Perhaps a job that will last longer than a semester.

I started a new job at the very end of the summer, and it's going way better than the 200 other random jobs I've had since beginning my attempt at this whole "adult life" thing. It's an on-campus gig (at the Office of Career Services), so scheduling is more flexible and people are more understanding when I show up looking bleary-eyed and thesis-crushed.* I also get to do actual design work. And there are often lollipops. That said, I am hoping not to get fired from this job. Because I actually like it.

* SWEET JESUS THE THESIS. There's nothing like a year-long-career-launching-this-is-my-life's-work-omigod sort of project to destroy your mind and body.

End-of-semester recap.

Ok. Big apologies to my hundreds of loyal readers (hi, Mom!) for the major hiatus in blogging. Apparently when tornadoes of disaster prance across my daily life, it's more effective to address them than to blog about them. But, now that my semester is over and I can take 30 seconds to breathe, here's what's been up since the last time I complained to the interwebz:

1) I got fired again.

I actually prefer to refer to this episode as being laid off. Basically, my boss decided that he didn't want to budget for a designer anymore and sent all my work to some randos in Nepal instead. It totally sucked, but at least I got a severance check.

I've been looking around for a new gig (it's more constructive than sitting in my house and trying to figure out why I can't hold down a fucking job), and so far I've had a couple interviews and a handful of leads. So we'll see where that goes. Every once and a while I freelance for an undergrad professor at Pratt who runs a branding design studio out of his cat-filled apartment ... but that's not exactly a pay-my-rent sort of arrangement.

2) My apartment is for sale.

This one sort of came out of nowhere. Basically, whoever it is who owns our apartment (I know nothing about him aside from the fact that his name is Steve) decided that he wants to put it on the market in hopes of selling it by the time our lease runs out in August. This mystery man has claimed that he'll allow us to renew our lease in the event that the apartment doesn't sell by August ... but he refuses to put this anywhere in writing or make any sort of legitimate agreement. He also only communicates via text message and is usually an enormous douchebag. So that totally sucks.

But aside from the fact that we're dealing with a loser text-sender (what professional adult does that?) who might boot us out in a few months but might decide not to and isn't going to let us know in advance either way ... there's also the incredible annoyance of having brokers show the apartment to potential buyers. This is where the situation gets tricky.

If we can create an undesirable domestic environment for potential buyers, we have a better chance of keeping our apartment. But if the powers that be catch on to our attempts to sabotage them, they'll refuse to renew our lease regardless of whether the apartment actually sells. So we're walking a fine line, but so far no one has seemed that interested in buying the place. So maybe it's working.

3) I finished my first year of grad school.

This item doesn't really belong on a bitch list, but it's worth noting.

I finished a semester of grad school.

So the groundbreaking maturity updates have been few and far between lately. This is probably because I've stopped doing exciting and meaningful things with my life ... but it could also be because I've been doing so many meaningful things that I no longer have time to blog about them. I'll let you decide.

Anyway, I did manage to finish my first semester of grad school without any major disasters - which is something worth telling the world ("the world" being a select readership of very close friends, plus probably my mom). And now that I've got a whole semester under my belt, I can more confidently conclude the following:

1) I like Pratt.
2) I like doing graphic design.
3) I therefore chose the correct school.
4) I also therefore chose the correct career path.

These are all reassuring things. Sure, I didn't sleep for the last month of school and nearly went blind after three straight days in the cutting room and spent the equivalent of half my rent on printing and binding - plus, I might have ended up with the lowest GPA of my life (apparently grad school is, in fact, harder than college) - but as my eyesight returns and my x-acto wounds heal, I still think that grad school is pretty awesome.

So now I'm in the middle of a month-long vacation that's allowed me to recover from the end-of-semester madness, pick up some extra hours at work, get started on the freelance gigs that I totally neglected until now, catch up on ANTM, and get all my wisdom teeth pulled out of my head. If that's not multitasking, I don't know what is.

Back, and with positive news.

So, it's been a while since I posted anything new. Apparently going to school and looking for jobs is sort of time consuming, which makes it hard to do so while also blogging about it. But, it's the weekend, and I've hit a temporary moment of peace and quiet - so I am taking a breath and updating my loyal readers (hi, Mom!) with the newest details of my scintillating lifestyle.

1) Jobs

I have some. In the long term, I got a part-time gig assisting an artist in her studio in Bushwick (hope I don't have to work after dark!). The hourly pay rate is good, and it'll be nice to get back to doing more artsy-fartsy things now that I'm pretty much stuck in Adobe land for good.

In the short term, I'm also working two temporary freelance jobs - one laying out a book in InDesign, and one designing promotional materials for a custom motorcycle shop in Williamsburg (one of these jobs will be substantially more fun than the other). They're only one-time gigs, but they pay pretty well and will definitely help bring in some extra cash in addition to my part-time job.

So, I can cool down the crazy job search for now. I'll probably want to look for more freelance gigs once those two are done - but at least I can rest assured that I am, in fact, worth hiring. And there are sources of income in my very near future.

(And as for the bartending job - the powers that be have ceased to contact me. Should I just ignore them or harass them for being stupid awful liars? I'm undecided).

2) School

Is awesome. I actually enjoy my classes and don't fall asleep during them. This is more than I can say for much of my undergraduate education.

3) The Apartment

I think we're finally furnished and settled. We've got a dining table and chairs, and we finally got the TV hooked up for cable (which also means that we have internet - hooray). Save for some painting and picture hanging, I think we're finally moved in.

Oriented.

Last night, I finally wrapped up a week or so of orientation activities at Pratt. While most of the meetings and workshops were pretty dull (how many times does the Nurse Practitioner from Health and Counseling need to advertise free condoms and lube?), I did get a chance to meet some pretty awesome people from a handful of different departments. And, since hanging out with said people usually involves making the trek to Pratt's Brooklyn campus, I'm learning about that neighborhood as well - which, given that all my classes are on the Manhattan campus, I didn't think I'd really get a chance to do. So, mind-numbing presentations from the Registrar's office aside, it was a pretty good week.

In terms of classes ... I've only been contacted by one professor, who told us to buy a book and read a chapter of it before we meet for the first time. Other than that, I have no idea what I'm supposed to expect. But, judging from the conversations I've had with other students, neither does anyone else. So I'm not too worried.

Next step: back-to-school shopping! The thrill of shiny new notebooks and pencils never dies.

Reasons that grad school will be amazing.

1. Classes meet once a week
So what if they're also a brain-melting 3 hours long? I'm only going to have one class on Mondays, two on Tuesdays, and one on Wednesdays. Followed by a four-day weekend. Hell yes.

2. Winter break is a month long
Suck it, Harvard intersession of my undergraduate past.

I know these things because I got excited about course registration and put my Fall semester course schedule, as well as the entire 2009-2010 academic calendar, into my GCal. You can take the girl out of the Ivy League ...

I guess this grad school thing is really happening.

Online registration takes place this week, which means I will actually be going to school and taking classes in the very near future. Here's the lineup for this coming semester:

Typography I
An "introduction to the concrete and conceptual aspects of typography" and an exploration of the "historical and current forms of alphabetic communications." Let the geekery begin.

Visual Communications I
This course will teach me a "disciplined, systematic approach to concept development" and help me master the "problem-solving process applied to graphic design." Sounds legit.

Visual Perception
This is a survey of the "physiological and historical perspectives of visual perception." It's unclear what that actually means, but I'm getting a big red flag from the fact that the course description mentions "readings, presentations, discussions, papers and visiting lecturers." That sounds a bit too academic for me.

Digital Design
Here's something I know nothing about: "the core ideas and technologies surrounding image-making, sound and time-dependent media." At least I can rest assured that "the primary focus in this class is on the learning process, which puts more emphasis on the conceptual thinking behind each assignment than on the finished products" - so I don't actually have to do anything well as long as I learn how one would hypothetically do something well.

And that's my course load. It was pretty easy to figure out, because the Assistant Chair of the GradComD Department told me exactly what to take (I love having no agency). She also told me that my prerequisites were waived (I'm apparently qualified to go to this school?), so I'll actually be able to fulfill all my requirements in two years. I guess I'm really getting a degree.

Thanks, Pratt.

This morning, I received an email from the Pratt GradComD Office. It read:

Dear Incoming Student,

For those of you who will be moving to NYC to attend the Graduate Communications Design program in Fall 2009, we thought this article might be helpful as you navigate the rental market looking for a place to live. Please be aware of scams, especially on Craig's List.

Then it linked to that same article from last week's New York Times real estate section.

Wow. Thanks a lot, Pratt. Thanks for the heads-up. Thanks for rejecting my first application for housing, telling me not to worry because you could totally find additional housing in a different dorm, and then saying "oh nevermind" and rejecting my application for housing again. Thanks for having absolutely zero resources for those of us who weren't given graduate housing - no helpful information about the neighborhood, no message boards or ways of communicating with other students, nothing whatsoever about off-campus housing on your super over-designed and therefore un-navigable university website. Just an email warning us that there are scammers out there looking to fuck with broke-ass grad students who were just dropped on their faces by the Office of Residential Life and Housing.

Thanks.

It begins.

Hello world! Welcome to my blog. If you're reading this, you're either 1) genuinely interested in the banalities of my life, 2) bored to tears and desperate for some words on a page, or 3) an extremely loyal friend who is about to get major brownie points for taking the time out of your life to sift through my ramblings. Whichever one it is ... thanks for stopping by.

I decided to start this blog because some friends of mine (who shall remain nameless, mostly because I've forgotten which ones they are) suggested that I document my attempts to become a grown-up after graduating from college. I think they meant to imply that I would struggle in the transition from scattered undergrad to self-sufficient adult, and that my sheltered upbringing and general lack of any notion of reality would preclude the development of even the vaguest sense of maturity.

With this, I will have to respectfully disagree. Clearly a recent graduate with a very practical degree, big plans to earn yet another practical degree, many quality housing options, and a host of employment opportunities on the horizon is perfectly capable of initiating a self-sufficient, mature lifestyle.

If you disregard the fact that I currently live with my parents and spend most weekdays at an unpaid internship during which I mostly eat bagels and sign up for Blogger, I think things are looking pretty good. Also disregard the fact that I can't do math and that sometimes I get lost in my own neighborhood because I'm wearing noise-cancelling headphones that prevent me from paying attention to anything other than my awesome jams. Ignoring those details, however ... I think I'm good to go.