April 20, 2008

•  Yesterday was a productive day.  I visited the farmers’ market to buy plants, worked with The Chemist to get two file drawers of music into the database, planted at least part of the garden, worked on my resume, and finished the table runner.

  The Chemist and I got our music-entry system going pretty smoothly. I stood at the file cabinet, sorting and counting and reading out the data, while she typed it into her laptop. There were moments of reminiscence and discussion — were there really two different editors for Ave Verum? Do you remember when we sang that campy version of Blessed Assurance? Was there ever actually an occasion when we needed 150 copies of the Mozart piece, and if so, how did I miss it?

  Home, then, with  my collection of plants, to do the garden.

  You can tell that I planted the garden. My husband’s plantings are beautiful. Even if he had only planted sticks, they would be beautiful.

  My soil is not smooth. I went around like the Little Red Hen asking who would help me plant the plants, and #2 son came out and chopped away with the hoe.

  The soil is heavy, and should have been amended, and raked smooth. My husband would have done those things. However, if I had left it to him, we wouldn’t have the garden planted yet, so I think it is just as well that I did it.

  We have nice little lettuces and cabbages, annual herbs, peppers, and tomatoes. I will still need to plant cucumbers, beans, melons, and squash, but they can wait till next week. I haven’t done any annual flowers yet, either.

  I then put together plans for my first SEO client, plus one for another business that expressed some interest. I plan to take the second one to my meeting with the SEO firm to show that I know what I’m doing; if I am not actually hired there, I will take the plan to the business owner and pitch it myself.

  Having done the gardening, housework, computer work, and some housework, I intended to take the rest of the day off, but #2 daughter called and told me we were going to work on our resumes together.

   My thought about resumes is that you make one for each job you apply for. The employers want, let us say, a knight on a white charger with experience rescuing princesses. You make a resume that says you are a knight, see the white charger here, and this is a list of princesses I have rescued.

  Making a general resume to strew around during a job search is another sort of thing, and one I haven’t done in a long time. I have a lot of experience, and some of it will be relevant to some things and not to others. My fieldwork on the Pomo reservation is not always important. My certification as a state history teacher trainer is sometimes just picturesque. I’ve worked in an aquarium, in refugee resettlement, in a museum. I’ve been a model, a book warehouse worker, and a census taker. I’ve taught everybody from preschool to the elderly (my ESL class of Cambodian octogenarians didn’t make much progress in English, but they enjoyed themselves). My inclination is to leave out half the things I’ve done, just to fit it on a page and keep it from being overwhelming. I’m having a lot of trouble making it seem coherent and planned, as opposed to a sort of colorful memoir.

  What I have done my entire working life, it seems to me, is to gather, analyze, synthesize, and disseminate information for the purpose of helping others reach their goals. In lots and lots of different ways. Under “objective,”  if I were honest, I would put that I want a job that will allow me to continue doing that, in a pleasant working environment, toward some goal that strikes me as worthy.

  You can see why I am having trouble.

  But I did make some progress. Then I finished up the table runner, and I am very happy about that.

  I have a solo this morning, with high Es. I am not going to the early service, so that I can get properly awake and warmed up before singing, and not disgrace myself. Also, I have a worship task force meeting this evening, and That Man has asked for a detailed report of all that I did for the website in the past year, so the day is full enough as it is.

  First, oatmeal.

   

  • 8:44 am
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