Monday, October 24, 2011

Permanent temp

I’ve gotten some steady work recently. The last two weeks I have been monitoring and digging out at the Monterey Presidio with the ole company. It was fun to get out and actually dig a bit, especially there. There is such a long history there. The next two weeks I will be with the same ole company, surveying and updating/recording sites out near Lone Pine, on the east side of the Sierra Mountains. Should be fun. I have not been able to get out there before, so it will be exciting... I hope. I will be with some good people, so all should go pretty well.

I like that I have gotten some steady work recently, but I am not one of those people who can live like this. What I mean is that, I’m a person who functions best when the job is permanent, in that I show up everyday at 8am and go home at 5pm. Or some variation of that. Or as my dad says, a lunch bucket person. Constantly networking to find the next job and living week to week is not my forte.

So it is nice that I am working at the moment, but it will not last, and the search is still on for the permanent solution.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

It's that time again: and no it isn't my moon cycle!

It’s time to write another blog post. Life is still in limbo. I have now been unemployed for over 8 months now. It is starting to get scary. I’m starting to get anxious about the whole thing. The longer I am unemployed the harder it becomes to find permanent work. I haven’t been a complete lazy ass. I worked off and on (1 or 2 days a week) for 2 to 3 of those months for my former employer as a construction monitor. I did a week long survey with a former co-worker at his company. And I spent about 2 months landscaping my parents backyard. I changed my diet (got mostly healthy) and lost 20 pounds. I also installed hardwood floors in my house! That seems so long ago now.

I’ll be working the next 2 weeks for my former employer again. I’ve just been out for so long now that I find that I just don’t want to do anything. It is getting harder to get out of bed in the morning... or more like noon. It is hard to even get motivated to mow my own lawn, do laundry, or even get dressed.

I seem to go through a few weeks of deep depression, then a few weeks getting out of it, and a few days of motivated work looking for jobs or fixing things around the house, and then I slip right back into the depression.

I think I am more frustrated with myself than I am with the economy and my lack of a fulltime job. I can’t seem to make any decisions about my future. I have a feeling that for me to successfully transition out of archaeology and into something else will take a lot longer than I want it to. I want it to be instantaneous. It will, in reality, take going back to school and/or several jobs over the course of years to acquire the necessary skills needed. That thought just makes me want to curl up in a ball and never leave my bed again. It is like starting over. It is starting over. To become an archaeologist, it took going to 4 different colleges over the course of 4 years. We can add the 6 years it took to get my BA in English when I thought I was going to be a famous and wealthy author, if you want. Will it take that long again? I have greater responsibility now. I was living rent free then, and only worried about paying school loans and tuition.

Oh to be young and free again. I’m not old yet, I know. Unless you’re talking to a teenager. I know I am complaining. I certainly don’t have it that bad. I have unemployment benefits, a healthy body, a working car, a roof over my head, and food. I am not in danger of loosing any of these things. And if I did, I have the support of my family to help me. There are many people worse off. Now I feel guilty for complaining! Ugh, the perils of being the offspring of my parents (the guilt is strong in our blood).

Tomorrow’s goal is to get out of bed before noon, and spend some time outside in the sunshine. The sun is good for my melancholy.