bored...

Join me for "An Afternoon in the Life of Diedre." I am currently sitting in my father-in-law's home office, scanning a bazillion pages out of business textbooks as part of some contract work for a professor. I am listening to Beck on my iPod. I am bored. The sad thing is that I'm being paid about $4 more per hour than I am at my coffee shop job. I work so much harder there...they really don't pay me enough. Hence my jobhunt.

Oh, an update on that: my second interview for the youth work job is next week. I'm thinking it will go well. That job will be exciting because it will make use of all my abilities and then some. That job will not be exciting because the salary is confusing. They will provide a salary of $21,000, and I am supposed to fundraise the rest of my salary to a maximum total of $35,000. This is all fine and well if you come from a church culture where missionaries are funded entirely by private donors. This is the kind of community the organisation comes from. They think they're being pretty avant-garde by ensuring a minimum salary. However, I do not come from this kind of "missionaries find their own funding" kind of church culture. Where am I supposed to find the extra money? I don't want to ask family, because that's just awkward. (Hey Uncle Bob...want to pay my salary while I work for people you've never heard of?) I don't want to ask my church back in Toronto, because they already helped me plenty with my two undergrad degrees. (Thanks for paying my university fees...now that I've finally graduated, want to pay my salary too?) I don't want to ask my new church here in Vancouver either, because I'm just too new to be asking them for money. Besides, one person from this church already works for the same people, and apparently it's been awkward when she asks them for money, and she's even a longtime upstanding member. Can anyone offer any suggestions? I'm kind of stumped.

So, I'm still scanning. Now the Foo Fighters are in my ears. I'm chewing on an orange Starburst. These pages are literally torn out of books! I actually have to pull each page apart from the glue binding that holds it to the others. This is difficult for me; I have a certain respect for books, no matter how boring their content may be. Although, I suppose I could happily destroy books that were idiotic, poorly written, ugly, and utterly useless.

Here's an awful book-abuse story: At one of the church youth events this year, we had an obstacle course relay. The kids had to pick up a hymnal, put it on top of their heads, and walk a certain distance. Even this proposal made me queasy...what if the hymnals fell and got their pages bent? Well, they did. And also, as the whole relay was degenerating into chaos, one of the youth actually threw a hymnal at a chair! You can ask Aaron, I almost keeled over and died. I did in fact scream in agony. Perhaps this is all due to my TUMC upbringing (my home church has an uncalled-for number of professional classical musicians in attendance, and the hymnal is an object of reverence), but people here just don't seem to take the hymnal as seriously as I'm accustomed to.

Jars of Clay. Strawberry Starburst. Johnny Cash. Cherry Starburst. Peter Gabriel. Strawberry Starburst.

The whole raise-your-own-salary thing has got me back looking for admin-ass jobs just in case a perfect one shows up. There is undoubtedly more money to be had in admin assistance than in ministry. However, I want to start my career already! I've already had a just-a-job job for a year. As Lolo has pointed out, you need experience in a field to get hired in that field. I gotta start now! So I guess I still want the piddly $21,00 salary because I'll be putting my noggin to use.

Bjork. NO MORE STARBURSTS. Radiohead. (This is a very Diedre playlist...)

I suppose I should stop pestering all you blog-readers before I lose you all. Well, have a good afternoon. Hopefully you all make lots of money in your fulfilling careers.