 5-page film review for my PSY277 course. Overall, 20 pages. I ended up with the following grades: 198/200, 96/100, 100/100, and 92/100 respectively. Like the parable from the Bible of the woman who has ten silver coins, loses one, and searches all over her house for hours trying to find it, then when she finally does, tells all her friends and neighbors about her joy at having recovered the coin, so too am I sharing my triumphs with my friends about having lost roughly 3 hours of sleep per night only to have gained straight A's on all my work this last week.