12.18.07
Location v. Career
Yesterday on The Simple Dollar, Trent Hamm continued his review of What Color Is YourParachute? with chapter 8: How To Pick a New Place to Live. I think the choice between moving somewhere new for a job or moving somewhere new for the location is one that a lot of twenty-somethings face. I know that I have. Depending on your field and your preference for location, it could be a matter of choosing between your career and your happiness. For instance, in the music industry, you are very limited in your choice of locations for work. It’s New York, L.A., or Nashville, unless you luck out in finding one of the few jobs scattered in other cities across the country. What if your family, or your heart is in a smaller town or different geographic location? Do you sacrifice location for building your career? Will you be as happy with work accomplishments if there is no one around to celebrate them with? Or do you justify it by telling everyone that the sacrifice is temporary?
All of these are questions that I have struggled with at one point or another. My heart is in
another part of the country, but I find that the job market is so much better in the bigger, more prestigious cities. At this point, I have sacrificed location for building my career. And don’t get me wrong, D.C. is a great place to live and I never lack for things to do. I would not be opposed to staying here, but I could enjoy even more if I had someone to share the city with. I would say that I am becoming a believer in the idea that choosing a location before choosing a job leads to happiness. Anyone can make do where they are, but I think that if you love the city you’re in, everything else will fall in to place and you will make your career happen.
Why do you live where you live? Do you think choosing location over career makes any difference in happiness or satisfaction?
~DC
12.13.07
Exposure
I found one of my new favorite quotes last night from a novel I can’t seem to put down, no matter how hard I try. I thought it would serve well as the basis for my post today. It comes from the novel The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud and is in
reference to reading on all topics, including those you do not like.
“You expose yourself to as much as possible, you absorb it, you forget most of it, but along the way it’s changed you.”
The words are simple, but the message is dead on. I think one of the main points is that you will forget much of what you read, and that that is okay. The point is to be changed; to be a different person than you were before you read it.
By reading, and reading on all types of topics, are we not more knowledgeable, understanding, and cultured? In our society where so much of our information is filtered to us through media giants and in non-traditional forms such as television and the Internet, how many people still are changed by the material they read?
I, for one, always gravitate toward novels – a mixture of classic literature and modern “fun” stories, but does that stretch my mind? Now that I am no longer in school where I am forced by professors to read material that I would never choose for myself at the library or local bookstore, I find this quote to have even more meaning. It is almost a call to action for me to read a book on history, philosophy, or any other non-fiction and it will prove worthy of my time. Force yourself to read and understand books on topics that aren’t your primary interest. Pick up a newspaper or magazine to read in cycle with your normal blogs and other websites.
Don’t ever stop stretching yourself. Be your own professor.
Read, forget – that’s fine, but be changed!
~DC
12.07.07
A Question of Dynasty?
Have you thought about the fact that if Hillary Clinton is elected as our next President, we will have had either a Bush or a Clinton in the White House for over two decades? This topic was brought to Hillary’s attention at the recent NPR debate. The question, however, was phrased around the word dynasty. As part of her answer, she said, “It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush.” (I love this quote!)
It is rather interesting, though, in a country whose government is based on change, new perspectives, and fresh ideas, that we would keep coming back to representatives of the same two families to run our country. Perhaps Hillary is right in that it takes someone with a mindset like the Clintons’ to fix all the problems that someone with the intelligence of a Bush creates, but it is still fascinating to me. Of course nothing has been decided yet, and the idea of a dynasty could end with the 2008 election of someone other than Hillary, but with the way things are looking, this is a very viable topic.
Do these two families really represent the majority of Americans? Is experience, in Hillary’s case, more important to the public than a real change? Does this negatively affect the democratic process that was designed for our country so long ago?
~ A Ponderous DC
12.06.07
Impressions of a GPA
In an effort to “shake things up” in the somewhat mundane routine of my current job, I applied for a new job and had a phone screening today. At the allotted time, I trekked through the snow to my car, drove to an adjacent parking lot -where there was less of a chance of seeing a colleague- and sat shivering, waiting for the phone to ring. (All of this because my desk does not have enough privacy to conduct a phone interview for another job while at my current job). Surprisingly, I had butterflies in my stomach and found myself trying to calm my voice and consciously lower it at least an octave below its current “little-girl-nervous” voice. It was silly, really, because my next rent payment did not depend on whether or not I got an interview beyond this one – I have a job, and a well-paying one at that. But it did matter. It mattered for my sanity, for my creativity, and for my motivation to move on to bigger and better things.
Back to the phone screening. The entire thing was relatively painless. Of course, there were a few comments I wish I could rephrase, but nothing that would send up a red flag to any future employer. And he didn’t once ask me about my motive for leaving my current job after only 6 months. That was the question I was most worried about (that and why in the world I would want to move back to the Midwest).
The one question he did ask that I was not expecting was in regard to my grade point average in college. It was kind of ironic actually, because I had just yesterday sent a blog posting to my sister (still in college) from Penelope Trunk’s blog about how achieving straight A’s in college is not that important and that no one ever asks about your GPA on a job interview. And now, here I was confessing my GPA (which is actually quite good – 3.9). Then I started to wonder if having such a high GPA could negatively affect their impression of me. I hate to write this next thought but it supports my thinking: when I was in college, the business majors (which would be the type of people I was interviewing with) were not always the most studious. Again these are generalizations, but the business majors liked to enjoy the college experience that took place outside of the classrooms and libraries.
So does a high GPA have a negative connotation, or does it depend on your audience? Does it portray the person as a book-worm who would be no fun in the office, or worse yet, have limited people skills? I know, of course, that I can put those fears to rest in my interviews by being very easy to talk to and articulate, but the initial question threw me for a loop and I’m curious as to what your thoughts are.
~DC
12.04.07
A Blast from the Past
If you had spent any time with me over this past weekend, you may have sworn that I had just stepped out of a time machine that transported me here from at least a century ago (disregarding my cell phone and occasional TV use of course).
I spent the majority of my weekend creating things the old-fashioned way. I began Saturday morning with a knitting session while sitting in front of the radio listening to two of my favorite programs. Then I did a little reading by the afternoon sunlight, and the rest of the afternoon was spent baking bread from scratch! It was a tedious and time-consuming task and I did it for no other reason than I wanted to try it. You can judge the product for yourself…
When all was said and done, I questioned whether the process was worth it, not to mention that I had no one with which to share my product. Then this morning, some colleagues and I were looking over the holiday potluck sign-up sheet determining what was missing for our feast, when someone mentioned bread/rolls. Since I just happened to have 2 homemade loaves of bread sitting on my kitchen table, I volunteered to bring one in for the party. Everyone was so impressed with my hidden talent (I didn’t know that bread-making for the heck of it was a talent, but I’ll take it)!
Suddenly, I began to appreciate the time and effort it takes to make something by hand. It is truly becoming a lost art. I know that making my own bread for my weekly sandwiches is an impractical task to set for myself, but occasionally taking a weekend or an afternoon to enjoy the hard work and time it takes to create something by hand – that’s a goal I intend to keep.
~DC
