In Which the Best Laid Plans Go Awry

I have a lot of ideas about what I want to do with my life. For many of those ideas, I have made, and in some cases, carried out, plans to achieve these goals. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, nothing is working out. In the interest of self pity, let's recap:

1. Did not get accepted to grad school
2. Did not pass the Arabic test to be a contract linguist
3. Applied to and interviewed for a number of jobs for which I was qualified, but did not get the jobs OR found out that the job was something sketchy/something I didn't want to do.
4. Did not pass the medical interpreters test for Spanish.
5. I can retake the Arabic test...in a year. I can retake the Spanish test whenever the state decides they can fit me in.

As I have already said to a number of people, I feel like I am doing everything possible and still coming up short. The only good-ish things of the moment are that I will probably be starting a new job (bad part: it's to be a mall security guard) that's full time. Also good-ish, I signed up for a Spanish class at the Seattle Language Academy, which seemed good except that I signed up for the highest level class and that was apparently not high enough. I was going to cancel the class (and take the 50% hit on the refund) but the nice people there said I could transfer the money paid into private lessons, which is something I never would have paid for on my own--because they're $45/hr--but I'm glad to be doing anyway. So, starting those tomorrow.

I've become distressed with how bad I'm getting at Arabic, so I've been trying to review vocabulary every day, so I can stop forgetting things. I've also started in on the second Harry Potter book translated into Arabic--I finally finished the first last month. Remembering the old vocabulary is highly frustrating and I really need to make sure I keep up with it this time. Once I finish reviewing, I haven't decided if I want to start in on medical vocabulary, with the goal of doing medical interpreting, or start on media vocabulary, which will be more useful generally and I need to know it for when I finally take that FBI test again.

I can't figure out what my current plan is. Probably because I anticipate that it's going to change at any time now. In theory I'll probaby end up working as a security guard at least through christmas. I can save up some money. If I don't pass my Spanish test the second time, I think I am going to plan on going to Ecuador or such to teach English for 6 months or so. Then maybe applying for grad school again. Probably at the Monterey Institute, but possibly at Georgetown. I'm feeling a bit gun-shy about applying to school again because I haven't really done anything to distinguish myself since I graduated that would make me a better candidate. Ideally, I want to pass the medical test for Spanish and Arabic and then apply to the MI because then I will be a very boss candidate for the Masters in Translation and Interpreting. But at this point, any fucking thing could happen so, like I said, I'm hesitant to plan too far out.

In non-linguistic news, I've become rather obsessed with cooking. My current idea has been to cook in bulk and freeze things so that I don't have to cook so often. Plus it's been getting hot in the afternoons and that makes me want to stay out of the kitchen. I successfully made marinara sauce and meatballs and froze those up last weekend. Yesterday I tried to make pumpkin ravioli, but it was not a success. Today's plan includes vegetarian chili. Luckily it has been pretty cool outside the last few days, so cooking isn't making me sweat to death. I also ordered 5 or so cookbooks, having found everything good on the internet already. Topcis include: curry, bread, pasta, soup and burgers. So I should be able to get a lot of good eats out of that.

Impulse Day

Today I bought a sewing machine. I'd been turning the idea around in my mind for some time now in only the most cursory of ways, but today I decided to look into it. This morning I consulted the internets and then decided to actually go to a store and see what was what, as I lack experience in this area. It was actually quite helpful. The whole time the sales clerk was helping me I was thinking "Is this how I sound at work?" because if so, I sound like a stammering idiot with an agenda. But then, you can't kidd a kidder, and I know how the mind of a sales person turns. I also learned that sales people make good customers, probably because we know that the base item is not the whole thing that you need. I also bought an assortment of pins, needles, threads and the like. Unfortunately, the neighboring fabric store was closed due to some plumbing mishap so any real project must wait. I am anticipating making some seriously boss threads at the first oppurtinity though. I tried to mend the inseam of some pants, but I think they were too worn to really fix, so good practice. I'm mostly just glad that I didn't get frustrated and give up before I even got started. The initial needle-threading process was difficult.

I've also been doing a lot of cooking and baking lately. I've been trying out a variety of foods and mostly just seeing what I can do. Eating can become tedious. For the most part, the stuff I've been making has been very successful. Last week I made some very delicious zuccinni bread and I also made some good straganoff recently.

Up til recently, I've had little interest in such feats of domesticity; however I think I've decided that such feats are 1) practical 2) entertaining and that I like to be able to do things myself. If children in vietnam and ecuador can make shirts and they can be resold to me for $40 each, I'm sure I can do it too. I'm really on a "do it myself" kick lately. I also think that I was initially reluctant to cook, sew, etc because it seemed extremely required when growing up mormon. Of course, there's also the matter of taste and creativity. When the adult ladies around you are going to monthly meetings and making stuff like this (thanks random people found via google) , there's little motivation, in my mind, to pursue it. But then again, I always have found greater enjoyment in doing something because I like it, rather than acting in accordance with the hive mind.

Persian Test looms large in the future. I am taking it on september third. I'm on chapter 21 of 25, so the plan is to finish out the book within the week. At such time I'll have all the vocabulary down and then a wholesale review of grammar will commence. I've been giving grammar the short end of the stick because I know it takes less time. Vocabulary is easy but time consuming. Why can't I do both at once? None can say. My main motivation at the moment is that if I don't pass, next year will be very fucking boring becuase I'll still be in first year persian after studying it so much. Easy A's and such, but still...boring.

And that's the state of things! Just have to get through August now and then it will be school again in no time.