Unemployment

I wish I could start this out with "Unemployed and loving it!" Alas, I cannot. I enjoy the free time, but as my job hunt stretches out longer and longer, and as my checking account runs drier and drier, I can't even take advantage of all of my uncommitted hours of the day. What am I doing wrong? I am quite qualified for the jobs I am applying to, overqualified in many cases (which may be part of the problem). I decided to pursue my master's degree because the job market wasn't so hot when I got out of undergrad, and I did miss academic and mentally-stimulating discussion. But I am completely burnt out now on the world of academia, and the thought of applying to PhD programs makes my head spin. But after approximately 18 years of formal education, how can I be expected to do anything else? I may suck at job interviews and applications, but I do the school thing like a champ. So should I just bite the bullet and start looking into grad programs again? Part of me says yes, and part says no. I just wish one of these jobs would hire me so I wouldn't have to wrestle with this anymore.

I began to apply for jobs when I was still in school. I applied for Spanish teaching positions in California and Ohio, mostly at the university/community college level because high school teachers usually must have some kind of formal education degree. I guess two years of experience teaching a Spanish class at the university level isn't enough. After some careful consideration (and no call-backs), I started to think that maybe teaching Spanish isn't my thing. After all, I was offered the Spanish teaching job because they had some openings while I was a grad student, studying everything in Latin America except the Spanish language. Teaching Spanish has been a rewarding experience in that I used to be petrified of public speaking. Although I don't still don't exactly embrace it, I am now confident that if needed, I can prepare and present lessons 4 days a week, 30 weeks a year, no problem. I can even come out of it with good student evaluations. But does that mean it is what I should be doing? Probably not. Teaching Spanish has perhaps served its purpose for me.

So on to non-profits I went. I religiously check idealist.org for positions that involve any combination of international affairs, Latin America, Spanish, environment, and women's rights and health. One of the most promising positions that came to me was an Americorps position in Seattle, which would not be very good-paying, but at least would offer an educational award at the end that I could use to pay of student loans. I researched the organizaion and its mission statement, the open positions and their tasks, and come phone interview time, I felt I nailed it with my strong background in topics such as institutionalized racism, something the organization worked with. And then I didn't get the job. I hadn't done a formal job interview in years, and even my last one was for Border's Bookstore. It wasn't exactly the toughest interview one might have to endure.

So now I have applied for unemployment. Seeing as how the only requirement pretty much is that I need to be unemployed and seeking employment with at least 2 jobs per week, I thought it would be a walk in the park. But it is a long and arduous process, and (if I'm lucky) I'll be employed by the time I cut through all of the red tape required to receive unemployment. I have another phone interview on Monday, but I still fear that this one will end up much like my last one. It's frustrating because I think I just may not be a strong interviewee, but I do great work when I set my mind to it. I think phone interviews are particularly rough on me, because there are a lot of awkward pauses/talking over one another/no gauging their expressions on the other end, etc. Most people I know with career-track jobs have gotten them through family members, and I just don't have any family connections that I could capitalize on. Does anyone here have the hook-up? Can I blog for cash?

Instead of writing here, I should be working on the one assignment I have right now. I might have mentioned that my advisor asked me to write an article with her about the perceptions in the media of cartoneros, or trash pickers in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I had been working with her on this article from a document-analysis standpoint for about two years, and I was ecstatic when she asked me to co-author this article. But now that I am out of school I am less enthused about the whole thing. I should be spending more time trying to find a job and less time working pro-bono on an article (though really she is doing me the favor since she is doing much more of the work). Still, if I really don't see myself pursuing higher education, I don't think it is necessarily to my advantage to co-author an academic article.

In any case, as you can see, I am in a sort of limbo/funk. I am broke, but am "rich with free time" as my friend Lola put it. But unless I can make some real skrilla with free time, I will eventually have to move back in with my parents and seek part-time employment with Borders again. It's tough in the streets, y'all.