I made some chicken salad for lunch, today. I poured some store-bought raspberry vinaigrette dressing over it. I drank a cup of tea with milk, afterwards. I also picked my mom up from Walmart where she was doing some grocery shopping; we drove home and I put the groceries away in the kitchen.
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My first few weeks at my new job didn’t go exactly as planned. I decided to resign and look for a different type of opportunity. I have a phone interview coming up in a few days—this Tuesday. I hope it goes ok. It’s for a case worker position at a homeless shelter/social services nonprofit in my city. I’ve never been a case worker before, but I have office assistant and community service volunteer work experience. My educational background is in English literature and liberal studies. I hope to get the chance to work in case management; I hope this upcoming opportunity goes through and ends well for me. If for some reason it doesn’t—as in, it doesn’t go well—this will be yet another indication that I should probably orient myself towards creative media, film and video editing. That’s my backup plan and my ‘natural state’; creative media is my natural inclination. | I’ve tried to work retail, I’ve tried to work at a bakery, and I tried behavior technician work. I was also an after-school tutor for a little bit. I don’t think I’ve really found myself through them, I don’t think those jobs were right for me. I think this case worker possibility might be ok for me. I might be wrong, but it seems like it’s partially based on looking through documentation, researching people, places, and services that can help the clients, and other office-based work. The other half of the job is more about talking with clients, assessing their needs, carrying out intake interviews, referring clients to appropriate resources in the local community that can help them with their specific needs, and etc. I come from a literature background, and so I think I’ve got the reading and writing part down, pretty much. But the interactive part of the job might be a bit of a steep learning curve for me. I’ve done a bit of interviewing before for college assignments and for my volunteer work; and I’ve spoken to members of the general public before as a volunteer for a nonprofit organization. But it wasn’t systematic or continuous contact with different people, on a constant basis. And it wasn’t very involved work. Instead, it was rather simple question-and-answer sessions about certain topics, and general, brief communications about the mission and programs of the nonprofit I was with. And so it was very basic, simple interviews and basic PR work, so to speak. (I.e., I’ve done a few basic interviews for class assignments and for the type of programs I was involved with at my nonprofit.) But I have the feeling that case management can be very intricate and involved, in stark contrast to the rudimentary assignments I’ve done before. It can get deep, and a person has to be ready for that. It’s not for the faint of heart, and you can’t let your nerves get the better of you while you’re at the job, while you’re doing your work. That’s probably the most important character trait for this type of thing, I think; you have to keep a level head. Centered clarity, you have to work from centered clarity.
| If I don’t make it past the interview stage for the aforementioned job, I’ll look around for receptionist work in my city while I take my online classes in film and video. I don’t think I’ll chase this case worker thing; I don’t think I’ll apply for other entry-level jobs in case management. The only reason I applied for this specific job is because it seemed like it might be a good fit. I very briefly worked at a bakery and at a developmental services center recently; and I considered retail and after school tutoring, becoming an elementary school tutor again. But maybe receptionist work and focusing on my studies would be a better bet, for the coming few years.
| I think I’ve finally decided on film and video production for my long-term career. Post-production work, compiling/editing footage into cohesive and logical and aesthetically pleasing sequences. (There’s lots of other steps that go into it, but that’s the idea in a nutshell, I guess.) It’s exciting to be part of the production process for the media we consume, and there’s lots of good opportunities in film/video editing, I think. A person can work in independent film, she can work with film companies, film studios; s/he can work with local tv stations, helping to put together their programming; s/he can work with creative media agencies and video production companies, working on outsourced projects like wedding videos, community event vids, nonprofit vids, etc. | I was a literature major in college. I guess creative literature and film and video all go together, in a way. It’s all creative work that helps to tell important stories. Some of my best resources in life, the most helpful ones and the ones that I kept going back to and referring to for intellectual, spiritual, and emotional support and counsel, were films, actually. Biopics, documentaries, and etc. I think biopics, documentaries, dramas, and historical dramas are my favorite niches. I actually watched Losing Isaiah yesterday, with my mom. It was quite touching, really moving and socially relevant without being moralistic or didactic. This past year I also watched The Secret Life of Bees; The Great Debaters (based on a narrative of an African American college debate team in the 1930s in the U.S.); Johnny Cash, The Redemption of An American Icon; Bob Dylan, Odds and Ends; Freedom Writers (I rewatched this); Life of a King; and a couple others. I really liked all of them; the ones that stuck out most for me were Losing Isaiah and Life of a King. Those were probably my favorites, I liked them a lot. | I hope everything goes ok for me and for everyone in the near future. My backup plan in case I don’t make the cut for the case worker job is to find work as a receptionist or office assistant/admin assistant, while I take my classes (my certificate) in film and video production. I’m not sure why I kept straying from my roots, the past couple of years. I know deep down I’m a creative type and a content-creator type. It’s high time to really do what I’m comfortable with, I guess. Working as a caseworker would be cool too, though. If I didn’t have a shell around me and I wasn’t shy and introverted, I might have done that as my regular job. (Caseworker.) *But it’s not what you do, it’s how well you do it. I’d love to help people through receptionist work while I finish up school, my certificate in post-production videography and filmmaking. I actually really wanna work at a nail salon or a hair salon. I think I’d get discounts on products, and I’d gain some good receptionist/secretarial experience while I finish up my college certificate. | I’m glad I made it this far; I guess I really do have a plan and some good hopes and dreams for the future. It seems like other 29- year olds are buying their first houses (or renting their first apartments), and have already moved along well in their careers. But it’s ok, we’re all on our own journeys. | I wanna brush up on my Arabic skills—and by that I mean I wanna finally study it in a formal manner. The only skills I have in that language are what I’ve learned from speaking it at home; I’m semi-fluent. I speak in the Sudanese dialect, though. I wanna become proficient in modern standard Arabic; proficient in reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension. I also wanna learn Spanish so that I’m at least conversational at a basic level. I took Spanish I, II, and III in high school. I think learning that language will help me in my secretarial work, office assistant work, and etc. It might even help me in my film work, if I ever happen to work on Spanish-language films or films that contain spoken Spanish.
-all praise is due to god, in every circumstance. | keep your chin up and head up, god is with you. ❤ 💛 may god bless us all and have mercy on us, the living and the deceased. May He grant us heaven and eternal happiness with him, in heaven. ❤ 💛✨ -ameen.
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