hi all. well let me tell you about unemployed hell! well, ok, life isn't hell, it's just the job search thing. a friend of mine was telling me that adulthood keeps getting pushed further and further back due to the poor economy and having to go to grad school to get a real job (anything where your schedule is actually 9-5, and that covers the rent in a week of work as opposed to three)...etc. i guess greg, you might be proof of this. i spent last night on a "working interview", and by this i mean i went to a job, a european pastry shop, and they trained me for an hour and then i waited on customers the rest of the night and helped them close, and all they gave me was dinner! i'll find out later this week if they're going to hire me. so, no income as of yet, hopefully i'll be able to cover december's rent without crawling on my hands and knees to mommy and daddy.

besides that though all is well. i'm in good company in my unemployed hell. joe and i are sitting here right now each doing job stuff, nat is continually looking to get out of the waitressing game, and suz and marta are also in similar situations where their time is being taken, but little is being shown in return (ie benefits). so i'm not really sure if this is a pity, pity blog, or if i just need to rant. it feels good to be outraged at the way those who want to work are treated because then at least you know you haven't succumbed to, "of course we can individually wrap 25 tartlettes for you, and put them in a box with a bow too :)" without rolling your eyes.

thanks for listening. love to you all.
j lo

love to you all

ok. i tried posting saturday, but failed profoundly when blogger ate my post. so here i go again. i thought i had a lot to say. perhaps not. i've spent most of the past week ill. freshers' flu. no fun. and then i gave it to jack. he got even sicker than i did. whoops. what am i doing?

i hung out with my friend joe figini over the weekend, friday in oxford and saturday in london. good times. he took me out for high tea. at some swanky hotel. £40 each. everything in this country is so expensive. i asked jack if that's because the island is just so small. he laughed at me.

i just realized that i can fly to milan for a weekend for £40. hmmm. tea or milan? that said, having tea was the first time i've been full since i got to this country. all i want right now is a burrito from la sirenita. mmmmm. michelle, can you be my proxy on this one? oh, also: i might be in portland in december or january. more details to come.

i had an entirely unproductive weekend. but i did a lot of work yesterday, and i plan to do a lot today, as well, as soon as i get my lazy butt to the library. i'm slowly becoming reaccustomed to life as a student. slowly. but that's fine. i have 3 years to do this thang.

i'm absolutely certain that there are other fun things to tell y'all. but i'm drawing a blank. i'm doing well. i'm a little homesick/mac house-sick/dc-sick. which i guess just goes to show that i'll never be satisfied anywhere. i go home in less than 6 weeks. i'm very excited for christmas time. especially here. i feel like christ church will do advent justice. hurrah. crazy anglicans.

ok. off to la biblioteca. to quote tupac, "keep your head up, legs closed, eyes open."

[a.ho]

hello, hello! not too much going on here. no job to speak of yet, i'm still working on it, but slowly life is becomin enjoyable. i had a good weekend hanging out with UR kids, and am spending this afternoon with bern, meghanne and becky. so life is good. i still need a job, but realize now that it's going to take a bit longer than i'd anticipated, so with that in mind, i'm looking for babysitting positions and piddly retail stuff to get me through and to help pay rent until i can fin something up my professional alley. hey, if i worked in a bakery it'd be good life skills for my future coffee shop! i guess i'm just not going to be a professional quite yet. in fact, i'm even going to go down to the big department store this afternoon to find out if they need any elves for the holiday season. come on, you can see me doing this, can't you?

back to a little job search and then some gre/grad school stuff. i miss you all and talk about you incessantly still to my UR peops.

lots of love,
jules

ps meghanne and i went downtown on friday at 12:30 for a free guster show at the virgin record store. it was lots of fun, y'all would've loved it.

alright all, i'm starting to lose will. won't anyone call me back about a job? come on already.

my days are full of trying to figure out grad school crap, studying for the gre and looking for a job and i'm tired, overwhelmed and bored? i need encouragement. i think i'm going to go out with a friend from malone tonight, so that'll be good, but if i don't change up this lifestyle soon i'm going to go insane, or maybe i'm going to go to malone, who knows. i tried to go on an adventure this afternoon, but after i witnessed this one guy freak out on another guy and start pushing him around, i just decided to go home.

shannon, i'm glad you enjoyed geeksquad.com. i actually haven't been yet. but the story for the rest of you is that as bern, meghanne and i were walking to a bar last night, jvc yeah for motivation, we saw this parked car that said geeksquad on teh side. we didn't know what to do, but realized there was a person in the car, and that it was probably imperative that we talk to this person. so we talked to him, and he gave us free geek squad t-shirts, and told us about his business-an on-call computer company. it was amazing. the whole exchange was ridiculous as we tried to tell him why we were so excited, but not really wanting to go into "well, i used to live in a commune see, and all we did was read, and we were rather anti-social, and we talked about the structure of glucose at parties and then there were fez monkey's and see that's how you get the geek squad," the guy never really got a full explanation.

alright, i must go utilize this precious computer time for more productive activities.

sending my love,
julie

hello all,

um, well, what can i say, i'm at the library, pulling some stuff together...another week of job search and grad school stuff, but all and all i can't complain.

shannon, i wish there were some more exciting jeremy details to give, but there aren't. i think i'm not so excited about him now that i'm not in the limiting world of jvc, although after the all gay men party bern and i went to on friday at her friend carmello's, i don't seem to have to many more options now than there were in portland, the night found me primarily talking to brandon. anyway, jeremy wasn't around too much, he was at a reunion and at his parents, but he's moving here in june, so...well, really, probably nothing will happen then either. i'm not sure he's my type. i'm not really sure what that means. i'm not really sure my type. i think i just have many other things on my mind right now that don't involve boys. i think this is most likely. i did get to spend saturday night though with an adorable 5 and 8 year old, and then hung out and watched tv, and got paid really well. so that was good. and teh parents were super cool and the husband owns a bar.

so that's about it here. quiet weekend, i must go now and search for job stuff. more soon. oh, A, can you blog Katie's email. thanks.

love, j

ps. i do love the barbara streisand stuff.

belated happy birthday, michelle!

i hope your travels east go splendidly.

it's cold here again. after several lovely days, we're back to, well, fucking freezing.

today was matriculation. they made us all wear our funny subfusc (good scrabble word)--cap and gown, dark suit, white shirt, white bow tie--and march through town to please the tourists. then they read at us in latin and now i'm officially an oxford student. little happy dance.

in the exciting news front, i got to meet margaret atwood on tuesday. she's a little woman. but yeah. went to london. got thoroughly freaked out by an exhibit at the tate modern. came home. had nightmares about it. lovely, i tell you. but all in all a good day in london.

i'm headed back monday for our party with the queen and nelson mandela. oh how exciting this will be. i hear the monkey will be in residence at the palace that day, but he prolly won't show up at the party.

i've sorta kinda started seeing this boy named jack. he's a 4th year japanologist undergrad here at chch. and adorable. but he's in london for his mum's 50th birthday party this weekend, so no making out for bubba. sad sad.

i thought there was other stuff to say. hmmm. i'm scared of my supervisor, but i think he likes me.

i need to brush my teeth and return to my reading. all my love to each of you.

mwah!
[a.ho]

stupid job! they still haven't gotten back to me. i hate that. i hate it, i hate it, i hate it...aaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

oh, and i had lunch with jeremy.

happy weekend.
love, j

Happy Birthday Michelle!!!! In honor of your birthday, bern and i are making black eyed peas and apple crisp and having her sister over for dinner. I hope you enjoy the Bean and have a great day. B and i will try giving you a call later. i can't believe i haven't physically talked to you since august. that will have to end soon.

to everyone else, hi, things are going...no exciting news yet, but i am getting massively in shape and starting to know chicago. i went on a 6 mile run today! then back to the cover letters.

hope all is well with everyone. love you and miss you.

jules

hey everyone. things are going well here in chicago. still no job, but i had an interview on friday. i'll find out this week. it's awfully nerveracking checking email, but no news yet today. hopefully tomorrow. they said by the end of the week. i guess until then i should start looking for other positions.

it was a good weekend here. i've been hanging out with bern's fam, getting to know them all. her mom is great (she's the one i've spent the most time with), she took us apple picking yesterday. the weather is beautiful. perfect for exploring and wandering. but this week i have decided to get my act together and put my nose to the grindstone for grad schools and teh such. i miss you all. i'd love to hear updates.
love, jule

hello, all...

life here is wonderful, still. i actually dragged my butt to the bodleian yesterday. and quite enjoyed studying it off there. but now i must leave for a rhodes lengerie party. what happens at oxford stays at oxford, right?

i'm really just posting to say: LOOK TO THE RIGHT! i added a link to my website. i do a little blog there everyday, if you're ever bored. and there are some pics of my college hidden in there, if you can find them. cheers.

just read get fuzzy-that one may be worthy of getting on a mug.

not too much new here. just hanging out, going to shop at trader joe's and then explore one of the parks here. it's been beautiful out-70+ degrees. but honestly, i dont' know what to do with all this unstructured free time. a full city at my disposal and all i can think is "what if i don't get either of these jobs?" i have massive moving credit card bills coming due in november. i guess there's always temp work. i just have to keep telling myself that.

i'm off to read get fuzzy right now shannon, i love it so. and then to check out some job web sites, just in case. can't wait to hear about the new boy. i have to start meeting some of those. hmm. once i get settled and meet some people. i met a boy yesterday on the el, but he was just passing through town and i'm sure he was gay.

love to you all,
jules

hey kids!

well i'm here in chicago at the local library of course, which is conveniently located near bern adn my apartment, but sadly they only give you a half hour of comp. time here, so this is just a quikc hello so i have time to read get fuzzy before i get kicked off.

life is good. i have had two interviews and one asked me for a call back, so i reinterview with them at teh end of this week or beginnning of this week. i need a job or i'm going to go crazy. there is so much to do here, but no one to explre with :( because they all work.

here's my phone and address and bern's too. i love you all and miss you and can't wait til you come and visit and bern and i get to show you around. more soon.
love, j

ph.773-549-1885
2044 W. Fletcher Ave.
Chicago IL, 60618

hello from merry old england, kiddos!

i sent you all my updated contact info. not that much has changed, really, unless you want to call me. if you call my old cell number, you'll get bobbo, which you're certainly welcome to do if you fancy it.

some words, like fancy and cheers i can't say without the british accent.

i've decided that most of being a rhodes scholar is just keeping your shit together in front of important people after getting drunk on the free booze they keep throwing at us. what a change from jvc.

i really like my fellow rhodents. BUT it is somewhat disconcerting that as best i can, oxford is a grad school for american kids. oh well. the undergrads come up next week, and that will mix things up a bit.

the buses here are so scary.

i got my formal invitation to buckingham palace this morning. fancy pants.

i slept the whole flight over.

rhodes house is ridiculous. we're so handled here.

j&b--how are the new digs?
g - what new on the banking front? have you already joined corporate america?
s - absolutely nothing scandalous has happened since i got here. i miss you.
m - don't worry about a life plan...as best i can tell, we're all on the same page with that one. i want to hear more about this chris fellow, though. :-D

ps - i have an event today the dress for which is defined as 'smart casual.' wtf does that mean?

love love love,
[a.ho]

in all my packing funness (probably not a real word), i was trying to catch up with everything i said i would do while i was home, so i applied to a bunch of grad programs last night, sent out some more cover letters, and now i'm blogging the black eyed pea recipe. Enjoy!

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 cup chopped onions
1 garlic clove, minced or pressed
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger root
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1 teaspoon tamarind concentrate (can substitute 1 to 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice)
3 cups cooked black eyed peas (two 16 oz. cans, rinsed and drained)
1/2 cup chopped fresh tomatoes
2 cups rinsed and chopped fresh spinach

Heat the oil in a skillet or nonreactive saucepan. Add the onions and garlic and saute on medium-high heat until the onions are soft and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the ginger, cayenne, cinnamon, cardamom, coriander, and salt and mix well. Stir in the water, tamarind, and the black-eyed peas, cover, and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and spinach and cook just until the spinach wilts, about 1 minute.

Serve immediately.