Adventures of a Gringa

Out of my mind

Awhile back, when I went to Floripa on my first totally solo vacation, an idea came to me for a fiction book. It wasn't much, but I started forming some concepts as I sat alone on the beach. For some reason, I didn't do anything with them, even as more ideas came along after I went home and as they festered at the back of my mind ever since. It's not that I didn't have time; I didn't really have the desire to do anything about it. (Plus, the Internet is eternally distracting.) Also, being that I work best on deadlines and put existing commitments above personal projects, it never made it to the top of my to-do list.

But then, by way of Brazen Careerist, I came across a little event called National Novel Writing Month, run by a small non-profit in San Francisco. The idea is to write a 50,000 word noel in a month. As the website describes:

"Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."

Now this is not at all my style - I'm a perfectionist - but I was also notorious in high school and college for writing obscenely long papers, sometimes longer than necessary. So in theory, it's doable, though I have no realistic expectations of finishing, nor of coming out with a decent end result.

In any event, I'm going to give it a try, for nothing more than to force myself to at least give it a shot and see what I come up with. Being that I now have a part-time job, freelance work, job hunting, and a possible second part-time job, I won't have much time. But I figure that if I force myself to join a huge group of people doing the same thing (peer pressure always works), then I will at least start. You can track my progress here, and I would gladly welcome any friends to join and try this ridiculous feat with me.

Silver Lining

It's hard not to get down with the economy and the challenges I'm facing, the same ones a lot of friends and peers are dealing with, too. For a long time, I was all *headdesk* *facepalm* lie-in-bed-eating-candy corn-and-watching-all-three-seasons-of-Arrested-Development down.

But now that I started temping, I realize that there's a definite silver lining to the job market fiasco, at least for me. After being out of the country for two years and doing very different jobs than I was used to, I'm using this time to get back into the groove of the American workplace and the office, which is enormously helpful to me. It's things like dusting off skills with certain computer programs, or something as simple as re-learning how to sit in an office chair for eight hours. Plus, I'm getting new and extremely valuable experience that's hopefully going to make me more valuable as I continue to look for full-time jobs. I'm learning new programs and skills, which is fun and incredibly useful.

Eli, for his part, got his employment authorization very quickly (thank you USCIS!) and started working as a bartender, since he'd taken a course this summer. While he eventually wants to work in something like marketing or business, he was well aware of the job market and on top of that, the reality of being a new immigrant, and he really did the right thing, considering how fast he managed to find a job. He's working really hard, about 45 hours a week. And even though it's not always rainbows and sunshine there (to put it mildly), he's getting New York experience, learning new skills and seeing how the industry works.

The point is that while it's really difficult not to get blue, especially if you're completely unemployed, this terrible time is in its own way giving us opportunities--or rather, forcing us--to do something different. Whether it's traveling, or volunteering, or trying out a part-time or temp job in something you might not have otherwise considered, it's all going to work out in the long run, and we might as well take advantage of this strange time to get something out of it.

Why temp?

I've come quite a long way in my job hunt since I first started looking back in April, even before I came back to New York. Initially, I had a rather narrow set of criteria for job openings I would apply to, and since I initially got three interviews right off the bat, I was lured into a very false sense of security.

Well, sure enough, it became abundantly clear that a job wasn't going to come easy, so I gradually expanded my search, until it became much broader. I applied for some short term jobs, but decided against temping, since my rationale went that I had no idea when I would get a full time job and wouldn't want to be caught in between a temporary, part-time job and the goal of a full-time, long-term job.

That ship has sailed, and I recently began pursuing temping opportunities. The two most important factors are that I managed to pull myself out of a sad little unemployment funk and that it has been five whole months since I got back to the States and have not been able to get a full time job. I still shudder at that number. Five. Nearly half a year. It's mind boggling.

So I went ahead and got myself set up with a non-profit temping agency, which turned out to be really great, and also applied for a temporary position I found on a job board. I was called in for an interview at both places, making me eligible for the agency's temp positions and a candidate at the company looking for a short-term consultant. But amazingly, I was hired for the temp position I had applied for on my own just a few days later, and I start next week. I'm excited about it because it involves a lot of Portuguese translation and using my knowledge of Brazilian culture and current events to help the company try to break into the Brazilian market.

Oh yeah, that's the other thing. I'm going private sector! At least temporarily.

I realize that it's possible an opportunity will come along for a full-time job (I'm still applying to openings almost every day), but it will likely not be right away. In the meantime, I've found something to get myself back on my feet and back into the American workplace, which will be a great way to prepare me for the (hopeful) long-term position I will find somewhere down the road.

Funk

It seems I've got the unemployment blues.

Suddenly, I blinked and the summer was over, and all of the sudden the leaves are changing color and the temperature has dropped to match my spirits. I can't believe how I spent half of the summer doing practically nothing but job hunting and otherwise being a slug.

This is in part why I lost a little bit of steam here on the blog, since I found myself digging deeper and deeper into a rut. On the job hunt, it seems, I always seem to be taking one step forward and two steps back, and now I feel like I've taken a giant leap back and I'm starting from square one. It seems that every time I got my hopes up for a job, and spent hours researching the organization and staff and projects and reports and preparing for the interviews, I'd wind up back where I started, with nothing, surfing Idealist and playing FarmVille in bed.

The time has come and gone when I would normally be back at school or abroad, and being home in September is a bit unsettling for me. To make matters worse, everyone wants to give me advice on how to get a job (or ask about my "wedding"), but at this point, what I need are actual job leads, since I have already been given very good advice from lots of different people. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are, and I know how terrible I am at networking at events and in person, so I'm trying to use the contacts I already have and see where it goes, as well as applying for job listings online (by the way--it is not useless to apply for those listings like many would have you think--all of the interviews I've had so far have been from them).

In the meantime, I've basically stopped doing the things I'd normally do, partially due to relative isolation in the burbs, lack of money, and sheer laziness. I haven't taken or given a dance class since April, and I'm suffering greatly as a result. I haven't gone out as often as I'd like, and some days I barely leave the house. It's been making me a little crazy as a result, but I've planned a few new projects (and luckily, have a few interviews coming up) to keep me occupied. I've decided that instead of being mopey and miserable, I might as well take a shot at being funemployed.

Monday Morning

This morning I got up before 6 to join my mom at NBC, for her first major TV appearance for her latest book, The Superior Wife Syndrome. It was a fun way to start the week, albeit a bit too early for my brain.

Fun fact: Natalie Morales, the anchor who interviewed my mom, studied Latin American Studies in college (like moi) and spent her childhood living in different Latin American countries, one of which was Brazil, and she speaks Spanish and Portuguese fluently. In fact, as it turns out, her mother is Brazilian!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Lost Archives: Op-Ed, Getting into College

My first professionally published story was an op-ed piece I wrote as a senior in high school. It was published in the New York Times in January 2003.

Soapbox: The Dreaded Season

THESE cold January days mark the start of a dreaded season: College Limbo of the High School Senior. From January through April, high school seniors like me suffer from a common ailment, which causes confusion, anxiety and frustration. It is a malady called College Decision Disorder, which a majority of American high school seniors will go through this winter -- nearly three million of us, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. We will endure three interminable months, waiting for the letters that will decide our fate.

The interview waltz

Under a great deal of pressure in stress during my job hunt, I've found myself reverting to another point of reference about pleasing others in the hopes that they'll take you: the ballet audition.

I've danced ever since I was three. Since I was nine until I graduated from high school, I took around 5-6 classes a week, including jazz and modern. I took summer intensives at a local arts school, and auditioned for several professional schools, and was accepted to two (I picked the Rock School, which was a big mistake, but that's another story for another day). I auditioned for a prestigious production of the Nutcracker, where I danced in the corps. In college, upon discovering a dance program heavily skewed toward neo-modern dance, I helped found student-run ballet group that provides ballet classes and performances, which involved many other auditions over the years.

And now, as I brace myself for job interviews, I can't help but imagine them as auditions.

Like ballet auditions, interviews are nerve-wracking even before they begin. Though thankfully, I haven't had to face competitors face to face yet, like the ballerinas who use intimidation by show offing and stretching and pirouetting before the audition begins, I can still imagine them there, hovering in the back of my mind. Like eying the dancers around me at an audition, I wonder what the other candidates have got on me. Are they smarter? Do they have a Masters? Are they 35 and got laid off, but have 10 years experience in the field? And like a good dancer, I try to warm myself up (mentally), preparing myself for the worst, trying to recall the answers I've prepared for more commonly asked questions, and trying to calm my brain to sound as articulate as possible.

When the interview begins, it's much like an audition. Faced with one or more people judging you, and one person directing you, you're expected to be at your very best, trying to stand out, to be the one that catches their eye. While in an audition, you have to pay close attention to the teacher and the steps he/she gives, you must also keep an eye on the judges, in the hopes they noticed you. You have to make sure you're doing the right combinations, but doing them with perfect technique and some sort of emotion, too. In an interview, in the meantime, you have to make eye contact with everyone in the room, and make sure you're not just directing yourself toward the person who asked the last question. You have to answer the questions adequately but also use body language, eye contact, hand shakes, and enthusiasm.

If, for whatever reason, you mess up, or fall, or stub your toe, you have to keep going, to pull yourself together and hope that no one noticed or that your technique will be impressive enough to overcome your mistake. Similarly, in an interview, if you find you've made a gaff or misspoken or gave a really silly answer, you have to battle on and pick yourself up.

Some auditions leave you in less suspense: you're told immediately if you made it to the next round or if you've been accepted. Others are not so kind: you have to wait to be contacted (back in the day, by snail mail). In interviews, you usually have to wait to find out, though you'll often have an inkling to how you did. Like at a ballet audition, I find myself wondering, "Will I get a call-back?" For the life of me, I cannot bring myself to visualize a second interview as a second interview. Inevitably, I'll pray for that call or email telling me I have a call back.

And finally, I find myself in the battle between hubris and humiliation, depending on whether I get that call-back. So far in my job hunt since I've been back in the US, I haven't made it past the last round, and find myself wallowing in the same self-pity and sadness that I'd find myself in after not making it in an audition.

But I have to dust myself off, strap my pointe shoes back on (or in the case of interviews, pointy-toed black heels), and get back out there.