Success of Sorts

Living in the city is discouraging. Switching from waitress to fromagere has been a nice change -- my mood has drastically improved -- but I still can't help wondering if this is the best I can do, or will do. Not that anyone needs a job to be "successful," I suppose, but for me and my interest in the field of writing and editing, I'd like to have some type of guidance so I can figure out what I like and don't like. And I certainly don't like going on fruitless job interviews.

But who cares? I've finally made a step in the right direction, after more than six months of sucking up and resume tweaking and bleary-eyed Craiglist searches -- something finally paid off, which is a good feeling (it makes the world feel just). So get this: I met a woman at Artisanal over the summer -- I was waiting on her, and I noticed her credit card said she worked at Oxford University Press, which is right around the corner from the restaurant. I told her I thought that was so cool, do they have any job openings?, etc. -- she e-mailed me back a few weeks later, and we've been keeping in relative touch ever since. Two weeks ago, she invited me for a job interview in the ESL department, for a position called Freelance Media Production Assistant... not my field of choice, but certainly a good way to get my foot in the door. And in the door I am firmly wedged, since I got the job !

I'll probably start after the New Year -- it's only a part-time job, two days a week, but I'll be going into their (beautiful) office for those days. I've always been mildly repulsed by offices and midtown attitudes, but if I had to work anywhere, it would certainly be at the Manhattan office of Oxford University Press -- the interior is classy and quiet, there are books everywhere, the dress is casual, and everyone who enters the building looks like they have an interesting story (that last bit could just be my excitement taking hold). I'm not sure how I'm going to work this all out with the cheese counter, but I don't care -- this takes precedence no matter what.

FURTHERMORE, I scored an interview with Kaplan to be a part-time private tutor for kids K-8 (none of that standardized testing bullshit, thank you), which I have this Friday. I'm also working on getting an interview at the Long Island University Writing Center, which normally hires English MA students and takes off about $1,000 from tuition for the semester (which, for a one-class person like me, is a third of my payment).

And, finally, I've tinkered with my new Linux machine enough to get it working properly. Disabling modules, editing scripts, running commands, reading bizarre code nonsense... I've never worked this closely with a computer before, nor have I cared to. There's something about this operating system that motivates me. Welcome to the Ubuntu community!

So things are finally falling into place, I think. It's about time, too: I've just passed the six month mark -- I've noticed that I work on three-month cycles, at least in the non-university world. C'est-a-dire, every three months something snaps, or sinks into place, and helps me figure out what I've just done and where I'm headed -- which in itself is sort of hilarious, since, in other words, every three months I think I've "got it," and then three months later I discover I absolutely don't. I suppose it's my psyche's way of taking two steps forward and one step back... it keeps me motivated enough to keep trying, but prevents me from leaping too far into the abyss of adventurousness. Does anyone else's brain have a child safety mechanism?