job apps

I've been very busy hunting down work possibilities lately.

In the past week, I've applied to be...

-a first grade classroom assistant
-a technical writer for Day Software projects
-a documentation writer for IBM for pharmaceutical software
-an office assistant/technical writer for software projects of unspecified sort
-an Assistant for Engineering Documentation Management
-a Zebra fish care-taker at a scientific lab
-an Internal Communications Associate at a pharmaceutical company
-a study-skills workshop leader for college students
-a translator and writer in the education sector
-a house and cat sitter
-a baby sitter of twins
-a cleaning lady/laundry lady
-an English teacher
-an Editorial Assistant
-a warehouse worker
-and of course, a painter of master pieces (but that didn't require an application)

Whew! That's a lot of applications. I'm relatively qualified for all of them too, except I have no experience caring for Zebra Fish.

I'm reminded of this Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon is out of work and, in his down time, starts experimenting with injecting fish with luminous jelly fish DNA to make them glow in the dark so that he can sell them as night lights and make billions.

Consider yourselves warned, Zebra fish.

And in other news, I wish you could smell this perfume I'm thinking of buying. I have a little sample on a card...mmm...smells good. I've been advised I should consider buying it BEFORE my interviews. Could help.

Peace and Conflict in Africa book review

Check out my first published book review on page 23 of the SGAS newsletter (first pdf on the list).

Zaccheus, you come down! And the cold war.

My monkey little brother, climbing to the very highest places in Pfeffingen.


Ben and Dom, on our way to Storm the Castle and conquer the world. They're both kinda making funny faces here...


Castle successfully stormed; world more or less conquered.


Colmar, France, with Diana, Gina, and Daniel, who was kindly taking the photo. (My, what nice scarves we have, Diana!)

Thanks, Gina, for sharing your pictures!

Good news on the art front! It seems I will have two painting commissions in the very near future. Of all the kinds of work I do, from cleaning toilets to correcting people's sentences to writing executive presentations, this is one of my favorite paid activities.

I'm considering applying to become an Army historian in Virginia at the Army War College. Among other intriguing things about this job, it comes with top secret security clearance. I know people with top secret clearance are a dime a dozen, but still...it sounds cool and entitles a person to read all sorts of interesting things. About half the jobs I'm interested in these days include security clearance, and somehow starting with that subject this week, Valda and I were discussing our relative potential as successful spies. I'd make a lousy spy myself. I'm a terrible liar, and worse than that, I'd probably just open right up and tell anyone who asked what I was doing. Valda, on the other hand, is a "worryingly good" liar when she wants to be, and loves extracting information. We both agreed that to be a good spy, she'd also need to maximize her aura of mystery and wear red lipstick. There's another reason I can't be a spy--red isn't my best color, and I hate the way lipstick feels. After that conversation, however, I got wondering about spies, what motivates them, and what distinguishes the successful from the unsuccessful, and spent an evening watching a documentary on youtube about Cold War spies. None of them wore red lipstick. Lots of them died. (Could there be a causal relationship here??) And as far as I can tell, the high possibility that a spy will be ratted out by someone else in counter-intelligence is the worst part of the job. The documentary is worth watching, though, and includes interviews with US, British, German and KGB people discussing their personal involvement in Cold War intelligence.