Meet Pixel and Pica. Pixel is the girl - gray with white spots on her face and Pica is the boy - brown tabby. I can't believe we finally got them!!!
1.20.2013
All I want is an apartment of my own and a cat...
ACHIEVED!!
Meet Pixel and Pica. Pixel is the girl - gray with white spots on her face and Pica is the boy - brown tabby. I can't believe we finally got them!!!
Meet Pixel and Pica. Pixel is the girl - gray with white spots on her face and Pica is the boy - brown tabby. I can't believe we finally got them!!!
1.11.2013
Oh boy...
So, I've essentially become a mess of a human being.
Yesterday, I had the ever-so-exciting task of telling my boss that I'm going to look for another job on the eve of his knee surgery. Yep, you read that right and yep, it was just as awkward as you might imagine.
It's no surprise to anyone that I hate this job. I've tried so fucking hard to like it and to make it a more "positive" experience in my mind. What kept getting to me though was that I didn't even start the job in a negative way. In fact, I started with SUCH positive feelings about it that it took me a few solid weeks to be like, "Nope, no, Monique, you actually hate this. That's what these feelings are. Hatred." I spent a lot of nights commiserating, crying, talking Jason's ear off, working, etc. My friend Erika says to me "You know what, Niquenique (ignore the nickname..but that's what she calls me), honestly, I think you belong in a creative field. Just maybe not the job you had before. But that's just me." And then I talked to my dad a bit and we got into an interesting conversation in light of my recent illustration project (new year's resolution to draw something every day). He's been printing them out and wallpapering his office with them like any proud father but he said, "Monique, you're wasting a gift from God if you don't use this talent." My father is not a religious man. To be honest, these things hit home because only a few days earlier I was thinking about my life and how I hate my job and wondering what the hell I even wanted to do instead of what I am doing now. I didn't know the answer and really, I still don't, but I think it has to involve drawing in some way. So many interests have come and gone in my life but drawing has been my oldest, truest, and most comfortable skill and hobby. Maybe it's an illustration career, maybe it's an animation career. The specifics will be worked out but the genre, I think, is finally clear. I'm not happy when I'm not being creative—specifically, when I'm not drawing.
In order to decide what I want to do, I thought perhaps I should actually have a job that doesn't make me work weekends, pays me enough to save up in case I want to pursue another degree in a related field, and overall doesn't make me miserable. Herein lies the reason I decided to that I need to leave the dojo. I have a friend who submitted my resume to her highly corporate, big-business-y-type company (in a design or related role) and that's as far as I've gotten. Word on the street is that they will most likely contact me to at least see if I'm good for the position. Waiting to hear.
Since my current boss was expecting to have me for a year and was planning on my starting a bunch of new initiatives that I would have to follow through with months in the future, I thought it would be polite and somewhat obligatory to let him down before his knee was ripped open and he fell into a drug-induced stupor for the next few weeks. Sadly, I couldn't meet with him right away about it so I had almost a full week to stress myself out about it. He came into work yesterday for our one on one meetings about an hour late (knee surgery preparations), spent 20 minutes nit-picking the shit out of my coworker, and then we instantly jumped into the meeting. When we finally put business aside and it was time to talk about my "personal leadership development" (he's a life coach as well, remember), the stress just fucking boiled and I instantly...and I mean instantly...started crying. Like an idiot. In my boss/teacher/friend's office. We proceeded to talk for nearly 2 hours about virtually every angle of the situation - during which time I think I was pretty much continuously crying. Even he was crying. Basically, I guilted the poor man to tears in his own office in his own dojo on the eve of his knee surgery. I felt like a dick. But I also knew that there is no way I can stay at this job—and telling him that was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in one of the most inconvenient times possible. He let me go home after the meeting because I probably looked like a mess and I mean, if the meeting even made him cry, I'm sure he sensed how emotionally exhausted I had become by the entire thing.
Ultimately, I think it ended positively. Nothing was decided—which was ultimately a wise decision seeing as we were both too emotional to think clearly about it. He offered some incentives to stick around for a few months and told me to think on it. Honestly, how long I stay will be a direct result of which next step I am going to take and how soon that next step has to happen. If I get the job at my friend's place and it pays me well and gives me good hours, I'm going to take it...whenever they need me. If it's too soon, that may anger my boss but it's a risk I might have to take. If, however, the process at this corporate place takes a little longer (which, in a place as big as that, I'd imagine it may take up to a month to finalize everything), it could be a perfect amount of time. Long story short, I am making moves to get out of there - I just don't know when or how yet. But he knows, he understands, and he is willing to work with me (as long as I work with him, I'm sure) to make it a smooth transition with no hard feelings.
I have no words to describe the feeling that yesterday left me with. Some mixture of humiliation, relief, guilt, and vacancy. My co-worker was nice enough to work this Saturday for me so I can have these 2 days (and most of tonight) to wrap my brain around everything that happened, put the shattered pieces of my stomach back together, pick myself up, and decide what my next move is.
I read this article in the meantime about a lady's journey to becoming a freelance illustrator. Some good stuff in there. That may be my first attempt at happiness. I always thought that the freelance lifestyle might suit my tastes most comfortably but it's not an overnight transition so I'm still looking for that full-time job which can support me in the way I need to be supported without taking over my life. It's a stepping stone. An avenue for change. A means to an end - not the end itself; which is something I've yet to actually ask for in a job.
Yesterday, I had the ever-so-exciting task of telling my boss that I'm going to look for another job on the eve of his knee surgery. Yep, you read that right and yep, it was just as awkward as you might imagine.
It's no surprise to anyone that I hate this job. I've tried so fucking hard to like it and to make it a more "positive" experience in my mind. What kept getting to me though was that I didn't even start the job in a negative way. In fact, I started with SUCH positive feelings about it that it took me a few solid weeks to be like, "Nope, no, Monique, you actually hate this. That's what these feelings are. Hatred." I spent a lot of nights commiserating, crying, talking Jason's ear off, working, etc. My friend Erika says to me "You know what, Niquenique (ignore the nickname..but that's what she calls me), honestly, I think you belong in a creative field. Just maybe not the job you had before. But that's just me." And then I talked to my dad a bit and we got into an interesting conversation in light of my recent illustration project (new year's resolution to draw something every day). He's been printing them out and wallpapering his office with them like any proud father but he said, "Monique, you're wasting a gift from God if you don't use this talent." My father is not a religious man. To be honest, these things hit home because only a few days earlier I was thinking about my life and how I hate my job and wondering what the hell I even wanted to do instead of what I am doing now. I didn't know the answer and really, I still don't, but I think it has to involve drawing in some way. So many interests have come and gone in my life but drawing has been my oldest, truest, and most comfortable skill and hobby. Maybe it's an illustration career, maybe it's an animation career. The specifics will be worked out but the genre, I think, is finally clear. I'm not happy when I'm not being creative—specifically, when I'm not drawing.
In order to decide what I want to do, I thought perhaps I should actually have a job that doesn't make me work weekends, pays me enough to save up in case I want to pursue another degree in a related field, and overall doesn't make me miserable. Herein lies the reason I decided to that I need to leave the dojo. I have a friend who submitted my resume to her highly corporate, big-business-y-type company (in a design or related role) and that's as far as I've gotten. Word on the street is that they will most likely contact me to at least see if I'm good for the position. Waiting to hear.
Since my current boss was expecting to have me for a year and was planning on my starting a bunch of new initiatives that I would have to follow through with months in the future, I thought it would be polite and somewhat obligatory to let him down before his knee was ripped open and he fell into a drug-induced stupor for the next few weeks. Sadly, I couldn't meet with him right away about it so I had almost a full week to stress myself out about it. He came into work yesterday for our one on one meetings about an hour late (knee surgery preparations), spent 20 minutes nit-picking the shit out of my coworker, and then we instantly jumped into the meeting. When we finally put business aside and it was time to talk about my "personal leadership development" (he's a life coach as well, remember), the stress just fucking boiled and I instantly...and I mean instantly...started crying. Like an idiot. In my boss/teacher/friend's office. We proceeded to talk for nearly 2 hours about virtually every angle of the situation - during which time I think I was pretty much continuously crying. Even he was crying. Basically, I guilted the poor man to tears in his own office in his own dojo on the eve of his knee surgery. I felt like a dick. But I also knew that there is no way I can stay at this job—and telling him that was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in one of the most inconvenient times possible. He let me go home after the meeting because I probably looked like a mess and I mean, if the meeting even made him cry, I'm sure he sensed how emotionally exhausted I had become by the entire thing.
Ultimately, I think it ended positively. Nothing was decided—which was ultimately a wise decision seeing as we were both too emotional to think clearly about it. He offered some incentives to stick around for a few months and told me to think on it. Honestly, how long I stay will be a direct result of which next step I am going to take and how soon that next step has to happen. If I get the job at my friend's place and it pays me well and gives me good hours, I'm going to take it...whenever they need me. If it's too soon, that may anger my boss but it's a risk I might have to take. If, however, the process at this corporate place takes a little longer (which, in a place as big as that, I'd imagine it may take up to a month to finalize everything), it could be a perfect amount of time. Long story short, I am making moves to get out of there - I just don't know when or how yet. But he knows, he understands, and he is willing to work with me (as long as I work with him, I'm sure) to make it a smooth transition with no hard feelings.
I have no words to describe the feeling that yesterday left me with. Some mixture of humiliation, relief, guilt, and vacancy. My co-worker was nice enough to work this Saturday for me so I can have these 2 days (and most of tonight) to wrap my brain around everything that happened, put the shattered pieces of my stomach back together, pick myself up, and decide what my next move is.
I read this article in the meantime about a lady's journey to becoming a freelance illustrator. Some good stuff in there. That may be my first attempt at happiness. I always thought that the freelance lifestyle might suit my tastes most comfortably but it's not an overnight transition so I'm still looking for that full-time job which can support me in the way I need to be supported without taking over my life. It's a stepping stone. An avenue for change. A means to an end - not the end itself; which is something I've yet to actually ask for in a job.
1.01.2013
New Year's Resolution (NYR'13) - Day 1
I'm going to chronicle the Resolution Drawings on my other website/blog. Here is a link to Day 1's post.
I decided to go with hands for January. 31 days - that's a lot of hands!!
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