give me some cheese, i'm about to whine

usually i take at least a little time to write a post, but this time you're going to get it straight as it comes. i've talked about it before and this probably won't be the last time i do: job search. <---- hate you.

although i sometimes find fun things to do with my unemployed time, believe it or not, i spend a pretty good amount of time browsing the web for employment. checking out good ol' monster, maybe careerbuilder, i don't know what else, there are tons of them. here's the problem-- what's legit? after having some interviews this spring, i realized i really need to better investigate what i'm getting into. look for some key words, find some things to stay away from-- but how are you supposed to know when you are interviewing for a "junior account executive position" you are actually applying to stand around and hand out flyers? hello, not what i signed up for-- i didn't even need to go to college for that, if i wanted to do that i would have skipped high school got my "high school equivilant", as they call it, and hung out and passed out flyers for the rest of my life. i understand that there is some, for lack of better word, bitch work in the beginning of every job, i have no qualms with that.. but i'm not trying to do that for the rest of my life. so save those jobs for the people without educations and stop promoting them to the people with them. thank you for wasting my sweet sweet time.

and anoooother thing, job sites-- let's talk about signing up for you. sure i'll sign up, i'll just give you my name, e-mail, phone number, address and give me a job-- sweet deal, i'm down. na na na na noooo. 1) somehow i start getting spam text messages as soon as i sign up for another site. click ok, instantly my phone beeps. that's interesting, not only an e-mail confirmation but a spam text from some east coast area code too?  i get all sorts of pumped when i get texts these days, then it's a huge let down... i don't need anymore let downs, i'm already unemployed--jerks. 2) these e-mails i get (yes on occasion they are mildly helpful), i get them like 5 times a day. i never said that i want to work in the area i live in...both places i've been living i would like to move away from, so when you send me jobs in gary, indiana and detroit, trust me, i'm not feelin' it.

next up-- i am a person with decent grades, great experience, solid awards/honors and so on. hi, why am i extremely overqualified or extremely under-qualified for everything... where is the in between?? i can either get an internship (i've had four internships already--what were those for then??) or i can get some kind of job that i am over qualified, resulting in a dead end-- solid options? i think not. i am just so puzzled. what is even more puzzling, now that i have finally found a way around the sketchy jobs (handing out flyers like a child) i'll be hanging, browsing, doing my thing and i'll take my sweet time to find something legit, before i try to actually go through the tedious application process... oh, hi jennifer-- you have to pay for this site and you have to pay to see the rest of this job description and application. what. the. hell.

so i say goodnight to you after searching for jobs for a few hours, still under employed and totally underwhelmed and under-loved by the working world.

i wanna rock right now.

photo cred: me

music.

i can talk about it all day every day. how depressing would the world be without it? quite. growing up in small town usa, i wasn't exposed to a large variety of music-- we pretty much stuck to rap, country and pop, and then i went to college. whew, i would have been listening to only mainstream garbage music for the rest of my life.. i shutter just thinking about it. music from band of horses, mumford & sons and bon iver have the kind of songs that have changed my whole musical outlook.

here's the thing, i have no shame about the music i listen to, there is so much variety it isn't even funny and most of them i will belt out with the same enthusiasm as the next: britney spears (duh), fleet foxes, girl talk, the righteous brothers, the avett brothers, lil wayne, jefferson airplane, backstreet boys (greatest hits, you better believe it), explosions in the sky, jimmy eat world, kid cudi, the smiths, rebelution, tenacious d --there are 15 bands/artists for you to ponder, but i don't even think that begins to scratch the surface of my spectrum of music and here's the thing, i've gotta know exactly what kind of people i'm friends with-- and to find that out, i find out about their music taste. if i honestly ask myself "am i better friends with people that have fantastic taste in music" 90% of the time i'm going to say; "abso-effing-lutely"

think about people that listen to music like "this is why i'm hot.. i'm hot cause i'm fly, you ain't cause you're not" wow, really, "mims"? lou bega anyone "mambo #5", "in the ayer"? who are those people? i understand people listening to such music as a joke or in a party scene but if i ever find myself with a friend that is like "it's goin' down" is my jaaaam" that's when i'll move to another continent--and you know what kind of songs i'm talking about. i'm not even just singling out rap music, notta chance-- but just throw in anything from justin bieber and i wan't to vomit (kid stop talking about buying rings for the love of your life, aren't you like 11?)

if you reference my 15 listed artists above you might think "jenny how can you justify listening to people like backstreet boys" and here is why; i'm not saying i get all sorts of philosophical over nick carter or that is my music of choice, by any means, but i don't mind jamming out to the likes of nsync, hanson and mandy moore, shamelessly, among friends-- it's pure entertainment. who doesn't like to jam annoyingly to old school pop? (if you don't, stop acting like you're too old/mature to listen to them.) you better believe i know them all by heart, still.

if you looked at me, would you think i would know all the words to a majority of tha carter III album? i think not. i like to keep people on their toes. so jam with me and we'll probably be alright, if not you just stick to your high school 50cent and travis tritt favorites and i'll do my thing (and you keep doing your less cool thing, preferably not near me).

i don't think i'm a music snob (music snobs are annoying) but i just think i have superior taste in music, is that so wrong?

yeah, bro / stop living in the past

hi, hello again. i have two topics today, a little mashup if you will. (yes, i watched the glee finale tonight, judge me.. because i'm judging me)

i'm going to kick off with television chat. not huge on tv, but now that i'm unemployed, well i find myself watching a whole lot of it. before i was like those people that wear the "sell your tv" shirts, besides a few faithful shows. i enjoy the old reliable friends episodes or trying to become more intelligent by watching the history channel, but my jam-- it's always sunny in philadelphia i watch religiously. if you haven't seen it, well that is a shame (new season starts this thursday, get involved) it's clever, crude and comical. it pushes all the boundaries of television entertainment, and i absolutely love it. now this show opened up a door of other ridiculous shows to me: eastbound and down, got back into entourage, weeds-- let the list continue. 

it wasn't until recently that i had no qualms with liking dude-like shows, not-a-one...until i started catching up on entourage via spike.com. the greeting i receive from the site is 

"check out the premier online destination for men"

hey now... i am not a dude, i'm just here to see what vincent chase and the rest of the gang are up to this week. so i'm thinking to myself, why is this the "premier online destination for men" well have you ever seen what else is on spiketv? well check it out: spike tv shows. i certainly don't watch any of those other shows, so i guess i'm alright on that account. 

then i think about it's always sunny in philadelphia, and though the show can be degrading to females, super inappropriate and the list goes on-- i still love it. is that wrong? no it's called a sense of humor without having a big fit about "politically incorrect" comedy. so if i have to go to spike tv to get my laughs, so be it, bro. 

next up.

anyone ever seen varsity blues? great movie, i'm fine with looking at the dawson's creek dude throughout that movie, along with paul walker. ohh-- and i really enjoy football so, huge win. but here's the thing, billy bob and company really remind me of some people i know. you guessed it, high school football in my hometown. well not necessarily my hometown, but my school. naturally "varsity blues" is a little bit of a dramatization of many of those things, but other parts, pretty accurate. 

do you ever look back on facebook (or some other social networking site) at people from high school? in my case, yes-- but not just at people from my high school, but from high schools around us (let's just say fellow country kids). it's like high school sports were the world... and it's not like i hate on high school athletics i played two sports 4 years varsity each, so boom. but i'm not here for self praise. there are kids on facebook still adding their high school number at the end of their facebook statuses.. kid, you are no longer #3, you are no longer in high school, you probably haven't even played baseball/football/basketball competitively since high school. what is the deal?

also, i have nothing against tattoos but why must you put your last name all over your body and then add a number somewhere else like  BROOKS #24 FOR LIFE. really, for life? one, did you forget your name? two, are you going to wear a #24 jersey, from high school, until the day you die? three, were you even that good? come on now... back to my first point of this entry, it's always sunny in philadelphia makes a brilliant point on this. mac has a few tatoos, dennis inquires about them,

Dennis: You cut the sleeves off of all your t-shirts. What, so you could show off your tats? Those are really original, dude.

Mac: They're tribal.
Dennis: Oh, they're—they're tri—I'm sorry, what tribe are you from

exactly how i feel, dennis. mashup complete, boom.

define... "pure"

so in the midwest when we think of big cities we think of exciting places like chicago, milwaukee, even indy; what we don't think about is detroit. oh yeah, i went there, let's talk about it... "pure michigan". firstly i'm from the great mitten state, i don't mind it, i actually have really enjoyed growing up in a state that when i travel i can hold up my hand and tell people exactly where i reside. the thing is, i think i enjoyed michigan a lot more when the slogan was "great lakes, great times" i think it was rather cute. now it's "pure michigan", here is where i get confused. what is pure about the state of michigan right now to people who know nothing about the state besides the failing economy and detroit? not our high points i'd say. if you're from michigan, it probably isn't rare that you argue with your friends from other states about michigan actually not being awful. solid university teams to cheer for (not so much for professional teams), nothern michigan has some great sights, solid history (not so solid present), the u.p., outdoorsy goodness, the great lakes.. yadda yadda yadda.

yet michigan is still up against much criticism and i think a lot has stemmed from this "pure michigan" garbage... not a great idea whoever started that. great lakes great times can be up for interpretation, like "yeah i definitely had a great time while on lake michigan, that slogan is legit" but "pure michigan" what?  check out the spoofs on youtube about "pure michigan" you wont regret it. today i stumbled upon one about u of m football, pretty comical (even more comical not being a u of m fan), and all the videos stick to one major point; poking fun at this slogan-- so people in advertising for michigan, think it over before you have any more brilliant ideas or instead just focus on getting our state out of the gutter. 

the unemployed club

so i decided i wanted to start a blog. why? more like, why not? since i have now come to terms with being unemployed for the time being and not returning to the academic grind like i have all of my life, i need something to fill my time with. i'm extremely happy this blog provides "georgia" font, because it's my favorite, good work blog site. also, i don't use caps in casual settings, don't get offended or confused. most of the time i don't think i have anything too interesting to say, but isn't that how all blogs start? so if you dig it, great, if you don't, well there are plenty of other things you can browse on the internet, so thanks for stopping by, i'll work on being more interesting.


as of mid-may this year i joined many others as a member of the unemployed community. i received no membership information or cool certificate-- i wish there was a cool badge or a group meeting i could attend, since i am, indeed, a member. so far, my fellow members  seem to be getting along without me, browsing job search websites, minding their own business, some club, eh?

college education-- check, outgoing and decently personable-- check, not brain dead-- check (ehh, most of the time). so here i sit, idly on my laptop, taking a break from my job search to say how i feel about it. so far, not great, i am unhappy with my membership in the unemployed club, thus far. i have been living on my own for four years, including three summers not at home, not too shabby. i survived on my own, doing the college thing (somehow) and now i'm back living like a high school kid at my parent's house. yes, there are a few upgrades (hey wireless internet, thanks for coming out), my twenty two years of age (gives me a few more options rather than sitting home watching reruns of mindless television) and having real food instead of living off whatever is cheap and easy to cook (it's been real, ramen noodles)

now don't get too hasty, i don't hate living at home that much. i dig my parents, they are pretty awesome really, but where i live, not so cool. not much to do, my friends are either finishing school or are already fortunate enough to have moved and i'm still stuck in this post college slum. 


my first week home, i got to partake in a nice little unemployment vacation, not too shabby, didn't have to ask anyone for time off, didn't have to work my schedule around anything. northern michigan is pretty awesome, if you haven't been, you should, unless you don't like wilderness or beautiful sights, then it's probably not for you. got to do a nice little wine tasting day, hang out on lake michigian for a week, even hit up the u.p. (eh?). can't be mad about that at all. 


yes, i'm rambling i have a point, i promise. now that i've decided i want to have a blog, there are a lot of things i like to write about: music, traveling, ethnic food, friends, family, sports, post college life, reliving the awesomeness of college life. where do i begin? i can't just choose one, so you know what, i'll probably talk about all of them. if any of those interest you, tune in. if not i hope someone else has a blog that is much more entertaining to you.
until next time (i remember to log in)