You are irresistible

This is kinda late, but here is my new year's resolution: Feel comfortable communicating thoughts and feelings, and find things to say. I speak my mind and I am not extremely quiet, but I can contribute more to conversations. A lot of people like to talk too much -- they chatter on and on about things that don't matter and say the same thing over and over. I try to say only the things that I think the other person will find interesting or useful, and I tend to wait for pauses before talking to make sure that people are done. I think these are positive qualities, but it's possible that they keep people from knowing me, and that's a shame because I am fabulous. Ha ha. Here are ideas to implement this resolution:

-Blog regularly: In general, I feel more comfortable writing instead of talking, so blogging will provide a good transition in communicating to others. But this is difficult to achieve because I feel too tired to blog in the evenings and we currently have only one computer connected to internet in our house, so that means I will have to work around their schedules.

-Join an acting class: Get experience in putting self in other people's shoes and thus relate to them, and meet different people that I would never otherwise meet. But I would have to take classes in the evening, so I would have to take a late bus home and walk in the dark.

The homeless ministry through Saint Anthony's is working out well. We go out into the streets every other Tuesday and offer sandwiches to people who look hungry. We pray together for affordable housing, jobs, fair political legislation, freedom from addictions to gambling and drugs, protection from the cold, and food. Stuff that I would never otherwise think about.

Three of my cousins from Korea came to visit. The youngest, age 17, has gone back, but the other two are going to stay for about six months so they can learn English. They are 22 and 20 years old. They must be excited because so many Korean kids want to come to America to learn English, and I am glad that our family can help them. They are always laughing, so it's a good change from just having my mom and sister around.

I came back from a trip to Disney World. It was my second trip there. I liked how everything's so happy, but we almost got into a brawl with some handicapped people. It was so crowded. I went to a Disturbed concert about a month ago, and those handicapped people were wilder than those skinheads at the mosh pit.

Last Friday, I went to a party with S, who is a friend of my coworker, A, at MHD. I learned some interesting things that night. First, I thought I was just hanging out with S, but found out that S thought we were dating. S said that men and women have different definitions of dating -- I can't understand how men can think that they are dating when the other person doesn't even know it's happening. I think of dating as something that two people do when it's obvious that they have mutual romantic interests, but guys think of it as a way to learn more about the girl.

Then the guys in the room all started to talk about their frustrations with women to me. S talked about how women think that they are so unique and no-one else is like them. One guy said that women just use guys to get free dinners -- I was so relieved that I could not be accused of doing this because I had paid for some of the meals that S and I had. S would always insist that he pay, and it was only because I didn't let him get his way that I paid for those meals. Another guy talked about his ex-girlfriend. How he almost married her, but he broke up with her because he felt that she didn't put him first. He got mad that she hanged out a lot with another guy even though he knew that she was chaste and didn't sleep around. I told him that I think he was overly jealous and that he should have trusted her. I got them all very upset by saying that quality guys usually end up with quality girls.

S drove me home at about 4 am. He is really a nice guy, a gentleman, but I don't like him romantically. He said that he must be low quality because he once had this girlfriend who tried to shoot him and took all his money. I felt bad for him and felt sorry about my comment.

I am either hyperactive or sluggish. I usually get up at 11 AM, read for a bit, then take a nap, then work on job search, and read some more. I probably don't expend more than 500 calories. But on Wednesday, I got up around 7 AM so that I can take the various buses to Fenway and catch Shrek2 with Cathy. Before and after the movie started, I went around to the various shops that Cathy wanted to look at and to pick stuff up for cooking. I helped Cathy clean her apartment and move furniture around for a couple of hours. Then, we cooked some fancy chicken dish and creme brulee. We went to a Herb Reed and the Platters concert. We also went to La Vittoria, which is a coffee shop. Because it was late, the bus that runs near me didn't run anymore, and I had to catch another one that required that I walk about a mile to get home.

On Thursday, I got up at 8 so that I could make it to a job interview at 10:30 in Dorchester. This required multiple bus rides and a long walk under the hot sun. I took a dilapidated trolley that runs from Mattapan to Ashmont, and walked beneath highways and through some tall grasses. I got home around 1 pm, took a nap, and made phone calls for job hunting. I was going to meet Cathy at the ICA but then I missed the bus, so I took another one that was about a mile away. I saw lots of bizarre and creative videos, photographs, and sculptures at the Expressions exhibit hosted by the museum. I went shopping at the Pru. Then, I went to the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's Hamlet, and got home around midnight.

poopie doo poopie doo poo!

Fun things I can do when I feel bored while spending little or no money: sign up to become a CIA agent, read about people spending time in jail, pretend to be an ant for a whole day, pretend to be michael jackson, make a geological survey of my neighborhood, forage for food in the forest, build a coffin for myself, kiss my arms and legs, prank call people.

Right now, I am living at home in Boston and waiting for a response from two places that I've interviewed: Camp Dresser & McKee (CDM) and MassHighway. I interviewed with MassHighway about five weeks ago and with CDM three weeks ago. I have a pretty good chance of getting an offer from MassHighway because they have lots of money and like me, but because there's so much bureaucracy, it could take a while before I hear anything back from them. I have a network in CDM, but I am not sure if two of the seven people who interviewed me liked me, and they informed me that it will also take them an additional week to give me a decision because they are still interviewing people for the position.

So, it would be a good idea for me to continue to apply to other places. Before March this year, I've focused my job hunt mostly on newspaper ads, HotJobs, and MonsterTrak for mechanical engineering positions as well as civil/environmental. I've also sent letters and resumes to HMC alums who work for Fluor, Parsons, and Bechtel, and didn't hear any responses.

In March, I've changed my strategy and compiled a long list of civil/environmental firms in the Boston area and did extensive research on those companies before sending in cover letters and resumes. I've thus far applied to 25 different civil/environmental engineering firms, and I still have lots more to apply to on my list. While I feel that I am doing the job search right in terms of using my contacts and following up, I don't think I want to keep this strategy because prospects look so grim.

I've been informed by someone at a midsized company that my chances are better off if I apply to big companies because smaller companies can't afford the overhead to train entry-level environmental engineers. But I've already applied to the biggest civil/enviro companies in the Boston area (Army Corps of Engineers, Metcalf & Eddy, CH2M Hill, Louis Berger, GZA GeoEnvironmental, Mass Water Resources Authority), and it's been impossible to hear anything useful from them. When I follow up, they mostly tell me that they will get back to me if they are interested.

I am thinking of shifting my strategy again and focusing on applying to temping agencies such as www.aerotek.com. An alternative is to focus on applying to the large civil/environmental firms in other parts of the country. Since I am single and don't have a family, moving isn't that big of a problem, but I don't know of a reason to believe that civil/enviro firms in other parts of the country will be more responsive than the ones in Boston. Which path would you recommend that I pursue first? Do you know of any one who would be willing to help?

Thanks.

Today, I got my yellow belt at Tae Kwon Do!

Today at work, I attended a meeting where vendors who were interested in making bids for an upcoming state contract got to ask questions. Marcia, who was leading the conference, went over the "Request for Response," which is a document that the state releases to solicit bids. I was amazed at the specificity of the contract language and how many details needed to be taken care of. Purchasing is pretty interesting and challenging, and I am even thinking of pursuing this as a career.

What a dramatic day! I woke up to the sound of someone ringing the door bell. I didn't want to answer because I wasn't dressed, and I ignored them. I wasn't expecting anyone, and it probably wasn't something important. But whoever were there were very persistent. I looked out the window, and they were still outside the house after about an hour! I figured they must be some creeps trying to convert me to some funny religion to hope that long that someone will answer the door.

Eventually, they left and put a note on the door, and it turned out that they were some acquaintances of my mother!

Then on my way to work, I saw a bunch of people parading around at the State House in British soldier uniforms and they were playing drums. I found out that the event was a special welcome to the president of Rwanda, who was visiting Boston to chill with Mitt Romney and watch the Boston Red Sox. He was also going to give a talk at Boston College. I thought it would be interesting to hear what he had to say and went. I almost wasn't admitted because only Boston College students were allowed, but they let me go to this room where I could watch via a screen. President Kabame wasn't a good speaker. He didn't provide interesting political perspective or said anything striking. The talk had interesting moments nevertheless. When someone asked him a question, he requested multiple times that the question be repeated.

A fist fight broke out between my students at Machine Science today. I tried to intervene and managed to pull the kids apart, but there was one other teacher in the room, and he didn't even seem to be aware that anything was going on. Because the kids are so cute and funny, it's hard to take anything they do as a serious criminal incident, but there's a good chance that they will grow up to be gansters.

I went to a talk today at the Green Round Table on using your hands to improve communication in meetings. The speaker basically suggested to designers to communicate their ideas by having everyone play with legos because the hands know more than your conscious mind. Apparently, building things with your hands really help you explain things because 70-80% of your brain is wired to your hands. I am not sure if I am convinced, but I hated talking in clinic meetings because people always challenged me and somehow I couldn't explain well. So maybe I should try using legos.

She says, "Life has been about duty and not happiness.
Even the doctor doesn't understand the meaning.
Angry people think I made mistakes
When I gave good care without thanks.

But Yes, I want the moments when the baby dances."

I hope to make her life about happiness.

My sister came home from Puerto Rico last night. She has a nice tan and bought me a gift, but I can't put too much information because she's bossing me around again and she's afraid that her students might google her and find stuff about her.

I was feeling down today. I am making little or slow progress in the job hunt, and I am so tired of everything. But yay for Cathy! She tried to teach me how to skateboard, and we talked about boys. I felt a whole lot better. I also had a good tae kwon do class, and I found out that another girl who's taking the class does video production and would like me to act in one of her movies. I am totally going to become a movie star!

I want to write a novel someday. I was reading some of the stuff that I wrote a while back, and I have interesting things to say. I gotta share my perspective with the world, but I don't know if I have the commitment in me to write a whole book. I tend to enjoy letting my mind scatter everywhere, and I love wasting time. It's commitment to some experience or person that brings fulfillment.

For the annual report at work, I am trying to write about how I made my environmental calculations. I am in trouble: I have to think really hard and do some back tracking to remember how I made them.

I am starting to worry again because this is such an inconvenient handicap. I used to have such a good memory and impress people by remembering things that happened way back. For a couple of years now, I've been like someone with Alzheimer's. I should have written everything down, but that's so annoying. This is one of the things that makes me so anxious about getting a real job. I know that I have to remember things that are spoken to me in meetings to perform efficiently and am afraid of people being frustrated against me because I keep forgetting. I know that I should get over it and just deal with this problem by writing everything down, but that builds up to the list of crap that I have to do to just function and survive.

I am so hilarious. Today, my family celebrated Easter, and we had Cathy come over. I talked about my waitressing job -- how once a customer told me he had to go home because he forgot his dentures but was going to come back when he has his teeth. I thought it was cute, but a little embarrassing. But then Cathy said that she thinks if I were put in that situation, I would say the same thing. She's right -- I even tell people that I am pooping if they ask me what I am doing and I happen to be in the bathroom. But only if they are my friends.

The dinner became even more eventful when I went to the bathroom. The bathroom is right next to the kitchen, and when I came back, my mom complained about how she could hear me pee and how I should turn the faucet on to hide the sound before I take a leak. She is a complete hypocrite. She shares information freely about her bodily functions, and she doesn't think there's anything shameful. It's hilarious that she criticises me for behavior that I learned from her.

I waitressed from 5 to 11:30, and I made a grand total of around $30 on tips. I tried to draw a portrait of one of the waitresses because I had so few tables. She didn't like the picture. She said she looked like a grumpy old lady, but I thought she looked lovely and the person in the picture had a wonderful expression, but to make her feel better, I said the picture didn't look like her. I can relate to not liking pictures of myself, but it's the features that don't belong to super models that give us character and personality.

Today I finished calculating the environmental benefits of MA's Environmentally Preferable Products Procurement Program. I found out how many trees were saved because the program gets the state to purchase recycled paper, how much cubic yards of landfill space was saved because stuff got diverted from the waste stream to make into new products, how many gallons of oil were saved by using remanufactured toner cartridges, and so forth.

I also discovered that some time ago, the program hired a contractor to develop software to make the calculations that I made, but somehow, things didn't work out, so that is why I am working on them. I wonder how much they offered the contractor because as you all know, I am doing the internship for free. I really like my internship, but I really should get paid especially if they had the money to pay a contractor.

I received a letter from a good friend, so now I have that warm and fuzzy feeling. I went to Holy Thursday mass, but I was being silly and instead of paying attention. I was thinking the whole time about all the amusing things that I am going to tell him in my next letter.

I am going to spend time in the next couple of days reading old essays that I wrote in college. I am trying to prepare myself for interviews, not that I have any lined up. Hopefully this will help me answer questions about myself. Normally, I don't like talking about myself, but the cool stuff that I wrote will remind me of things that I have to say.