You've got mail!

I don't know if I am the only one that ever has done this, but I am currently checking my email all the time. Obsessively. I had this same problem during college when I was applying for internships and dealt with 99% of the communications via email. Everyday I would come back from class and check to see whether one of the gazillion places I applied saw what a genius I was and couldn't live without me interning and getting their coffee during meetings. Even worse were the actual times when I did get an email back and I would sit there staring at the title in my inbox, anxious to read it and reticent to read potential bad news of rejection. That's how it goes with trying to get any type of work in the business world. You hang on the highs of maybe getting a yes and feel sad for the ones that say no, even if it was a job you didn't necessarily want. I applied for some internships that I never wanted, but was amazingly devastated by their rejections. How dare the company I don't want to work say they also don't want me! How dare they make this mutual! But the emails that said yes. Those emails have to be some of the most satisfying moments of college memories, like the insurance company that gave me a marketing gig at way more money per hour than any college kid should get. Getting the yes for Impact, my last job, was the most satisfying thing ever, and I can still remember how sweet that victory tasted in my mouth as I walked out of the building and knew I would have employment upon graduation, with a business I loved no less.

Unlike most people who get to enjoy the fruit of employment for more than four months however, due to the whole marriage and Army thing, I am again riding the carousel known as the job hunt. The days of combing search engines for nonprofit work, hours reading hits and then realizing I need 20 times the experience I have, and typing in criteria is starting to make my brain glaze over. In the sea of jobs available in the Seattle area I have been able to find a couple nonprofit ones that are up my alley, and so have taken the time to apply. And now starts the tedious waiting games. Most businesses like to remind you that they will contact you if they want to interview, which leaves you, the applicant, in the worst position of all (contacting them about your application is the HR kiss of death- the business world is all about rules and conduct). I have no idea if they want me or threw my resume in the reject pile simply because I have no timeline to work off of. There is no magical date by which I know to give up hope, and there is also the chance that six months from now I will get an email referencing a job I barely remember applying for. That's just the start of it though, because through interning I also understand the interview games and the tedium that they pull on an entirely separate and equally undefined timeline.

Yet I have this hope deep in my chest every time I get on to check my email. Despite all the no's I have received in life, my brain is addicted to the high of getting one simple yes, and that hope is what keeps pulling me back and opening my email with anticipation. I also get a certain satisfaction from pulling together a cover letter, resume, references, and writing sample that shows off what I can do and who I am. How often does life give you the chance to show-off what you have succeeded at in such defined terms while failures never have to be inked? I look at my resume and sometimes wonder who that person is, that list of accomplishments looking to hook my next job. Maybe that's why I like the business world. I never really quit the love of the game in high school athletics, and still seek that rush of winning every time I walk into an HR office. My hope is that the perfect job falls out of the sky, hits me on the head, and then I have nothing but happy little notes to leave on my blog. A girl can hope, right?

In other exciting Kennedy news....hmmm....nothing specifically, but I thought that sounded like an exciting way to pull the blog forward. Dereck and I are getting increasingly antsy for the Ft. Lewis move. I checked their MWR website today (office on post in charge of the welfare of Army families- ie gyms, daycares, events, restaurants- basically the fun stuff of a post). Sheer happiness followed as I looked at the six gyms they offer, one of which has free personal trainers who will make training workout schedules. I like other people telling me what to do, which makes me sometimes wish I still had a coach and expectations dragging my butt outside everyday. Lewis also has a super variety of classes and events offered and a calendar where you can click on an event and email reminders to yourself. Suffice it to say my inbox is going to have a deluge from MWR the next couple of weeks. Winter skiing weekend? Yes, remind me! Class on Army ranks and chain of command? Sure, why not! I am going to make friends if it kills me. We also get the exciting option of not knowing whether we get housing on post until we get there. I like to think of it as an adventure with two options. Get to Lewis, get post housing, and get handed a key. Or get to Lewis, get no post housing, and then frantically try to comb the entire Olympia/Tacoma housing market. You might be able to guess which option we are crossing our fingers for (hint: the free housing option). That of course is all dependent on us making our trek in one piece and not being snowed in anywhere, with Dereck tragically being killed for food, Donner party style (caravan of people who got snowed in at a pass in the Rocky Mtns and became cannibals! Crazy, but true).

Last night we went for a dinner out with a bunch of Dereck's friends from college to say farewell to a guy that is moving to Germany. I offered to be his travelling translator, but Dereck said no, much to my chagrin. We had a great time with all the friends sharing crazy stories from their training in EBOLC and even back into school, and stories about all the people they knew. Despite not knowing the people in the stories, I still laughed until my cheeks hurt. These Army people have a sense of humor, if nothing else. Most importantly I got to eat chips and salsa. Lots and lots of chips and salsa, and every bite was delicious I might add.

The best bit of news might be this: the stack of wedding thank-you letters is wonderfully near to done. I have finished the majority and now only have a few to be written by Dereck before we can close that chapter and never look back. My elation is indescribable at being so close to finished. At least I can say that I searched a million jobs in Seattle and did all the wedding thank-yous during my time here. I also am reading through the Bible in a year with my old church from Birmingham, and it is a chronological read-through, meaning that after Genesis the reading won't go in order of the books in the Bible. In classic Gena and Dereck style, we decided to do this and then promptly fell super behind and had to set a goal of being back on track at Week 5. This means that I am doing some serious reading during the day, and am happy to say that I am noticing some major trends and neat things that I never have before. The best part of admitting my behind the schedule issue is that I now have to be able to blog that I caught up. Whatever it takes. Motivation, motivation, motivation.