answering the question(s) asked of me in the comments below:

sticking to stuff i've studied, it's not so much that i'm looking for a particular job...i just want to work someplace that actually makes good products. things that i'd feel good having my name on. things that i would want my students to use if i were a teacher. or that i would find useful if i were a student. when i was in grad school, we used and read about some really great educational software and/or projects involving technology in schools, and i was looking forward to actually doing stuff like that for a living instead of just reading about it or listening to people talk about it. but the stuff my company makes is total crap in comparison.

going back to the job thing...i think i'd prefer to design software rather than creating the content that goes in it, but it would be nice to have some say in terms of judging the quality of the content. i also wouldn't mind being more focused on interface design. i guess that would go under things that are slightly related to what i've studied. just because we did spend a good amount of time on interaction design and usability issues that come up when designing software for children. so...any of that would be cool. top priority has got to be feeling good about the end product. i wouldn't even mind designing stuff that has nothing at all to do with education. i enjoy analyzing what tools and features are necessary and how they should work. the context and audience doesn't really matter so much. just want to make something that will actually be used and that will make people's lives easier in some way...

completely unrelated to anything i've studied...hmm, don't know if you mean things that i actually can do, or things that i can only do in my dreams...if i had the talent, i'd love to be involved in music or art or something like that. but i don't. so...as for things i can do...um, something involving travel? not a travel agent. but like...if i were to get paid to travel to places and write about them perhaps? or if i were working for some sort of travel website? (not one where you buy plane tickets, but one that has information on different places.) there's no particular job function that i'm thinking of really, but sometimes you hear about people who have really cool jobs that you didn't know existed - i want one of those jobs.
posted at 11:16 PM |  

went out to dinner with the relatives from india...actually, i spent last night with them too. the whole family got together in berkeley...it was fun. but tonight it was just my dad, his wife, and the two relatives. so it was kinda boring. painfully awkward sometimes. i mean, when we got to the restaurant and were waiting for our food, i think a whole 5 minutes passed without anyone saying anything...

anyway, we ate at ana mandara...i'd never been there before, but it was one of those places i've been wanting to try. i didn't think the food  quite matched up with the decor and location though...i don't know. i like slanted door better.

oh, and get this: i actually called my cousin the wrong name at one point. i felt like an idiot...see, i have these 2 older cousins who live in india, and i've hardly spent any time with them and probably wouldn't have been able to distinguish them if i saw them both. and although i should have known which one was here visiting, i still called her the other cousin's name! embarrassing...

i try, i really do. but i just don't know my dad's side of the family well at all. never spent time when them growing up because i'd always go visit my mom's family instead...so, it just bothers me when i slip up like that. it's hard trying to pretend like you know everyone when you don't. honestly, i don't even know which of my aunts is her mom. and i don't even know if the other cousin i mix her up with is her sister or if they're cousins. and don't ask me to try to name all of my cousins because i'm pretty sure i'd forget some of them.

i'm going to be so lost at the family reunion next year...
posted at 11:56 PM |  

i know i shouldn't be feeling this way, but...it just SUCKS to hear how easily other people get jobs.

my cousin is half-way through a master's program, in a relatively small field. well, maybe not small,  but...specific. like, there are only a handful of companies that would hire people from this type of program. and for that reason, she was a bit hesitant about going into the program in the first place. but anyway, she's been interning at this company in sf over the summer, and they just offered her a full time job. she's not even done with her master's program yet!!

i should be happy for her...and i am in a way, but this other part of me is just...well, jealous i guess. envious of how easy it was for her. sometimes it just feels like good things are happening to everyone but me. yes, i know i have to put some more effort into my life and make good things happen for myself...but i don't even know what to do anymore. so frustrated.
posted at 11:07 PM |  

hard to believe i'm still awake considering how little i have slept the past two nights. upstairs guy(s) were being really irritating last night. it's like someone was constantly in the bathroom between the hours of 3 am and 7:30 am. (not always on the toilet...sometimes it was the shower, sometimes the sink, etc. i have no idea what was going on.)

anyway, i got really pissed off. at one point, i had to get up and slam my bedroom door shut, just to release some frustration. what i really wanted to do was to go up there and kick some ass. like that'll really happen.

it's not even something i can make a formal complaint about - "he pees really loud!"

i don't know what to do. i'm sure it's loud in the other bedroom as well. seems like whenever it was quiet above my room, my roommate was the one being kept awake all night...*sigh*...

just want to find another job and move. i hate feeling like i'm on hold.
posted at 1:21 AM |  

i'm tired...didn't sleep much last night...upstairs guy was making a racket. all night pretty much. his two roommates combined don't make half as much noise as he does. it's ridiculous. i don't know what his problem is.

anyway...been watching some of the speeches at the convention tonight. thought bill clinton's was good (i miss having a president who can speak well). sean's in boston working on some big party or something. probably having a really good time, meeting celebrities and other rich democrats i suppose...like i said before, different worlds.
posted at 11:13 PM |  

big congrats to eck for making it into the hall of fame...he's one of the best players i had the privilege of watching with the A's...although technically, whenever i went to baseball games back in the day, we would usually leave before the 9th inning, to avoid traffic. and that's when eck would come in, generally meaning the win was a sure thing, so...um, yeah. mostly, i watched him on tv, and that made me appreciate his talent even more. anyway, he was one of my favorites. and i'm still pissed at this one kid who stole my eck card, promising me that he would get it signed for me, but i never got it back. this was about 15 years ago. i still see the guy sometimes. and that card is all i think about!!
posted at 11:45 PM |  

berkeley's such a musical place...just walked through campus and heard swing music coming from the physics department, some random drumming coming from faculty glade (i think), a mariachi band practicing near wheeler, a capoiera performance on sproul, and hare krishnas chanting on telegraph.

i love summers in berkeley.
posted at 2:45 PM |  

was about to finally send out my resume and cover letter to that one company, but then i realized they have one of those forms where you have to copy and paste the text of your resume...can't just send off a quick email attachment and be done with it : (

so...i'm putting it off until this weekend. the stupid thing doesn't even have a "preview" button, so i can't even tell how it's going to look. not really sure whether or not it accepts html, so i'll have to do the plain text thing...

anyway, the job's going to remain open until the end of august, so i don't need to be in too much of a hurry. it's almost 2 now and i should really go to bed...
posted at 1:42 AM |  

evil HR lady was at the office today, to train the new (and nicer) HR lady. hopefully this is the last i will see of the evil one. i had to sign a card for her going away party. it was so hard. i had major difficulty just writing something simple like "good luck". i avoided going to the party too. turned down a free italian meal. i just can't be around her anymore, feel too many bad vibes...in the back of my head, i'm wondering if she said anything about me to the new lady...doesn't really matter if she did though. she doesn't really know me anyway...
posted at 7:22 PM |  

sean did write back today and said that he didn't intend for the email to sound the way it did, etc. i knew i had blown up over nothing...aside from just being irritable/emotional yesterday, i think i'm still really angry at him deep down. so...i don't know, maybe part of me was just looking for an excuse to "yell" at him.

anyway, so...i apologized for going nuts. and that will probably be all for a while because clearly i need more time.
posted at 12:25 AM |  

meant to finish up my cover letter for that one job tonight, but it didn't happen. got a bad headache and couldn't think straight...i think i'm gonna have to give myself until friday to get it sent out. i hate being so slow with these things, but i want to make sure the letter's good. better than good. one that screams out "interview me!".
 
it's really kind of depressing when you see a job that you applied for a long time ago still being advertised. especially if you are well-qualified for that job. so i'm telling myself that they didn't contact me because they thought i was over-qualified for it.
 
anyway, i better get to bed.
posted at 1:04 AM |  

feel a little better now...went out to dinner with a friend, that cheered me up. and calmed me down. i feel like an idiot thinking about the emails i sent to sean today. i won't blame him if he doesn't reply. i think i just flipped out. he knows that i do that sometimes. so hopefully he'll realize that today was one of those times...

anyway, i was just about to reply to an email from a reader, but thought i'd post my response here instead:

so reader, you're probably right. but basically, i've put up with a lot of garbage from people at my office for 2+ years now, and i just don't care to make an effort anymore. just too depressed here. it's true that there will probably be people i dislike no matter where i work, but it wouldn't matter so much if 1) i liked the job, 2) i was satisfied overall, and 3) there was at least 1 person there who i could talk to in order to release frustration or whatever.

right now, i hate what i'm doing, i don't have a single friend in the office, and in general i'm very unsatisfied with the whole situation. but yes, i know that i need to work on myself if i want things to get better. i tend to whine and complain a lot in my blog, as though all these bad things just happened to me and i had nothing to do with it. of course, i know that i've brought a lot of it upon myself (if not all of it). but right now, i just don't feel the motivation to do anything about it to make the current situation better. i've had enough, and i just want out.

that said, i've definitely learned about myself from things that have happened here, and i'm sure that i'll make changes accordingly if/when i get a new job...
posted at 9:08 PM |  

PMS...just hate it sometimes. and i'm hoping that's what this is...'this' being how i've been feeling today. just very irritable and moody...wanted to cry a few times. as if i didn't cry enough while watching extreme home makeover last night.
 
i emailed sean a couple days ago. just a short, quick question. mostly just in an attempt to make conversation, since i didn't reply to the last email he sent me and felt frustrated that i couldn't think of anything to say to him. that's really all that it was - me trying to feel like i could be civil and talk to him like a normal person. anyway, he wrote back today, kind of...well, in my interpretation of his reply, the tone of his email came across as "why are you bothering me by asking me this??" sure, it's possible that anyone else reading the email might not interpret it like that, but that's how i interpreted it. so i guess i snapped. and then his response was basically in the same tone as the first email he sent. so then i snapped again. and then i had this knot in my throat all day because of all that. and it was all just SO STUPID!
 
i did write him back later and told him that i didn't mean to over-react. and i tried to explain what in his email caused me to snap like that. i felt better after doing that. though i don't think i'll be writing him again for a few months at least. i think i still have a lot of crap inside of me...so probably not yet ready for that whole civil conversation idea...but, i tried.
posted at 6:16 PM |  

i managed to push myself to get a few things done this weekend. straightened up my room a bit, vacuumed the whole apartment, wrote up a rough cover letter for this  job i meant to apply for 2 weeks ago...was planning on finishing that up tonight actually, but i'm really tired for some reason. didn't sleep well last night. had this weird dream in which my boss was reading my blog...glad it was only a dream. although, for the record, i probably respect my boss a lot more than anyone else in the office does.
posted at 12:10 AM |  

left work early today. but everyone else left way earlier than i did, so i felt i was entitled.
 
no matter how many times they have neglected to invite me to go to lunch with them, it still stings sometimes. especially on days like today when the bitch invited the one other guy who never goes to lunch with them and normally does not get invited...even he got asked today, and i didn't. that stinks. people are so rude. he didn't go with them, and i wouldn't have either. but still. it pisses me off.
posted at 6:05 PM |  

why is it that everytime blogger's interface changes, it seems to get worse rather than better? i don't understand. more features, yes. features are good. i thank you for all the new features and formatting stuff (even though i probably won't use most of it). but the whole look of this thing...i don't know. i'm not too crazy about it. and that's based on my one course in user interface design. well, ok, i'm not even sure i could back up my opinion with actual things i learned in that course. maybe it's just my personal taste. maybe i'm just too picky. or maybe i 'm just anti-google and want to complain. and now, due to the complaining, i've forgotten what i came here to write about in the first place...
 
edited to say: hmm...so now i have to update the time myself? the time that gets put under the posts is the time i started writing, and not the time i actually saved or published the post? is that good or bad?

edited again to say: and why does it keep adding an extra empty line at the end of my post? does it not realize that i'm anal and like for my byline to be directly under the post, without an extra space inbetween? grrr.
posted at 11:42 PM |  

it's a weird feeling when i get an email from sean and don't have anything to say in reply. i guess we're just in totally different worlds right now... posted at 7:18 PM |  

i went to this cafe for lunch today, a place i don't go to very often (i've only been there once, and that was several months ago.) anyway, after i placed my order and was about to pay, the woman who works there asked me "would you like anything else, little girl?"

little girl?

geez, i know i look young, and most strangers probably think i'm around 20-22. but little girl? i haven't heard that in a while.

and no, the woman at the cafe was not some elderly grandma-type.

oh, and then when she gave me my panini, she said "it's very hot!" in a way that someone would speak to a kid and warn them to be careful...

*sigh*...oh well, i suppose one day i'll be thankful that i look young. posted at 10:36 PM |  

i really need to clean my room a bit. at least sort through all the papers i have lying around. meant to do that today, but it didn't happen. i wish i could take a day off from work and just sit here and take care of things like that...never gets done on the weekends. i don't know why i thought this weekend would be any different.

anyway...some relatives have been in town the past few weeks, and i've hardly seen them. seems like every sunday night, i've gotten a phone call saying they're eating dinner in berkeley and can i go join them (it's always been after i've already finished eating my dinner). and i never went. just don't feel like it. and i hate feeling like i need to make excuses...i'm not close to these relatives at all, and i doubt they missed me or anything, but i still feel all this stupid pressure - like i have to go see them because they're leaving tomorrow morning. fuck it. they never call me to see how i'm doing. they barely talk to me at all when i do see them. so why should i go? fucking irritating. but honestly, if they would have told me ahead of time that they were coming to berkeley, then yeah, i probably would have joined them for dinner, whether it was out of obligation or not. but everytime they've come, they've either called while they were eating, or they've called fairly late in the evening - 8:30 was the earliest. anyway, what pisses me off is that me not going makes me the bad one. i don't know exactly how to explain it...i just feel like they think badly of me. like i don't care about them as much as my other cousins here do...i'm the outsider. i'm not one of them. i'm not good enough to be one of them...it's frustrating as hell sometimes. posted at 12:19 AM |  

oh yeah, and by the way...in that "looking for" section over on the side, i've made a little change. replaced a man with a new car. because frankly, i'm not looking for man and haven't been in years. i do however, need a new car. posted at 11:35 PM |  

been thinking about sean these past few days. not that i haven't been thinking about him until now, i have. but i guess because his birthday's tomorrow...been wondering if i should call to wish him, if i should send him a card, etc. but i didn't send him anything, and i don't think i'll call him. at most, a short email. but i'm even questioning my motives behind that. i guess part of me just wants to hear from him. and another part of me wants to keep moving on and trying to forget about him. so i don't know. afraid that if i write him and he writes back, that we'll go back to what we were doing before. and i don't think i want to go back to that.

weird that it's been about 6 months...i haven't been able to write much about what was going through my head. went through different phases. first, just a lot of pain and anger. i was hurt and disappointed and depressed...and upset with myself for feeling all that. because i should have known better. then, i went through this phase where everthing was fuzzy - like "did that really happen? was he really here? were we really lying here kissing a couple months ago?" it didn't seem real because it all just happened so fast...

then, i guess i had a moment when i started to feel really worried about him. due to some bad dreams and stuff...just a bad feeling inside. that's the one time i spoke to him for a couple minutes. maybe emailed a couple times. but he seemed fine, and so, that ended that phase.

eventually, it kind of started to sink in that he's just a very different person now...and i totally understand that things change over time, and people who were once really important to you can just drift away...especially when you don't get to see them much. still, i would have liked for him to say something. so i could hear it in his words.

and of course, i still wish that i meant more to him. because it does suck to suddenly realize that someone doesn't need you anymore.

anyway. i'm still reminded of him a lot - like when i hear certain songs. or yesterday, when i happened to pass by the building where he was working when he was here...but in some ways, things are improving. like, i no longer feel disappointed when i check email in the morning and don't see one from him. (that took me a while, believe me.)

so my point is, i don't want to throw away any progress i've made.

but at the same time, this other part of me can't imagine just ignoring him and not ever saying anything to him again. that's not what i want. and, that's just not the type of person i am. (well, ok, maybe i was that way in the past...but i'd like to think that i've grown up a bit.)

i don't know why i'm over-analyzing. i really don't. i shouldn't worry about what other people think, what's 'right' and what's 'wrong'...and i don't think i should need to justify my actions for something this silly. just do what i feel like doing, and what i think i can handle, and if it's a mistake, so be it. posted at 10:39 PM |  

went to see my eye doctor today. i've been using antibiotics for 3 weeks now, and still have a little bit of a bump on my eyelid. so...he looked at it, said it was healed, and that this is about as good as it's gonna get. in other words, unless i opt for surgery to have it drained, this bump is just gonna be there. forever, i guess. so that's lovely.

it's not like, terribly hideous and obvious or anything. but honestly, i did not need any more little imperfections on my face...especially not on the one part of my face that i like best...

*sigh*

i'm gonna take the antibiotics for a couple more days and keep my fingers crossed that it goes down at least a little more... posted at 7:00 PM |  

trying to write a cover letter for yet another job application...it's so frustrating sometimes. i looked through other cover letters i've written, thinking i could just change a few words here and there in one of them. but none of them seemed appropriate for this particular job. so instead i'm attempting to write another one from scratch, which is always difficult for me...

i just have to be in the right frame of mind to get going...need to be focused and just...in the mood for it, i guess. also, i think it's easier when i'm actually qualified for the job and don't have to make up some BS trying to convince them that i am when in fact i am not...

yes, i know that having a positive attitude might help, but i just don't have much hope left in me these days... posted at 11:31 PM |  

wish i didn't have to go back to work tomorrow. i was just starting to feel a little relaxed...

saw "fahrenheit 9/11" yesterday. it made me even more disgusted with politicians (and politics in general i suppose) than i already was. i didn't even feel all that shocked about the connections mentioned in the movie - it was more like "well, of course." everytime i see dubya's face, he just looks slimier and slimier now...i don't even want to write about it really, because it pisses me off too much to think about how this country is run.

say what you will about michael moore...whether or not he exaggerates/twists things, he does make some really important points at the core. posted at 9:26 PM |  

i'm so thankful for this 3-day weekend. i doubt i'll get anything important done. unless you consider sleep to be important.

i'm tired. have i mentioned that enough this week?

*yawn*

anyway, i'm kinda sad that it's july already. because i was so determined to find another job by now. it was this one little goal i was striving for since january. so what now? do i push it back another 6 months, like i have been doing for over 2 years now? i feel pathetic when i think about it. and it gets really hard when other people i know - relatives, friends, kids of parents' friends, etc. - are all starting to get really successful with their career choices...

and i'm really tired of people telling me to choose another field or to go back to school. i know they probably mean well, but it's kind of insulting sometimes. i already feel like a failure, i don't need to feel like other people view me as one too. i'm not even going to mention any future interviews i get, because i'm so sick of the whole world asking me "how did your interview go?" or "did you hear back from (company)?" all these people that i hadn't even told about it found out. and then it's like they knew i wouldn't get it because they can tell that i'd suck in an interview. and then they say something like "well, it's really hard to get an interview there, so you were lucky to get that far."

my tv just turned off by itself. kinda freaky.

anyway, i didn't mean to rant about all that...just some pent up frustration...i think i better go to bed now... posted at 1:55 AM |  

left work a little early. i don't quite know how i made it to 5:30 with these allergies, but i reached a point where i just had to get out of there. can't do math when my nose is running like this.

stupid alavert didn't do a thing. i'm gonna take something to make me fall asleep. that's the only real cure for me. posted at 5:59 PM |  

stupid allergies are KILLING me. thought i'd try alavert since claritin stopped working on me, but alavert isn't helping much either. and i fell asleep really late last night, again. upstairs guys were having a party or something. anyway, i'm just super tired now. i want my bed. posted at 2:54 PM |