Tag: money

Unpaid, at last?

I realized today that right now is the perfect time for one of those necessary unpaid internships designed to get into a field of work.  I have a place to live, and am mostly provided food and water, and all without immediate cost to me.  And I have support from family to pursue what I feel is best.  I just need to keep up my end of the semi-agreement for the next toward a half (-ish) months, and I expect that the food and shelter will remain available to me at the same cost for quite some time… giving me the perfect opportunity to test out those jobs that have intrigued me, but would not offer money for the first little while of working in them.

We shall see..

 

Post-a-day 2017

Today’s bumps, I guess

Two not-so-great things happened today at work.  1) I hid under my desk again (second time so far here).  2) I took a stupid typing test, and only got 60 words per minute.

For the desk thing, it’s just a whole new world, working here with these kids.  Education that has felt like second nature to me most of my life, is a piece of education that has somehow eluded a good chunk of these guys, thanks to stereotypes and income levels of families.  The first time I hid under my desk, I think I just wanted to be alone, after a good hour or two of kids being kids, unable to handle sitting in a classroom, even for five minutes at a time (we get up and about in the room a lot during class, excluding test and quiz days).  Today, it was a bit of that, but mostly my distaste at the unfortunate lack of capability of many of these high schoolers to do basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.  I took these same classes at their same ages, and yet I flew threw most of this stuff.  Not only was I good at math, but I had friends and family to support me with it, whether I needed the help or not.  These kids just plain don’t.  So, I’m not sure if it was so much the annoyance at the kids being restless today, as it was their social and educational backgrounds that really just have me wanting to curl up and cry, and go away… but ‘out of sight, out of mind’ has never really been one of my supported phrases in life.

And, for the typing test, it was stupid.  It was for doing Aesop’s fables, including their titles and an introduction.  I didn’t have a single error in the final product, because I corrected as I went, but the flow was difficult, because it was different formatting with the titles and such.  Aren’t typing tests traditionally of paragraphs?  Perhaps my belief in that is a false one, but it makes more sense to me for a general standard test than what I had today.   Anyway, it was some free online test, so I don’t expect it to be the best standard… it was just kind of annoying.  Hopefully I am right, and my typing speed is actually faster than just 60 words per minute.  I didn’t even have a comfortable positioning of the keyboard and everything, either, so I don’t really see why I’m upset about it.  I guess I’m just tired and feeling ill today, and that’s bringing me down in more ways than one right now.

Post-a-day 2017

That Jacket

Tomorrow, I get to wear my brother’s pirate jacket, and I am thrilled(!).  At long last, I am granted not only the occasion, but the permission and the ability to wear the jacket, and it looks mighty fine with the ensemble, I dare say.

My brother bought it at this cool resale shop called Lucy in Disguise, in Austin, Tx.  When my mom had asked him what he had paid for the jacket, he said that it was “a bill”.  I thought he was just being funny, saying that he had handed over some bill of cash money, and the change came back to him, because he didn’t really remember what he’d paid for it, or because he was thrilled at having spent so little on it, that it was a five- or ten-dollar bill, maybe even a twenty.  However, as their conversation continued, I quickly discovered the term as being a vernacular synonym for the hundred-dollar bill.  That my brother would have paid such a price for something like that meant that it must be, it necessarily was outstanding.  And, truly, this jacket it.  I envied him for it from the first time I saw it.  I don’t even really love pirate-y things.  Yeah, they’re cool, but I don’t ever want or need them.  But this jacket was like (the cheesy tie-in of) treasure to me.  It is just that wonderful.

And I finally get to wear it.  Yippee! 😀

Post-a-day 2017

Kill Bill and Mailboxes


Have you ever seen “Kill Bill”?  It’s a spectacular film (and set, actually), and I fell in love with it when I was around the time of middle school.  My eldest brother was in college, and he had me watch it with him one time.  I was enthralled.  I couldn’t tell if I actually wanted to be like Uma Thurman in the film, or if I just liked marveling at her humbly.

It ended up being one of the few pieces of Japanese culture that has stuck with me (before I moved to Japan, that is).  Not that the film is Japanese itself – it just has Japanese things in it, specifically a samurai-like relationship to swordsmanship and fighting.  Quentin Tarantino was the first director whose name I remembered, as well as the first whose style I learned to identify.  I’m not sure I would have been a fan had I not seen Kill Bill as my first full exposure to him and his style.  However, I absolutely love his directing, and therefore end up loving movies that otherwise make little sense at my being a fan of them (blood and gore and anger are really not my thing).

All of this aside, however, something from the Kill Bill films stuck with me even stronger than anything else.  The scene where the money briefcase is opened, revealing loads of cash, and then, suddenly, as a chunk of cash is removed, a poisonous snake shoots out and bites the man who opened the case, killing him.  It is such a sudden event, and it includes such a confirmation of the guy’s mortality, that it hit me hard.  While I mentally am totally comfortable with the scene, I suppose there is a sort of psychological response that I had not anticipated would last for so long as it has: I don’t stand in front of the mailbox to open it.  I stand to one side, and open the box.  Then, I lean over to see inside the box, still at an angle to it.  Once I have verified the absence of any snake, I then reach in and pull out the mail.

This was an immediate response to having seen this scene.  It was intentionally done, each time I went to check the mail.  Now, more than 15 years later, I still do it.  I kind of chuckled at myself today, as I noticed that I was doing it, completely unaware of what I was in the process of doing – avoiding a snake attack.  I mean, seriously, a snake in my mailbox?  Possible, but insanely unlikely.

Like I mentioned, it might be something psychological deep down… but it also could be just that I grew so accustomed to doing it intentionally, that I ended up sticking with it unintentionally, even after the snake idea was long out of my mind.  I find the latter to be more likely than anything else.

But I could just be crazy.  That would explain a lot, I imagine. 😛

Post-a-day 2017

The non-traditional route

Today, someone put words, and therefore solidity and realness, to a thought that has floated nervously in the background of my mind recently.  He said that, since I will be piecing together my work, and arranging my schedule to work with whatever work I do, I will be like an entrepreneur for myself (Hannah entrepreneur, he said), organizing things and my schedule out myself, as opposed to having my schedule and expectations already set out for me (as is typically the case with a job).

I liked and still like that idea – I get to design my life and be creative with it, instead of having to accept whatever some job tells me has to be my daily schedule for at least a year.

He also asked me all about things that interest me for my non-normal-job time (which could end up being close to a year, depending on how positions open up places).  I almost have a sort of game plan already, just from this one conversation, and I have scheduled to sit down and think through things tomorrow, all with today’s conversation and ideas in mind.

A few of the things that stand out most to me as ‘something I want to do,’ but have never pursued, are becoming trained as a yoga instructor, improving my knowledge of massage therapy, teaching dance (for money), and working/volunteering at least once at The Texas Rennaissance Festival (Renfest for short).  I am already added or applied to be added to various substitute lists, and I am on one tutoring list (need to make some decisions on location, and then make calls for that within the next week for more lists).  And I need to check up on lacrosse officiating recertification within the next week, too.

These are my present ideas, and they inspire me.  😀  I am excited about my planning tomorrow.

Post-a-day 2017

Without a purpose

Have you ever lived without a purpose?  I’m doing it right now.  I almost feel even more like a crazy person than I ever have.  I find myself wondering the point of everything I’ve done in my life, seeing it all as useless, as though I am somehow at the end of my productive and useful phase in life…, as though there is nothing good left to come.

I don’t actually believe this, but it is my experience right now.  It is the result of having no purpose, I think. And yet, I am almost terrified of finding what I could call a low-level purpose, for fear of being stuck in it.  I worked at Starbucks for a while a few years back.  I was quite good at it, and I occasionally miss parts of it (like interacting with all the nice people, and making people’s days and such).  However, I want to do so much more, that a job like that makes me sad for all the unused potential within myself.  And yet, every day feels a little bit worse on the confidence front (not for confidence in myself, but for confidence in my future).  These goals and desires I have for my future seem so unlikely to align, I am beginning to feel desperate and hopeless.  Why bother?

I suppose it might be time to talk to Jude a bit, and to try out something new.

Post-a-day 2017