Job Hunting Is Depressing

I've been out of work for over a year now, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel so far.  I swear the available jobs are getting fewer and farther between.  I keep hearing that new jobs are being created, but I'm just not seeing any of them.  I wonder where they are going, and what kind of jobs they are.  Any of you others out there who have been out of work having any luck?  I'd had plans to try to get into teaching art and had been accepted to start my Masters in Education to go with my Art degree, but then I couldn't get the financial aid I needed.  I couldn't justify taking out $18K in students loans when there is no guarantee that there would even be any art teacher positions available, much less that I would actually get chosen for one.  Having $18K in debt and still not having a job?  No thanks.  If anything does happen to come up for an art teacher position, I can still apply and if I'm hired I can have a temporary certification through the PACE program, so it's not completely off the table.  My PRAXIS scores are supposed to be good for 10 years I think before I have to retake them.

It's very discouraging to apply to job after job after job and not even hear anything back from most of them.  I'm overqualified for so much of the work that's posted, and not nearly qualified enough for the rest of it, it seems.  I obviously can't get a job in medicine, and it's surprising how many of those types of positions are open in this area! A vast majority of the job postings I see are medical, sales (over my dead body), military recruitment, or "business opportunities".  Ugh.   This sucks.

School Memories: The Kindergarten Years* (Part II)

I mentioned in my first kindergarten memory post that while most of the memories are happy ones, there is one that had a long-lasting, negative impact on me.  This private school I attended allowed teachers to spank the students with a wooden paddle.  They didn't even have to be sent to the principal!  This is not a good idea.  Would you send your child to a school where any teacher having a bad day or a bad year can take out their frustrations on your child?  I don't remember any other spankings I may have gotten at school and can't tell you how many there may have been.  But there was one instance I have never been able to forget. 

I was in class with all my fellow students when Mrs. Browder, my teacher, had to leave the room for several minutes.  She left the door open, and while we tried to remain quiet, of course being only 5 years old we weren't completely successful.  At one point, I was talking to the girl next to me and admiring her dress, which had a tiny, soft velvet bow at her neckline.  Five-year-old girls like soft things.  I felt her little bow and for some reason was really impressed with it and decided to express myself by yelling "Mommy!"  I know, it doesn't make any sense.  But the point is not what I said, but the fact that I said that one word loudly enough for the teacher across the hall to hear me and become irate with me.  She stormed over to our classroom and asked who it was who made that noise.  Being an honest person, I raised my hand.  This woman was one of the Mean Teachers that every student dreads. Her name was Mrs. Parsley, and I don't think I ever saw her smile. She pulled me out of the classroom and dragged me into another room.  It was probably just an empty classroom, but I remember it as being a dark storage closet.  She pulled my dress up and spanked me quite harshly with her wooden paddle. 

After she paddled me, she marched me into her classroom of 2nd graders and made me stand in front of all of those big kids, my face tear-stained and my feelings sorely abused.  (Not to mention my posterior!)  I had to apologize to all those older students for disrupting their class.  I was always a shy child, so this was extremely humiliating and stressful for me.  Even if I had been there for a positive reason, it would have been embarrassing.  And to have to do this in front of the big kids, with tears streaming down my face?  Horrifying.  This woman wasn't even my teacher!  I said ONE WORD loudly enough for her to hear.  She caused more of a disruption to her class with her attack on me than I could have possibly caused with my actions. 

At the time, being as young as I was, I had no idea how inappropriate her actions were.  She was a teacher, an adult, a figure of authority.  It never even occurred to me to tell my parents.  After I was older, I realized just how inappropriate her actions were.  She should have waited for MY teacher to return and told her what I did and let Mrs. Browder discipline me as she saw fit.  She shouldn't have been allowed to grab any random child in passing and lay her hands on them because she felt entitled to do so.  (I wonder how many other students she disciplined who weren't her responsibility.  She probably kicked puppies too.)  I'm assuming she told Mrs. Browder what transpired, but I don't remember her ever speaking to me about it.  If she did, it didn't bear remembering.  I would recall the event often as I grew older, and knew that I was still angry about it.  I have always been grateful that my parents moved me and my brothers to public school after I finished 1st grade, so I never had to have Mrs. Parsley as my teacher!  I never realized how deeply I was affected by this event until sometime during college. 

My extended family was having a 4th of July get-together at the lake.  My grandmother, who still went to the church that was affiliated with the school I attended, invited Mrs. Parsley to the party!  I didn't even know they were friends, but I can tell you that even a bazillion years after I had last seen that woman, I recognized her on the spot.  (I could probably sense her evil aura pulsating through the hot summer air as dark storm clouds appeared out of nowhere to blanket the sun.) I can't begin to tell you how ambushed I felt to see her there.  My own grandmother brought the enemy into our camp!  I had to politely greet this woman when all I wanted to do was toss her into the lake.  And even then, I still thought I was only offended and angry.  As everyone else was outside enjoying the beautiful day, my mom and I went into the house to make some banana pudding.  We were talking and I decided to relate to her the story of that horrible day back in kindergarten.  I started telling her the story, and promptly burst into tears.  Big tears of anger and humiliation that I had apparently still been harboring.  That stupid woman had scarred me! My mom was understandably upset and wished I had told her then.  If only I had thought to do so, I may have gotten over it sooner.

That my dear readers, is my worst school memory.

*Despite the title of these posts, I only spent one year in kindergarten.  But "The Kindergarten Year" just sounded wrong. 

Photo found here.

Shouldn't Peanut Brittle Contain Peanuts?

I was craving peanut brittle for a while and finally decided to find some.  It was not as easy to find as I'd thought it would be.  I remember when I was a younger you used to be able to get it all the time.  I don't actually remember WHERE we bought it, but it wasn't hard to find.  And yet here I am in full craving mode, and I can't find any!  I eventually discovered some in the bakery section at Walmart.  It didn't look very impressive at all, but it was the only peanut brittle I could find.  What is it about cravings getting more adamant when you can't find the thing you are craving?!  So I bought this small package (11 ounces for $3), despite the fact that it has no peanuts!  I think the whole package has a whopping dozen peanuts in it.  You may think I'm exaggerating.  But I'm not!  Behold the proof:

This is what peanut brittle should look like:

And this is what my Walmart peanut brittle looks like:

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

Can you see the sad, sad, difference?  My poor, pitiful peanut brittle.  :(

 

First photo found here.

Soap Magic - The Dispenser for Morons!

Maybe you've seen this commercial. According to the makers of this product, we're too stupid to use regular soap dispensers or bar soap to clean ourselves or wash dishes.  But that's okay!  They're going to save us with this motion-activated soap dispenser. 

I really hate commercials like this.  First of all, I use bar soap plenty, and it NEVER looks all nasty and slimy like the one they show in the commercial.  And if I'm washing dishes and decide I need more soap, I'm smart enough to pick up the bottle with an empty hand instead of using a wet apparently-not-soapy-enough-sponge to grasp it.  Although I'd be willing to bet I could still pick it up just fine even with a sponge in my hand.  That moron in the commercial probably wouldn't have gotten splashed quite so badly with all that water if she hadn't been holding the bottle 2 feet above the water.  Who does that?  And then there is the bathroom scene with the pump bottle of soap that for some reason is all wet and covered in soap bubbles already.  What the heck?  Where do these people live? How would you get all that all over the outside of the bottle?  If there are any people out there who are that messy and sloppy that they actually have these kinds of problems, I don't think even Soap Magic can help them. 

Do they really need to make people look 100% incompetent in order to sell their product?  Are there people out there who see those commercials and think, "Say, I have that same problem every time I need soap!  What a relief that this product exists.  THANK YOU, Soap Magic!"

And another thing - that dispenser sure does dispense a LOT of soap.  Most soap they make now is super concentrated.  That's WAY too much soap! And what happens when you accidentally set off the sensor when you don't WANT any soap.  Like if you are rinsing a dish in the sink or something and the dispenser catches your movement - now you're going to have a big mess of soap on your counter.  And I bet that thing drips too.  They even claim that because kids will think it's "fun" they'll wash more often.  Not likely.  It may be fun the first couple times they play with it, but that won't last.  And if any kids think it's fun, that just means they're going to be playing with the motion sensor and getting soap all over your counter. 

I can't help but wonder how well the motion sensor works.  They've put all those motion sensor sinks, toilets, and even paper towel dispensers in public restrooms, and there's always at least one that doesn't work.  You have to wave your hands around all over to try to get it to turn on, and then if you're lucky it does.  Otherwise you have to work down the row trying to find one that does! Where's the magic in that?

Boy Scout Fail

I went camping this weekend and there happened to be a Boy Scout troop sharing the campground.  Apparently this group had yet to learn anything about caring for the environment, because one kid was hacking on a live tree with a hatchet!  My husband called the kid over and told him not to do that, and the kid was like, "Oh, uh, okay."  Like it never occurred to him that you shouldn't do that.  Dude!  You're a Boy Scout!  You should know better!  And this troop of Boy Scouts had their campsites set up with enormous, "Holy Crap, I'm Afraid of the Dark!" spotlights.  Whatever happened to roughing it?  Lanterns and flashlights?  Stumbling around the campsite by the light of the campfire is the way to go. 

When I was growing up my little brother was in the Boy Scouts, and his troop was full of wimpy little momma's boys.  They rarely did any REAL outdoors events because the other boys' moms wouldn't let them sleep on the ground or even outside.  Come on!  Sleeping indoors is not camping! Why do you think they call it camping OUT?  And heaven forbid little Johnny sneeze or sniffle.  Then mommy wouldn't allow him to go on the trip at all.  And lest you be confused, this is not a group of small children.  These are teenagers!  What a bunch of pansies.  Needless to say my brother soon lost interest and dropped out.  Our family did more hard-core camping and outdoor adventure type stuff when we were in middle school than this Boy Scout troop did ever.  So sad. And having been coddled the way they were their whole lives, they were also devious little brats.  Scout's Honor my arse. 

Saying "He's such a Boy Scout" takes on a whole new meaning when you've encountered the caliber of Scouts I have.  Where are all the honest, survive-in-the-wild Boy Scouts who fathered the stereotype of Scouts being a goody-two-shoes? 'Cause I'm just not seeing it.

My Dishwasher Hates Me

My dishwasher used to work just fine all the time and never gave me any problems.  It's old as dirt - we've lived in this house for 5 1/2 years and it was several years old then.  It is the LOUDEST dishwasher I have ever heard.  When it's running, you can't watch TV in the living room because you can't HEAR it over the dishwasher!  You can actually hear the dishwasher running when you are standing outside in the yard, even with the windows and doors shut.  Honest!  I tested it once. 


Then one day it decided to get screwy.  The door sensor doohickey - whatever it is that turns the machine off if you open the door while it's running, and then turns it back on when you close the door - has gone all wonky on me.  It shuts off in the middle of a cycle because it thinks the door is open.  At first it would do that, and all I had to do was push against the door and it would start back up and finish the cycle.  No big deal.

Then it started shutting off several times in each cycle.  And then - AND THEN - it started messing with me.  The stupid machine would start back up after I pressed on the door, wait for me to walk into the other room, and then immediately shut off again!  It would do this over and over again.  I started waiting in front of the dishwasher for a bit to make sure it wasn't going to shut back off, then when it seemed to be running fine I'd walk out.  Sometimes I'd just step out of the kitchen before it shut off; other times I'd get all the way into the bedroom or hallway before I heard it cut off.  Stupid machine! I swear I heard it snickering at me.  

When it's really feeling feisty, it will stop again as soon as I take my hand off the door.  For one span of time, I had to actually hold my weight against the door to keep it running, and then sloooowly and gently ease away from it.  (I thought maybe I could trick it into behaving!)  One day it just would NOT stay running, and I pulled one of the kitchen chairs in front of it and piled a bunch of heavy stuff on it so it would lean on the dishwasher door and keep pressure on it.  It didn't work.  I get fed up one day after a particularly snarky dance with the machine, and kicked the door.  THAT worked.  For a little while at least.

It's been suspiciously well-behaved recently, which means that some day soon it's probably going to find a way to flood my house or destroy all my dishes.  It's just saving up its energy.