Entry made August 15, 2004 : I'm Back

Well, I got back from a "vacation" in Billings and Big Sky Montana Thursday. I put "vacation" in quotes because I don't really have a job to "vacation" from. It was fun to see my parents, brother, and sister. I guess I did have a little bit of a vacation from something... finding the 57-5 cage. This problem has been monopolizing my time. I keep coming up with new schemes to look for it and then do some calculations and realize that it would require unrealistic quantities of time and/or storage. At least it is fun and keeps me working on something. I wasn't even off the ground in the plane before I started writing notes into my computer on the problem though.

On another note, the Cheer squad started practice while I was in Big Sky. I already miss it. Actually, I started missing it around May. Megan, my last partner called me after the first day of practice. She said that she was having fun but that it was different. It was nice to hear from her. I also talked to Crystal, the partner I had before Megan, and also the Coach this year. I got cut off because she was on the highway comming back from camp. But, in the few minutes we got to talk she made it sound like they were going to have a good year. I'm excited for them.

As far as the job search goes here's some recent thoughts. I should have at least taken my GRE's so that graduate school was an option about now. I get frustrated at how hard it is to get ahold of someone that has something to do with an application. "It's not what you know, it's who you know." But, I just need to keep being patient and not get down on myself (which is easy). "Good things come to those who wait." People keep giving me great advice such as, make followup calls. The problem with this advice is that in today's job scene, everything is done with email and the people that are actually in charge of hiring are very hidden. If they weren't then all 10,000 people that sent in an application would all be trying to call. At least in school there was a very definite next step. They just never tell you that the final step of school, "Get a job" is going to take a while.

I figure this is a good time to talk about my disgust of UM's job services. I went to them because I needed help finding a job. And they are supposed to know people so that the students can eventually know the same people and get hired, not at UM. They said, "Go to our website." I get that all the time; from all sorts of companies. On one hand it's very handy for processing for both parties. On the other hand, I never get to meet anyone. It's a whole lot easier to say "no" to an email than a face. Todays "no" is pronounced "Visit our website!"

I mean seriously, I feel like a retard. All my life I've had people tell me how smart I am. In many of my classes the rest of the students often asked me for help on homework and studying. On the Cheersquad I frequently had to field random questions on subjects that there is no reason why I should know the answers. Maybe it just comes from these people actually knowing me.

This brings up another problem. Almost all of my friends are people that were, for one reason or another, forced to be around me for extend lengths of time. I have always been terrible at just making friends. As far as I can tell it comes from me not being aggressive enough. That's about the best way to put it. It might be confused as shyness but, I enjoy being the center of attention too much to have it be shyness. Here's my problem in a nutshell, I can't understand why anyone would want to hang out with me. Other people think I'm cool, I just can't figure out why. So as a service to others, I keep to myself.

I am a firm believer in the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you whould have them do unto you." It's too bad that most of society doesn't follow this thought. And with that note, I will end my first diary entry.