Just because you need to know

Here are five things that are keeping me busy while unemployed:

1. started Rosetta Stone Arabic lessons;
2. working out like crazy woman - new regimen;
3. reading;
4. swapping books like mad(www.paperbackswap.com); and
5. becoming more housewife-y by the minute. because you know the bed needs to be made daily, and the crumbs must be vacuumed, and the magazines straightened, and the laundry done, and, and...

I need a job. Oh yes, I need a job.

Catch of the Day

For those of you who are enthusiastic bibliophiles, but don't necessarily have the room for an ever-increasing library, there's an online book-swap service that I just started using: Paperbackswap.com. Here's how it works:

1) you list books you want to get rid of;
2) another member orders it from you;
3) you send it to them;
4) they report on the site when they've received it; and
5) you get a credit for a book of your choice.

There are no membership fees - your only cost is postage for the books you send. When you order a book, the other member pays the postage.

Cool huh? So far, the members who have received my books are good about reporting the receipt. I've ordered a couple of books, but have not received them yet. I'll let you know how that works out.

Like torture...but without the fun

Well, here's Day 3 of Fed Week, ie, the week that I apply for every government position possible. My Fed application total is up to 4, bringing my grand total to 17. Wahoo!!!

Well, I bit the bullet and entered all my resume information into AVUE Digital Services portal. And then attached my resume to my profile. Because redundancy is what government is all about. This process took SEVERAL HOURS, not just because of the particular requirements, but also because something in AOL has made my internet move at the speed of crippled turtles (if crippled turtles also had obnoxious AOL pop-up ads and update reminders). Yesterday, when I wanted to attach a pdf of my transcripts, I COULD NOT because the size exceeded the portal allowance. Hmmph.

Ah well, I proceed.

Update: So...in order to attach my transcripts, I actually typed up a spreadsheet consolidating all the transcript info from four schools. Nice, cool, well-formatted, with the ability for one to scroll thru the entries. Tried to upload it to my AVUE file, BUT: the site doesn't accept Excel spreadsheets. So...I copy the text into Word, thus negating the beautiful formatting. But hey, it uploaded with no problem. Mewl.

I bet you're wondering...

...why this site has been so light on political commentary, vis-a-vis the new administration. Well, wonder no longer. It's because what I feared is coming to pass and there's just no use in commenting on it. For all those who voted for The One: the change you deserve. It's going to be a distressing four years.

Hopefully the Republican Party can pull its head out of its collective bum in the next four years (e.g., stop being such sell-outs [you know them as "centrists"], locate their long-lost fiscal conservativism brain cells, stop pandering to the open-borders folks, etc., etc.) and take back the White House - or at least Congress. One can only hope. It's a tiny, crying-in-the-wilderness hope, but still.

Archaeological coolness in Colombia

WaPo has a neat blurb about some really freaky and awesome dig findings in Colombia. Coal mining sites have revealed a treasure trove of fossils, most notibly those of multiple HUGE snakes, that may have fed on crocodiles and giant turtles. Many other well-preserved fossils (fauna but also flora) are being found, the kinds of which indicating that the area was once a tropical rainforest-type place where scrub and small trees now grow. Check out the whole article here.

Status and requirements

Ok, so I've submitted applications for 13 different jobs (at different orgs) as of yesterday. I started a 14th yesterday afternoon via USAJobs via DCNetworks only to find out that I must enter all my resume info ALL OVER AGAIN on the particular agency's employment portal. Now, mind you, I had entered ALL of my stupid resume info on BOTH USAJobs and DCNetworks ALREADY. If I didn't know any better, I'd conclude that this particular agency was trying to make the application process so onerous that the prospective applicant would just give up. That's where I am now albeit subject to change.

Not to mention that these government jobs all seem to require a masters degree or at least graduate school work. Huh? For an accounting clerk position? For essentially an admin assistant position? Are you for real? And some online govt applications have this whole questionnaire about the extent of knowledge about different forms, applications, processes specific to the govt. I mean, come on - how hard could it be to learn this stuff on the job? We are talking about the federal government, right? Maybe if I confessed to cheating on my taxes* that would substitute for the education and bureaucrat-specific knowledge requirements.

On a related topic, some of you know about my unfortunate experience with an almost-job. Well, I won't go into the gory details, but I have come up with a bunch of bottom-line standards for my prospective employers (besides a livable salary, of course):

5. My duties must not - under any circumstances - have anything to do with Comcast.
4. Because I haven't reached any level of mind-reading, my supervisor actually needs to communicate expectations. I can only intuit so much.
3. I am not willing to wait months for my first paycheck. Pay is life, get it?
2. The organization must have a stable, ongoing and reliable funding stream. This means actually having money on a regular basis in the bank. For stuff like payroll.
1. My supervisor must not be a textbook example of an abusive personality. There's no wiggle room to this one.

Well, if my job search hasn't been a smashing success, my quilting is coming along great. More on this as the story develops.

* Never have, never will cheat on my taxes, BTW. Drat.