Go to Your Destiny

Originally written on 23 November at 2:37pm. Though the photo was taken the morning after.

As I type this, I am cruising north on a rickety railroad in a hootin’-and-tootin’ train. I’m passing by quaint towns you thought only existed in movies, an Amish-looking county or two, and woods that look like a scene from Twilight. By the time you read this, however, I’ll have been on a bus, train, ferry, and car in six hours to be on the outskirts of civilization. It was sort of planned, sort of spontaneous. I just figured it would be nice to get out of town for a week to celebrate Thanksgiving and relax before I begin my new job.

The view from my final destination. Pardon the quality, it was taken with my phone.

Yes, you read that right – a new job. I’ll finally be another 9-to-5er! My job is within the development field, and I’ve known for quite some time that this is what I want to pursue.

I was bummed when Ridiculous Organization in San Francisco rescinded its job offer after they decided at training that I was too young. But I’m not lying when I say I wasn’t excited for the job with Ridiculous Organization. All that went through my mind was, ‘Well, I guess I’m no longer underemployed.’ With this job though I was beyond ecstatic when I was offered the position. I’m talking jumping up and down, squealing, and calling my friends. Everything felt right: there’s a team I get to collaborate with, the rest of the staff is fantastic, I actually believe in the organization’s mission and values, the salary and benefits package are great, and I get my own office! None of that can be said for the job with Ridiculous Organization.

I’ve been trying to get into the field of development. During the process, I learned the differences between a donor-centric organization (relationship-focused and donor-driven; it’s about the donors) and a program-centric organization (transaction-focused and appeals-driven; it’s about the money). And there’s a growing general consensus that nonprofits should be donor-centric, which I support. Looking back, I see now that Ridiculous Organization is program-centric whereas my amazing organization is donor-centric.

So, I’m glad that I’m on the right track. All I’ve been doing following my destiny and I like where it’s going right now.

When It Rains, It Pours.

Hard. Too hard.

Excuse me while I get on my soapbox to rant (ever so elusively) some more.

To make the past week and a half even worse, I found out today that I am no longer moving to San Francisco. Yes, you read that correctly. No more San Francisco. No more of ‘The Move.’ I was moving to San Francisco because I was offered a fantastic job there but after a 12 hours of non-stop training and some talking, there was mutual consensus that I bit off more than I could chew. I say ‘mutual’ with hesitation because I would have liked to gone ahead and given it a shot, but they didn’t want to risk that because a lot of time, commitment, and money will be involved.

Long story short: the position is usually offered to someone in their late twenties/early thirties with several years of post-undergrad work experience under their belt whereas I am a fresh out of college, 22-year old with “zero” years of experience. Oh, and they decided to place me in a state that runs multi-million dollar campaigns instead of a state than only needs to earn $50,000 by the end of the year.

I’m upset, mad, and relieved. Upset because I turned down another job offer (and-a-half) for this and, well, I’m unemployed. Mad because I do think that I could’ve done a great job once I got the swing of things and they didn’t want that learning curve even though I’m new. At all. Relieved because a part of me disagreed with the format of their development program and though I care about the environment I don’t think I’m passionate enough to be an advocate for it. Education, yes. Health, yes. Multicultural/international issues, yes. Environment? Maybe not so much.

So, the rest of my day is going to be spent in bed watching old Stargate episodes save that dinner trip to Applebee’s with my friends to cheer me up.

Life sucks sometimes. What’s my plan of action? Relax for a few days, then head home to Manila by the end of the month.

Rough Week

It’s nearly 2am; I’m tired but I can’t sleep. This has been one ridiculously tough and draining week.

• I lost someone–things between us will never be the same again.
• I lost some three pounds in one week due to a lack of appetite (and eating would only make me nauseous).
• I haven’t been able to sleep properly/continuously without waking up at 4am needing to read or go online to be able to fall asleep again.
• I’m nervous and scared shit-less about this whole move to San Francisco. I don’t even want to write down all that goes through my head in rapid-fire succession when I think of SFO even for a split second.
• And, tonight, I couldn’t determine where the fine line was between just looking after someone and seeking professional help.

Sigh.

I’ve had stressful weeks because of academia but I don’t I’ve ever been this emotionally tired before.

So, I’m Leaving On a Jet Plane

To encourage and motivate myself in this lonely (less and less) exciting/(more and more) scary relocation to San Francisco I’m going to write little updates of what I’ve done during the day to make progress in the whole moving process.

So far today, I:

• Bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco! Ahk.
• Created an Excel spreadsheet to really figure out and budget my relocation expenses. Oh boy, it’s… expensive.
• Sent out 50+ e-mails inquiring about housing. Admittedly, these were in two bulks: 1) to landlords/owners to rent an apartment on my own and 2) to potential roommates for shared housing.

San Francisco, Here I Come!

I’m moving to San Francisco, CA in about, oh, two and a half weeks. It’s both exciting and scary for the same reasons: I’m doing this on my own; I’m moving to a city where I have no friends; and I (sort of) get to start over. There’s no doubt that I’ll be chronicling the move to SFO on this blog that I’ve neglected for the past few weeks.

On a slightly different note, I just saw this on this week’s PostSecret.

It made my heart skip a beat.