Experience Wanted. No kidding.

07 Saturday Nov 2009

Posted by in life, work

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I took the CA bar exam at the end of July, 2009. From then to September 12, it was easy to keep busy with wedding planning and my poor excuse of job searches. After the wedding and the honeymoon though, its been tough to come up with good excuses as to why I’m still unemployed. I keep telling myself that its normal and I’m not the only law school graduate that is unemployed right now, even though I’ve sent out enough resumes and cover letters that should have landed at least a decent interview. For someone who’s worked since she was 15, worked her way through college and law school, being unemployed for over 3 months now is really unacceptable.

I’m trying to keep myself busy by volunteering at three different places and working on my wifey cooking skills, but it still makes some days harder than others. Jeff has had to put with all my bad days (love you boo!) in which I seem to be grouchy for absolutely no reason. The only reason I have for my self-labeled “bad days” is that I’m disappointed in myself, even though I try to tell myself time and again that there’s only so much that’s my fault, and the rest I can blame on the limbo of awaiting bar results and the aftermath of other people’s bad decisions that landed us in this crappy economy. Oh and coming across job posting after job posting that require 3-5 years of experience or in not-so-kind words: “recent law graduates need not apply.” Thanks for the glimmer of hope. This also brings me to the Catch-22 of jobs that I’ve never understood: everyone wants someone with experience, but where do those people get their experience from if no one is willing to hire them to give them experience? Huh.

Avoidance Tactics!

07 Saturday Nov 2009

Posted by in avoidance, life, tactics, work

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We’re all guilty of it. Walking through the Spectrum one day, Jeff and I pulled a great one. There was a guy with a clipboard getting signatures for some petition or another. As we got to the point of interaction, where he tries to make eye contact and ask you “Have you heard of…?” Jeff pointed towards Anthropologie saying something like “Didn’t you want to check out that shirt…” and he started to walk towards the door (and a foot away from Mr. Clipboard). And no, I didn’t want to see any shirt in Anthropologie. Don’t get me wrong, I love to browse through there and see all the adorable clothes I can’t afford, but I had never mentioned a specific shirt to Jeff that I really wanted to check out. And in one of my finer (and rare) moments, I caught on rather quickly and followed up Jeff’s question with a “No, not now.” By this point, we had walked past Mr. Clipboard. Avoidance tactic: success!

I recently (ahem, today) worked a demo table at a grocery store, and got to see some of these amazing tactics being used on me. Purposefully avoiding eye contact at any cost when we’re the only two people in the entire aisle was my least favorite, especially because I was SUPER NICE, and pretty much wished everyone a good night, whether they said hi to me or not. My favorite was the ladies walking towards me, obviously determined to get somewhere that was past me, but saw the demo table, and me, and SUDDENLY realizing there was something in the aisle right before mine that they desperately needed…people can make some quick and sharp turns with a grocery cart when they are set on avoiding something!

Grandma’s House

07 Saturday Nov 2009

Posted by in grandma, Guatemala, life, melancholy, memories

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For those of you who know me, you know I like to frequent my grandma’s house whenever I can afford the plane trip to Guatemala City. I never stay anywhere else while I’m in Guatemala, unless we’re traveling around the countryside. But ever since I was born, that was my destination for the Summer and miscellaneous vacations.

I’m sure most of you know that Guatemala isn’t like the U.S. in many ways: it’s not very clean, it’s way more dangerous, and people don’t move out of their parents house until they’re married–which isn’t weird over there. It’s normal for people to live with their parents, I think mostly because renting is way too expensive and kids just can’t afford it. Another thing is that people don’t really move around. Ever. You buy one house and you pretty much stay there. And most people are like my grandmother: you moved in when you were a kid, and never moved out. My grandma started living in her house in Guatemala City when she was about 7 (or 10, not sure). She grew up there, and at one point or another, so have her children and her children’s children (me!). Point being: my grandma’s house has a lot of history to it.
I remember going to spend Summer’s with grandma when I was 5, when the back part of the house was only partially built. My sister/cousin Vanessa and I played house through the non-existent windows, along with the roaming chickens and piles of dirt and piedrin. I also remember having the reception for my First Holy Communion in the new garage, at the age of 8. I remember having to shine the tile floors after grandma waxed them. And boy do I remember the Summer of 2000, when I went with my 3 younger cousins in tow–it was the Summer of Brittany Spears videos (the one with the plastic-looking red body outfit…we must have watched it on MTV about 100 times–no exaggeration). And I remember all the hard work my grandmother has put into that house. She’s drawn her own plans and built two fully functioning apartments in the back, not to mention the front and back yards which are her pride and joy.

And most recently, I remember my husband’s first Christmas in Guatemala, lighting fireworks on the roof amid all the electrical wires. I still don’t understand how that doesn’t lead to disaster…
It’s always nice going to that familiar home, the same halls where I used to push my great-grandmother in her wheelchair, and the same room my uncle Franky, at the ripe age of 15, played his music a little too loud–according to grandma! The thing is, things are getting crazier by the day over there, and grandma’s getting older. The family recently started talking about selling the house and permanently moving grandma over here so she’s closer to everyone and not constantly traveling back and forth, between her family and her home. I know selling the house makes perfect sense, and entirely rational. But it scares the crap out of me.
I love going to Guate, love spending time there and I’m honestly afraid that selling the house will break our last link to Guate. Sure, I can go and stay in a hotel while I’m visiting, but it’s just not gonna be the same. It becomes a leisure trip instead of a trip to grandma’s house to visit grandma. I know I’m being selfish about this whole situation, especially because it’s even 100 times harder for my grandma to process.
But there really isn’t anything else to do. We can’t really rent out the house because you can’t leave a house alone in Guatemala, for fear that it’ll be taken over by gangs or drug lords (seriously), and no one in the family is in a position to take the responsibility to go over there every now and then and check up on the house. I wish I could do it, but as of now, my life isn’t as stable as I’d like, and I can’t afford the airfare to go out there all the time. I guess I’ll just have to hold on to the memories and accept the realities of life. C’est la vie.

Our Wedding!

31 Saturday Oct 2009

Posted by in wedding

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First of all, thanks to Josh for this amazing picture! Jeff and I were engaged since February 2008, and it was great to have a long engagement. With work, school, and the bar on the table, it was nice to have time to plan everything, rather than having to get it all done at once. We were able to cut down our budget a lot by doing things ourselves, and by the generosity of both of our families and friends, without which our wedding would not have been as amazing as it was!

I think the hardest part about our wedding, for me, was relinquishing control to someone else. I’m used to organizing and doing things my way, but on the day of the wedding you can’t do anything but worry about hair and makeup! I should have known that I didn’t need to worry about a thing…everyone was so great about getting all the last minute things together!
Although we got off to a rocky start because Jeff was running a little late (he realized only about 20 minutes before he had to be at the wedding venue that he had actually forgotten his shirt-and so ensued their own adventure to the mall…), and the DJ played the wrong song for the bridal party entrance (which turned out fine in the end), the rest of the wedding went so smooth and perfect that I couldn’t really believe it!

By far the best part of it all was seeing so many of our friends and relatives all together in one place, and seeing them all have a great time. I will give the DJ this, he knew how to keep everyone dancing–with the exception of one house/dance song that he played, which ensured
that everyone left the dance floor and emptied the keg. This picture was taken after someone–brilliant, of course–decided to move the dance hall outside where it was much cooler! And everyone was getting low…
One of the “unique” things we did at our wedding (every bride wants her wedding to be special and “different,” let me tell you–not easy to do on a budget!) was that we stayed away from the unity candle and such things. Jeff is an artist, so I thought we could tie that in to the ceremony somehow. What we ended up doing was that Jeff did an outline of a heart on a blank canvas, then during the ceremony we had both of our mom’s come up and outline one side of the heart in black. After they were done, Jeff and I got up there with the red paint, and he filled in part of the heart and I filled out the rest.
After the ceremony it was moved to the reception area, along with some permanent markers, and this is what we got:
We still haven’t found out who crossed out whatever they wrote on the left side of the heart, oh well. Now we just have to save up a lot of money so we can get it framed somehow and display it somewhere.
Needless to say, any bride could probably write a book about her wedding; suffice it to say that it was everything we wanted. We only wish it could have lasted longer!

Cielo Azul

31 Saturday Oct 2009

Posted by in beginning, inspiration, title

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Why start a blog? Well, it was actually inspired by one of my best, Sarah Busta, who started a blog of her own not too long ago (Call it inspiration). I also started reading up on blogs from a couple people living in Guatemala (Guateliving and Expatmom) and was surprised to see how interested I was in the lives of complete strangers. Anyhow, I doubt anyone is really interested in my daily happenings, but thought it would be nice to have a forum to write about things–if I ever feel like it and want to share with people.

Why Cielo Azul for my blog title? Well, mostly because my other ideas had apparently already been taken. But that doesn’t mean that Cielo Azul just came out of complete randomness. In Spanish it means Blue Sky, and I’ve always thought it was a cool combination of words. It came to me as I was driving on the 5 on my way to school, and started daydreaming–as I know we all do. I’ve always thought about how curious it is that people name houses/ranches/finca’s etc., and started daydreaming about what I would name my own finca, if I ever came to have one. I think the sky was particularly blue that morning, and Cielo Azul it was. Thinking about it gives me this sense of relaxation and peacefulness, thinking of my finca, laying in the hammock and staring at the sky.

Since I’m pretty sure I’ll never own a large plantation size property, I thought I’d put the name to a more practical use!
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