Hooplah.Org A Story of Graceful Stumbles

Good things come to those who wait

I can't believe it's already July.

That's the best opening line I could think of after having not updated this for nearly 2 months.

I can't believe it's been 2 months since I updated

If it were not for certain recent good events I probably would not bothered to make an update now, either. For the past 3 years, it's been an off and on struggle for me to *want* to write about anything. I'd like to think that all that time I spent waiting, dealing with my own issues to stabilize myself, and putting my life on hold in general have finally paid off in some way.

I finally got a job. A permanent job, doing Data Entry, locally, working Monday through Thursday for 5 hours a day at $10 an hour (which is more than I've ever been paid before). It being part time doesn't bother me in the slightest bit, and with the location and job description being something I could not find in the thousands of other job listings I bogged through makes it is absolutely amazing that I not only saw it in the paper (after nearly giving up) but that I also was hired for the position. The only real obstacle in front of me now is learning the program the company uses for the data entry, but there's ample resources online that I can look at to help myself become progressively familiar with the software. I was told it will be My Job to know and "own" the software and it's database, and I plan to do exactly that.

In some ways, I'm surprised I got the job. Not because I'm bad for it, or because I don't think I can handle it - in fact I feel the exact opposite. In some ways getting hired has given me a huge confidence boost because even though I was my usual quirky, nervous, stuttering, unclear, and ungraceful self (aka, every single flaw that I analyzed and tortured myself over after all my other failed interviews), there was still something about me that impressed them enough to still feel I was the best for the position. Even after showing them this site in all of it's flaw filled and self bashing glory, even after explaining this site's purpose and what a blog is (I even elaborated about how this site played a part in everything blew up with Jenn in October of 01), after being very frank about my IBS and how it has effect my life since I was 15, and even after I told them that my nervousness can get so bad that I do one day want to pursue mediation for it... even after being as absolutely honest as I possibly could, I still got a call on the 28th of June offering me the position. And that is, again, absolutely amazing.

Sometimes I just sit quietly, staring to space, just thinking to myself... "wow." It's amazing how much this has meant to me... but I guess anything someone waits a great deal of time to have would have the same effect when they finally accomplished it. I never realized how ready I was to have money and responsibilities, and to finally be able to live my "real" adult life, until the past week. It's just so hard to put into words exactly - and my usual inability to write anything positive isn't helping.

Also, for future reference: Because I showed them this site, and because I was so honest of it's purpose, they made one simple request on my first day of work (07/05/05) - that I not mention the company by name or any specific details about the company itself or what it does. Considering how utterly grateful I am to be given the opportunity to work there, I have no problem fulfilling that request. From now on, I'll only reference where I work as My Job. If I'm speaking of the wonderful and kind woman I work for, I'll simply call her My Boss. I'll come up with other obvious codenames as needed, though I doubt I'll be doing alot of writing about it to need them - at least, not in any place public like this. It may sometimes frustrate myself not to, but my new job is worth more to me than writing here.

Before I run off to do some laundry, here are some other good perks from the past month:

- My parents have finally gotten out of debt (refinancing homes ftw) and now have the option to do some much needed fixes to the house. I have been painting the inside of the house (living room, hallway, and master bedroom done so far) and a new carpet will be installed on the 22nd (it will be a light tan color - goodbye 20 year old reddish rust color).
- While I was painting, I was able to muster up the courage to ask my father to switch monitors with me - and he agreed. I know have a 17" monitor which has made my gaming experiences so much better.
- I also recently purchased a ram upgrade for my computer (using the money I've received from painting the house [$6 an hour]). I'll be upgrading from 1 gig of PC113 to 2 gigs of PC2700. I also plan to eventually purchase a video card upgrade, probably a Radeon 9600XT.
- Because My Boss is utterly amazing, she OK'ed Matt and I's usual August trip. I'll be in the beautiful city of Phoenix from the 19th until the 28th - and this time I'll actually be able to pay for stuff! Woo!
- In geeky news, my guild in WoW has been making amazing progress in MC - we've taken down all of the bosses except for Majordomo and Ragnaros, both of which are much harder than any of the other bosses. We took our first real shot at Majordomo last night and by the 5th try or so had *really* made progress with the encounter - all that was left was 2 adds and the boss itself before the raid started to wipe. We're trying again on Monday and I can't wait to see if we'll be able to learn from last night and beat him.