We are coming close to the end of the Holiday season. In just over an hour it will be Christmas Day. Children will be waking up with anticipation of opening their gifts and playing their games. Parents will be elated with the joy of their children. All will be happy, for at least a few hours. There will at least be more happiness at one time than most other times.
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I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since my last post. It feels like it was a week ago that I was camping, but it’s been three times as long. A six day vacation isn’t long enough, but a five day work week is too long. It’s funny how time is different when you’re enjoying life.
Work is stressful. It’s stressful because I always seem to be short on money when the bills are due. The bills are due when I have no money. Every day I go to work telling myself, “Today is the day!” hoping that it will be the day that I have the magical sale that will make all things better. But that day never comes. Instead I realize that I’m wasting my time staying in Columbia. I need to face reality. I won’t finish school at Mizzou, I won’t be happy in Columbia, and I can’t stay for the few friends that I have left here. The first step to getting out of here is Kansas City. It’s not my dream, but it’s a start. I will be able to go home, save money and pay off debts while I live with family for a few months. Maybe even my car, less than $3,000 remaining in payments! I may stay in Kansas City for a while, although not ideal, it makes the most since. I need to let my career take me around the world, not take my career around the world.
I applied for a position at an upcoming store in Overland Park, KS. I took half a day off work to interview for the position, and I felt that the interview went well. The manager and assistant manager showed that they were very happy with my responses and sales role play. They had very encouraging comments, I felt sure during my drive to Columbia. I felt that everything was working out and I started to get excited about moving to KC. Today I spoke with Danny, the manager, and he felt that I needed more experience with the company and lacked excitement during my interview. He stated that I did very well during my interview, that I nailed all the questions, but felt that I needed to practice interviewing with my manager. He decided to go with other applicants, but encouraged me to not give up. This, of course, was a huge blow. I didn’t want to work the rest of the day, just wanted to stay home. That wasn’t an option, so back to work I went. I decided to see if there were any new job postings, and there were. A few in STL, one at another Circuit City, a few management positions, a few customer service positions, and one sales representative position in KC. The State Line Rd store at Ward Parkway. I applied for it and emailed the recruiting HR manager in Kansas City and asked who would be interviewing for the position. After she replied, I emailed the manager right away to get my name out there. I wanted to show her that I was excited about moving back to KC and wanted to work at her store. I’m not going to get shot down twice. I’m waiting to hear back from her to schedule my interview with her.
As much as I don’t want to leave the people that I have come to love here in Columbia, I need to get out of here. It’s time for me to leave.
Ok, so here’s my NYC post as promised. We got into NYC Thursday evening and made it to our hotel without any problems. The hotel provides a shuttle service from the airport to the hotel, as well as to the nearest subway station. The radio is set to a talk radio station, an extreme right wing talk station. So right, that they have a commercial against gay marriage. It starts with a child saying, “If I had two daddies, where would my mommy be?” Then it gets into a woman talking about how the governor is messing with marriage instead of doing his job. We hear this commercial twice between the airport and the hotel, my grandma completely missing it and thought that we were laughing at an inside joke between each other. That was humorous. At least the next day was a different driver.
So Thursday night after we checked in we headed out to go into Manhattan. Dawna, Mark and I decided that Times Square was the place to break Grandma into NYC. Throwing her into the busiest part of the city right away. She loved it! Getting there was the best part. I had tried educating my grandma on how to get through the turnstile at the subway station. I told her that she had to move quickly or she wouldn’t be able to get through. She moved too quickly. Once she got the turnstile to move, she got caught and ended up straddling the turnstile!! I wish I had pictures or even a video to post to show how funny this was. Great times! She got the hang of it after that. We looked, and walked, and looked all around us at Times Square. It doesn’t matter how many times you come here, it’s still amazing. We went to Bella Vita Pizzaria for dinner and had the best pizza. The price wasn’t bad, but when we got the check we quickly saw that they charge for water! $12 for the 4 of us!! We couldn’t believe it.
We left Times Square to find the store that I will be interviewing at Monday at noon. It took us a little while to figure out the direction to walk, but we found it. I love the area! It’s a huge store, but the area is amazing! You can see the Chrysler Building and the Empire State building outside the store. And there’s a park right across the street. It’s really an amazing location. I wish I could live in an apt in the are, but that would be way too much money. But at least I would be working in a good area. We walked down to the Empire State Building from there, and then to the subway to make our journey back to the hotel. This time there was no straddling.
Yesterday we got up at 7:30 to start our apartment search. Our first apartment was in Brooklyn, so it was a long trip to get there. Once we got there, we did not like the neighborhood at all. So after a quick look, we got right back on the subway and headed back to Manhattan. We got off the subway at Wall St and walked around there for a bit while looking up available apartments on my iphone. We saw the New York Stock Exchange building,
and the a short walk to ground zero. At that time, my iphone shut off. No warning, just went black. When trying to turn it back on, all that was displayed was the image telling me to charge it. The battery indicator had just shown fully charged. So I immediately said that we needed to go to Apple. To SoHo we go! We dropped by Aveda because Mark needed to go pee again. This had become a regular occurrence because he insisted on drinking Venti sized drinks from Starbuck’s anytime that we stopped by. These frequent bathroom breaks and his extremely annoying “tick” sound that he makes every two seconds is pissing me off. What irritates me even more is the, “I can’t help it” excuse that he gives. After Aveda, we went to Apple. They said that my battery must have gotten out of sync with the phone, and that the phone thought it was charged when it wasn’t. Solution: hard reset and recharge. So we’re going to see how that works today.
I got a hold of Eric Arevalo and he recommended that we look at the Inwood area. I looked up some apts in that area and called and headed up that way. It was quite a ride to 157th St., but we made it. After viewing two apartments, we went and saw Eric at his apartment. Then we journeyed back to Astoria, ordered some chinese food, and crashed. Now we’re trying to find something to look at, but not many places are answering their phones today. And I’m kinda tired of it anyway. It’s hard when your roommates parents are only going to pay $500 per month and are expecting something really nice. I think this might be a flop. Time will tell.
Alright, this concludes my first post. I will update soon again with apartment hunting search. Be sure to check out the gallery for pictures that I have so far, more to come.
