Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to wish everyone Merry Christmas ( a day late).  My cousin (Bobbi) and I, took her husband (Ken) to the airport for a flight to Salt Lake City so he can work ski patrol for the next 10 days.  After that, Bobbi and I went to one of her friend’s houses for dinner.  There were just four of us – me, Bobbi, Peter (the friend) and Pat (Peter’s ex-wife).  Bobbi and got there around 3pm.  We thought that they were waiting for us to eat dinner.  Instead, we got there and dinner was no where near being ready.  So we started off by helping get dinner ready, played scrabble while the food cooked (I finished 2nd!) and finally ate around 7pm.  All in all, a good Christmas.

BTW, I do have a few pictures from the snow here.  Bobbi thinks it’s funny that I took the pictures from inside the house.  I’m no fool!  Actually it was quite beautiful here and if I were a photographer and liked the cold better, this would be a great time to be taking pictures.

And speaking of pictures, I think I’ve finally found a way to recover my photos from Queretaro, Mexico.  I had to order something from Ebay (which fortunately only cost $1).  Once that arrives, I will hopefully be able to post them.

leaving the house

I left the house today.  That may not seem like a big deal to most of you but for me it was a pretty momentous event.  This was my first time outside in about 3-4 days.  Have I mentioned that it’s cold and snowy here?  In fact, I did a little research and this appears to be the worst snow season for this area in 40 years!  Lucky me.  You do know that I hate the cold and snow, right?  Hate it with a passion.  How I ever survived all those winters in Ohio, I’ll never know.  So I sat in my cousin’s house for several days, watching the snow fall outside the window.  And fall.  And fall.  And fall some more.  Sometimes it seemed like it would never stop.  Well today it finally did stop.  So I decided to walk down to my cousin’s deli.  That was about my only option.  Being in a small town without a car, there aren’t many places to go.  And the local bus doesn’t run on weekends.  (and with all the snow, it may not be running during the week either; being a small town that generally doesn’t get much snow, they don’t clear the roads around here).  So here I am, having just finished a hot chocolate.  And I’m realizing I really have nothing else to tell.  And nothing else to do except head back home.  That’s how unexciting my life is right now.  But it’s also stress free so I guess I can ‘t complain!

clarification

Clarification:  I’m not sure why but some people interpreted my last post to mean that I’m going back to Mexico.  I’m not.  I thought the use of the word “if” in the first and last paragraphs would make that clear but I guess not.  I was only speaking hypothetically.   

Snow: We got snow here the other day.  And you all know how much I LOVE snow.  Not!!!  And it looks like the temperature’s going to stay cold for a while.  Hmmm….maybe I will go back to Mexico! ha, ha

Job Search Update: I’m finally making some progress on my job search.  I found about 5-7 jobs to apply to in the Portland area.  I’m also looking into applying for some jobs in the Raleigh/Durham area though I’m not sure if that’s a good use of my time.  Not sure if employers will give me a chance if I’m not local.  And now that it’s turned cold here, I’m really thinking that I’d like to move to the Tampa/St. Pete area.  But I’m having a hard time finding any jobs in that area that are worth applying to.  So I will likely stay here in Portland.

Which One?

So here’s a question I’ve been thinking of.  If I were to live for an extended time (say a year or more) in one of the three countries I visited for , which one would I pick?  (I’m going to leave Tet out of this cause that would make the decision too easy).  

First, I’ll review what I liked and didn’t like about each place:

Mexico: I really loved all the cutlural activities and the compact walkable cities with lots of beautiful architecture.  And while the weather was somewhat hot it was nowwhere near as hot as Thailand or the Philippines.  The main downside was the lack of English.  It also wasn’t that vegetarian friendly (though every city I visited had at least one vegetarian restaurant).

Thailand:  The food….oh my!  A vegetarian’s paradise!  Plus it was surprisingly English friendly.   On the other hand, it was hot and there just didn’t seem to be much to do.  And while it was English friendly, most people spoke broken English which made conversations difficult (and I wasn’t about to try and learn Thai while I was there)

Philippines:  Definitely the most English friendly place that I visited.  I also feel the people were friendlier here.  Which is a bit unfair since there was less of a langauge barrier.  But I do feel like I received more genuine smiles in the Philippines than in Mexico or Thailand.  The downsides…way too hot and the food wasn’t vegetarian friendly.  Oh, plus the major cities are really spread out and hard to walk around.

So….which one will it be….thinking…thinking…

Answer:

Mexico.  As I mentioned, the biggest issue was the language barrier.  But Spanish would be fairly easy to learn (at least relative to Thai, for example).  And once I learned the language I’m sure I could find more food to order.  Plus, I’m not sure I could survive the heat in Thailand or the Philippines.  A short time was fine, but an extended time would be really hard.  And ultimately, I really liked the culture and the cities in Mexico.  But if I went back I’d probably go somewhere like Mazatlan which has lots of cultural activites but is also close to the water.

job hunting

Since I’ve settled in at my cousin’s house, I spend most of my days searching for jobs, spending hours and hours in front of my computer.  But I have no idea how to go about this.  I really haven’t had to look for a job since 1998 when I finished public policy graduate school.  Back then, I knew I was going into public policy and I knew I was moving to DC. Now….I have several areas of the country that I’m interested in living in.  And I really don’t wany to go into public policy. But since that’s where most of my experience is, it’s easiest to apply for those sort of jobs.  And it’s probably harder to switch careers during a recession since employers can be a lot pickier about who they hire.

On top of that, the internet wasn’t that big of a deal back in 1998.  Today, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of websites that list job openings.  Some of them are general sites that have listings for all different types of occupations; others are targeted to specific occuptions.  It’s all very overwhelming.  

So…I am making progress, but it’s taking a lot longer than I expected.