Goals check in

Is it just me, or were some of those goals pretty lofty? No? They all seemed manageable, particularly for someone with very little on her plate? Well who asked you, anyway!

• Go to at least two places I haven't been before - haven't done this yet. Yesterday the boy and I went for a walk along a different route and checked out a few different shopping centers, so I guess in a pinch I could count that... but I don't think it's fair. I'm going to keep trying on this one. Tomorrow I have the day off and R will be off doing some team bonding, so (and I'm putting this in writing so I'll have to do it) I think I'll get in the car and take myself on a date somewhere. Now I just have to figure out where...
• Write something every day - this is the goal that I'm failing at. Because, frankly, I just don't have something to say every day. I'm working on it, and I'm certainly writing more than I have been since graduation, but every day? Not so much. I don't think this goal is going to be achieved, and that's ok.
• Run 30 miles - I'm working on it. As I write this, I'm waiting for it to warm up a bit outside so I can head out for hopefully something along the lines of three miles. According to my mapmyrun tracking, so far I've done 7.67 miles. Of course, this isn't counting the elliptical time I put in on Friday. According to the machine in my complex, I did almost 18 miles in 45 minutes. On another, totally unrelated note, I think the elliptical in my complex has a messed up display.

There's a reason I set a goal to run 30 miles this month. It has something to do with the pathetically short bars for every other month.

• Come up with a story to tell - I'll be honest, I haven't even thought about this yet.
• Figure out what to do about holiday gifts - I'm getting there. I've figured out gifts for my California relatives, and I'm waiting for the yarn to arrive to create them. I think I know what I'm getting for R. It's the rest of my family I'm having trouble with. I want to do something really nice for my parents, because they have been so, so great to me this year, but I really haven't got any idea what.
• Knit something and finish it - This will happen when the yarn gets here. It'd better, or I'll be woefully behind on my holiday knitting.
• Try at least 3 new recipes - 1 down. I made a truly terrible butternut squash soup the other night. It was a shame, because I was really so excited about it, but it was pretty awful. I guess technically it still is pretty awful, because it's sitting in a giant container in the fridge, neither of us wanting to eat it or to waste it. Oh well. I tried!
• Keep a positive attitude - I'm actually really proud of myself for this one. I've been trying really hard to not get myself down, and for the most part, it's paying off. I'm not saying there weren't days in the past week that I was upset, or that I was disappointed, or anything like that. But in general, I haven't been nearly as hateful toward myself in the past week as I have been since moving out here. Yay, me!

I guess I'd better figure out where I'm taking myself on that date tomorrow.

Election Night

2008 was the first election I voted in. I voted by absentee ballot from school, and only voted in the presidential election. I didn't even pay attention to the rest. Fast forward to election night, and I was on the phone with my best friend, probably crying about not having any friends, feeling homesick, etc. It was November of my freshman year and after the honeymoon period of my dream school wore off, I was starting to feel a little lost. I fell asleep around 10pm, and although my roommates tried to wake me up to celebrate the results, I slept like a rock through the night as my classmates and colleagues paraded through the city. Whoops.

Tonight, I'm on the west coast, which is making it much easier to stay awake for the results. This time around, I actually payed attention to more than just who my role models were voting for. This time around I'm feeling much more invested. This time around I'm sitting at work, watching three different news sites as they call various states seemingly at random. I'm looking at my twitter feed and my facebook newsfeed and reading my friends' reactions to just about every change.

I don't have a lot to say about the election. I feel like I should, though. I feel like this is something I should be able to talk about for hours, but I'm not. Although I paid more attention this time around, I still didn't do enough. I didn't pay enough attention to state and local elections, and I'm disappointed in myself for that. But above all, I'm proud of myself for pulling myself off the couch this morning, walking to the school down the street (in the strange and disconcerting 80 degree weather...) and casting my vote.

Some Goals

Like I mentioned last time, I've been feeling a little aimless lately. I think the start of a new month is always a good time to create some goals for myself. Some small ones, some larger ones, some that I probably have no chance of achieving. So here we go. In November, my goals are as follows:

• Go to at least 2 places I haven't been before. I haven't done much exploring of my city, and I know that's not really ok. Particularly if I'm only going to be living here for the rest of my lease, I want to be able to look back on this year and feel like I actually lived in California, not just like I stayed there for a little while and was afraid to leave my apartment. I'm not limiting this to my city in particular though, because there's so much of the Bay Area that I want to see. Probably more than I want to see much of Silicon Valley. I really want to figure out if I want to move out of CA entirely, or just leave the area I'm in now, and there's no better way to figure that out than to do some exploring...
• Write something every day. Whether that's here, in my journal, part of something creative, it doesn't matter. Just the simple act of putting words into sentences and making it all make sense has been so important to me in the past, and I've really like it slide since finishing my thesis in April. Oops!
• Run 30 miles. Not in a row, mind you. I'm not that good yet. But I have so much time on my hands, and I keep making excuses for myself to avoid getting out and exercising... I really do want to get better, I just don't feel like putting in the effort. And I need to put a stop to that.
• Come up with a story to tell. This goes along with writing, but it's a different goal for me. I can write endlessly about my thoughts and my woes and my feelings, but I want to come up with a story that has nothing to do with me, and tell it.
• Figure out what to do about holiday gifts. This is for obvious reasons.
• Knit something and finish it. I've been working on the same giant project for the past four or five months and really making no progress. Probably because I got bored with it after a couple of weeks and stopped picking it up. I'm letting myself buy new yarn, and I'm going to make something else and remember why I love knitting. Because I really do love knitting.
• Try at least 3 new recipes. For real food, not dessert, because let's be honest, I eat a lot of dessert. Bonus points if the recipes are primarily vegetable based instead of, let's say, pasta based. Or cheese based. Yum, cheese.
• Keep a positive attitude. Seriously, Becca, your life is not all that awful. Remember that.

So there are my goals. I'll check in at the end of the month and let you know how I did. And of course, I'll check in between now and then with what I'm sure will be fascinating updates about my life and job and roommates and stuff. But I'll be trying to keep it positive, per my last (and probably most important) goal.

Let's Talk About Knitting

Isn't that what this blog is supposed to be about? (No. Not really. I just couldn't come up with a better title, and I do like knitting socks.)

Yesterday I talked to my best friend from high school. She's great. Unfortunately, she lives on the other side of the country, and we haven't seen each other in almost six months... but that's what I get for moving across the country. Anyway, we're both having a pretty rough time with this whole "life after college" thing. It's hard, y'all. And, I could be totally off base here, and just whining like the brat I know I can be, but I really believe all this social media nonsense makes it that much harder. Think about it: I already have a hard enough time wrapping my head around the fact that I can barely pay my own bills. Then, I log on to facebook and see friends of mine who, by all appearances, haven't a care in the world. They're working their dream jobs, going out on weekends, loving the places they're in... It all just sort of exaccerbates that feeling that the problem is me. That I did something wrong somewhere along the way. Anyway, my best friend, let's call her B, totally gets that. So that was comforting.

Less comforting was going to the mechanic yesterday for a routine oil change and being told I have a leaky head gasket, which will cost more than I make in a month to repair. I guess I'll be draining the rest of my savings account to pay for that, after I get a second opinion from a different mechanic, and figure out what my options are as far as how long I can wait while I try to figure out how to save that much money. I know that I'm extremely fortunate to even have the option of draining my savings account to pay for this repair, but seriously? I just bought this car 3 months ago. It's an older car, and I expected to have some repairs down the line, but the car was in excellent condition, had all the service records and seemed to be up to date... I just didn't expect this at all. So that's unfortunate. But I'll deal.

Anyway, back to knitting. I love knitting. I knit while I watch TV, while I read, while I listen to music. I knit for myself, for friends, for family, for the boy. I find very few things more comforting than knowing exactly what stitches I need to make in order to create something, and knowing how to fix it if I mess up. I feel comfortable experimenting with knitting, because I know that when I inevitably do something wrong, or try a new pattern that doesn't work, I can tear it out, ball up my yarn, and start over. Also, a pair of hand-knit socks is a wonderful thing. B's mom is actually the one who re-taught me to knit, and got me interested in actually learning how to make things other than a garter stitch scarf, so I'm eternally grateful to her for that. Unfortunately, though, the fact that B has a knitting mom means that she already has a plethora of knitted goods, and she really doesn't want or need another hat, scarf, vest, etc. Her mom hates knitting socks, so I thought I had finally come up with the kind of hand-knit gift she would really like, until she complained to me that all of her socks are too warm and make her feet sweat.

Ah, well. Back to the drawing board. Which is probably for the best, because I don't have any sock yarn at the moment, and I really shouldn't be going out to buy new yarn...

This weekend I'm working on my list of goals for this year, so stay tuned. I'll be sure to post them here as soon as I come up with them.

Happy Saturday!

Real Reasons

Let's talk about the real reasons I'm writing this. Or the real reasons my mom told me to write this.

Like I mentioned, I graduated from college in May. Now, I don't want to toot my own horn too much, but up until now, I've felt pretty successful academically and professionally. I auditioned for and was accepted to my high school (a performing arts charter school). While I was there, I worked hard taking all honors and AP courses, was involved in student government, theatre, and the yearbook, and was voted "most likely to succeed." Then I got in to my top choice college. After taking a little while to adjust, I found my stride. I fell into a job in the admission office as a tour guide, and by junior year was working as a supervisor and feeling on top of the world. I had a professional internship that summer, and although it was hard, I was getting paid to do what I (thought I) wanted to do when I "grew up."

Then it got closer to graduation. I was finishing my honors thesis, graduating with highest honors, and applying and interviewing for year-long internships at theatres around the country when it hit me: I didn't want to do theatre anymore. That was a big deal. The even bigger deal wasn't what I decided I wanted to do (work in college admission), but where I decided I wanted to do it. Over the course of a weekend or so, I set my heart on moving to the west coast with my boyfriend.

None of my pictures from graduation turned out well. That may have to do with the fact that we (my family and I) were all cranky and hungry by the end of the ceremony and I really, really didn't want to play photoshoot. Or something.

For the next three months or so, I alternated between calling my mom crying and hyperventilating at my boyfriend, convinced I was making the biggest mistake ever in the world. At no point during all this did I change my mind, I just needed them to tell me that I was making the right choice. Eventually, after a lot of packing, list making, obsessing, and oh, did I mention (what felt like) the millions of cover letters and resumes I sent, I arrived in California. Within 24 hours of landing, I had a job offer. Within two weeks, I was moved into an apartment, had bought a car, and had signed a million papers agreeing to take said job. It felt like everything was falling into place.

Until it stopped. All of a sudden, the job that was going to be full time "for at least a few months" was part time in the second month. And I was no longer working with my team, but sitting in a room by myself scanning documents. California didn't seem as exciting when I realized that I wouldn't have any extra money and I wouldn't actually be able to spend time with my boyfriend because he works 50-60 hours a week. The idea of meeting new people was (and is) completely overwhelming, and I just wanted to give up. I felt like a failure. And two months later, hearing friends talk about their great jobs, roommates, friends, lives, I still feel that way.

Not all the time. I'm not overwhelmed constantly by a sense of failure. But it's often enough. And I feel like I'm stuck here, at least for the next 5 or 6 months, since even if I got a job somewhere else, I wouldn't be able to pay two rents. I don't feel right applying to other full time jobs here, because I know I have no real intention of staying past the end of my lease. I don't feel right just sitting around waiting for my lease to be up. I just don't feel right. So I'm working on ways to make myself feel like I'm accomplishing something this year, even if I don't really save any money or move forward in my career or feel like moving to California was worth it.

Just to clarify, I love being with my boyfriend. I don't care how stupid and girlish and whatever else that sounds. I'm happy I tried moving here to be with him. And the idea that he might not be in the picture this time next year, if I end up moving far far away and he decides not to come with, is devastating. But I tried being here with him, and now (in 5 to 9 months) I have to try going somewhere for myself. Right?

Doing as Mommy said...

Hi world, I'm Becca.

Here's a blurry picture of me jumping so you know I'm not a robot. Robots can't jump.

In the past, I've tried this whole blogging thing. And by "tried," I mean created a blog, posted one or two things, and lost interest. I'm hoping that this time around, I'll stick to it. Mostly because my mom told me to, but we'll get to that.

I'm a recent college graduate from a small school on the east coast. Approximately a month before graduation, I decided not to pursue my major as a career after all, and abandoned all of the internship applications I had submitted (with very professional emails explaining that I was pursuing other interests) and decided to move across the country with a boy. It's ok, he's a very nice boy. So now I'm living in Silicon Valley, working part time, missing my friends and family and the familiarity of the east coast, and trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. Or at least the next couple of years.

My job situation is sort of wonky, in that the part time position I am currently in doesn't really afford me the flexibility to find another part time job. As such, finances are tight. Really tight. The boy I moved here with is participating in a year-long service program, and although we make ends meet, there isn't a lot of extra cash lying around for frivolous things like "entertainment" or "travel" or "fun." That's mostly ok. We have a netflix account, because, hi, I only work part time and what else would I do with myself all day? We occasionally eat out or buy fancy cheese. In general, though, we're extremely frugal.

Basically, what all this means is that, for me, the past couple of months have been pretty depressing. There are definitely good things. I'm so incredibly grateful to have moved across the country with my boyfriend and not have anything go terribly terribly wrong. At the same time, being here has been sort of lonely. It's hard not knowing anyone. It's hard not having any money to take myself on dates. It's hard having a boyfriend who works 10-12 hour days when I'm sitting at home, bored. And it's hard being in a new place that, to be honest, I'm not totally in love with. And when I expressed all this to my mom, she said I should try writing. So that's what I'm doing.

I'm hoping that, by blogging here, I'll hold myself a little more accountable for making my own happiness. Because if I'm going to be writing about my life, I'll probably have to occasionally leave the apartment.

So here I go...

PS: I don't just knit socks. But I do sometimes.