There were some great deals on skiing ($1 lift tickets, cheap hotel), so we decided to take a trip. I have never skiied (skied?) in my life but for some reason, I feel like I wouldn’t be a true New Englander if I didn’t try.  Snowboarding seemed “cooler”, so I opted to snowboard or “ride” as the kids say.

It was one of the worst things in my life.

I shelled out $100 (!!) for a private lesson, and the hour flew by.  I was doing ok with the instructor, but as soon as he left, it’s like my mind was a chalkboard that got wiped clean. I just couldn’t figure out what to do next.  What also made it 10x worse was that after I fell, I couldn’t quite figure out how to stand up without unstrapping my boots.  I think it was partly that I don’t have the upper & lower body strength to keep standing up easily.  Also, I couldn’t quite get the hang of stopping.  So when I did stand up, I’d start to go but then the fear of stopping & having to stand up again fucked with my head too much.  Maybe if I felt more confident about knowing how to stop or if it wasn’t so hard to get up after falling, I wouldn’t have been afraid to just go, ya know?  Also, the instructor never showed me how to use the J-bar lift, so when I decided to try it on my own, I almost died.  It was embarrassing and ridiculous. I got fed up and walked down the bunny hill in tears.  Worst moment ever!

The next day, I psyched myself up to try again.  The rental was already paid for and the lift ticket was free so I had nothing to lose.  But I only lasted about 15 minutes.  It was worse than the day before in that every time I stood up,  I immediately fell.  I got in one “coast”. Awful!

I felt equally stupid for crying about it.  The whole experience was a crushing blow to my self-esteem.  I’m not saying this to brag, but I’m a typical over-achiever.  Every time I try something, I usually learn pretty quickly and can become proficient enough to get by.  I am not used to failing, and that’s why this was so hard on me!  I can’t get over how awful I felt!  It was just so…. strange.  I really want to forget the feeling of crying on the hill.

BUT – next year, if I can find a cheap deal on lift tickets, I will try skiing once to see if it’s easier.  Do you think that’s a bad idea? Cuz  I’ll be damned if I spent over $200 on waterproof ski clothes for no reason.  I was lucky that the gear was over half off, but that’s still a lot for shit I don’t even really like or need.  Ugh.  I need a knitting retreat or something to rebuild my self-esteem.

I know everyone already knows what the job market is like right now, so allow me to commiserate.  Even for someone with a Masters degree, an Ivy education, it isn’t any easier.  When I started grad school, the median salary for the previous class was $70k, with the average being only slightly lower; the class only had 11 people so not a big distribution.  Things looked more than good.  But then that thing happened and now we’re just like everyone else.  Out of my class of about 13 people, only one person has a job confirmed and one is going to med school. The rest will probably work for their dads or start “consulting firms” which is something that rich Ivy kids always do instead of looking for jobs elsewhere.  And then that leaves me.

Lemme give you my job search rundown:

I put in my first application on Sept 26, 2009. Since then, I’ve applied to 18 jobs. Half of the applications came after the new year – that’s 9 in two months.

Out of those 18 applications, I’ve had:

- 6 flat out rejections
- 10 apps in which I never even heard back from anyone, so they are basically rejections
- 1 “you made it to the next round… [months later] Rejected!”
- 1 “you’ve made it to the next round [months later] Still waiting, we’ll get back to you”
- 1 sort-of interview – They requested an interview. Between the time I made the interview appointment and my actual appointment, they had already interviewed & chosen someone for the job. No interview for me.

So basically, 3 responses out of 18 jobs and zero interviews. I’m sure if you pull out a calculator, that’s not so great odds.  Yes, I worked with people to polish my resumes, yes I’m trying to work people-who-know-people.  It’s just going nowhere and highly discouraging.  It’s now March, so within a couple of weeks I am going to start going for those desperation jobs.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this! Man, I thought I earned the grade inflation and privilege

Justice is served! Although it’s unfortunate that she’s all over the news and that’s what she’s wants, I’m glad that Heidi Montag’s face is 10x fuglier than before. Forever! Hahaha. I just can’t stop laughing when I think about it – the only way she could be front page news was to permanently disfigure her face on purpose.

After seeing the fun she had playing with the wooden kitchen at Abi’s house during a photoshoot, I bought my niece a little kitchen for Christmas. Here she is on Christmas morning putting her sippy cup in the oven:

It’s small, so I figure we’ll put it on a stand or something as she gets taller. All of the other kitchens would’ve been too tall for her to reach for the time being. I also got her the famous wooden sushi set to go with it. I’ve wanted to buy that thing since I first laid eyes on it years ago, so I was very excited to be able to give it to my little monkey. The maki pieces stick together with velcro, which you can chop apart with the wooden knife. Syd can’t quite do it herself yet, but she loves watching us do it. And the chopsticks have velcro wrapped around the ends to pick up the velcro on the sushi! I don’t need to go on about how adorable it is. She loves the kitchen. And I do too; it’s one of the few gifts she received on Christmas that wasn’t electronic and made noise! If I ever have a kid, I will only bring out one noisemaking toy at a time. That crap drives me crazzzy.