Obviously, it’s been a while since I last posted. October was a pretty crazy month for me with a bunch of traveling and then not having access to my computer due to it needing repairs. So, I thought I’d update you all on what's been going on with me.
At the beginning of the month, my dad and I went back down to Western for Homecoming once again, and were fortunate enough to stay with the Bell’s, the pastor of the church I attended while going to school there. We were supposed to leave Friday evening once my dad got off work, but then he got caught at work, so I headed down by myself late Friday afternoon. The amazing dad that he is, my dad got up super early in order to get down there in time for the Alumni 5k run Saturday morning. This was my first time running the race, since I did the walk last year, and I was ecstatic that I got 2nd place in my age group. I had similar time to the 5k I ran back in May, but there were some hills this time and it was pretty cold at the start (low 40's). I was actually only a couple seconds behind the girl who got first, and could probably have gotten first if I’d really tried, but this was more of a fun thing for me and getting a medal was just a bonus. After cleaning up, we went over to the church to watch the parade. It’s always so much fun to catch up with people and I loved seeing all of the kids again. On Sunday we went back for Sunday school and morning service. I went to the college class, and it was so much fun. During the morning service, the pastor commented that he could hear us laughing for at least half of the class.
A few weeks later was my week as a nomad, going between Springfield and Macomb. I had my interview with the Springfield police Monday morning, so I headed down to my aunt and uncle’s house Sunday afternoon. I arrived just in time for dinner, and was happy to see the my cousin Grace and her family were also there. I had a lot of fun playing with my cousins and catching up with everyone else. The next morning I headed out with plenty of time and got there on time. Even though the interview only lasted about eight minutes, it was extremely stressful. They only asked five questions, which I had a copy of in front of me, and they asked everyone the same questions - a time when I had to work with someone I didn’t get along with, an important decision I had to make and how I went about making that decision, how I would handle the stress of the job, and what experience/training/diversity I would bring to the department. Yeah, it was just one big ball of stress. As I was taking the elevator back down, there was another girl who had just interviewed, and we were both like, “Yeah, that was ridiculous.”
Later that afternoon I headed over to Macomb, since Western was having their law enforcement career fair the next day. I was able to stay with the Bell’s again, and had some a-maze-ing meatloaf for dinner. At the career fair the next day, I took my time and talked to just about everyone there. A lot of it was signing up for notifications from police departments when they are ready to test and picking up information on the towns, but I also talked to places about security jobs. Trump Tower (Chicago) wasn’t hiring at the moment, but I gave the guy my resume. The guy from Macy’s said that they were actually hiring, and he gave me a number to call when I got back into town (more on this later). When I left, I was surprised to see that I had been in there for about two hours But hopefully it was a productive two hours and I will be able to get something from these towns if I don’t have anything by then (hopefully not!!).
After hanging out for a few hours, I headed back to the Springfield area and my third home for the rest of the week - with my cousin Paul, his wife Bridget, and their kids. The next few days were pretty mellow. I didn’t have the physical test until Saturday, so I had a lot of free time. My uncle had some eye appointments on Wednesday and Friday, so I was able to take him to those and he was nice enough to buy me lunch afterward, as well as give me some (very generous) gas money. The weather on Thursday was pretty chilly, so I just used their elliptical and worked out inside, but Friday was really nice and I went on a nice long run on the running trail nearby. I had a lot of fun playing with my cousins after they got home from school, and really liked that I got to spend time talking with Bridget. Whenever we come down to visit everyone is all together, and it can definitely get a little crazy. Before we went out to dinner Friday night, I was checking my e-mail and saw that my time for the test had been moved back from 8am to 11am. That was fine by me - I never particularly like getting up at 6!
Fortunately, they weren’t counting this towards whether or not we proceeded farther into the process; they were just doing it so that we knew if we needed to improve on anything. I’m still not sure why, but I really felt like I wasn’t on top of my game at the physical test. Maybe it’s because they had such exacting ways that you had to do everything. I swear that I passed the sit and reach and the sit ups, but apparently I didn’t by-that-much. I passed the run with more than plenty of time to spare, but I was about 15 seconds slower than my previous time running the mile and a half. I know that running a 13 minute 1.5 mile would be an accomplishment for a lot of people, but it frustrates me when I don’t do as well as I know I’m capable of. Once I was done, I ran back to the house and cleaned up/ate lunch quickly so that I could get on the road since our church was having it’s 10th anniversary that evening. I made it just in time, and even beat my parents by a minute or two. The dinner and ceremonies were really nice, but about halfway through I kind of hit the wall and just wanted to sleep. I was able to make it the rest of the way through, though, but split not long after it was over. Man, was I beat. It had definitely been a long, tiring, and stressful week, and I was glad to be home.
At the end of the month I went to see the Plain White T’s at the House of Blues in Chicago. Since I was starting to feel a crunch on money and was feeling a little guilty since I had just seen them back in February, I had tried to see if anyone wanted my ticket, but was unsuccessful so I went anyways. Apart from the *ahem* opening acts, I really enjoyed the show. Now I didn’t see the first act, and it was mostly the last act that I had the problem with, but this really should not be happening at what is supposed to be an all-ages show. Downtown Fiction was the first opening act that I saw and kind of liked them. They were dressed up as Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Kanye, and the guy with the Afro from LMFAO. Then came The Summer Set, the group that I had the most issues with. First of all, their “costumes” (and I use that term extremely loosely) were extremely inappropriate, even the guys. The female drummer wore nothing more than a white dress shirt and really short shorts. Secondly there was the majority of the songs that they performed, which had their share of language and were about inappropriate topics. Finally, they were done and Plain White T’s came on. They were dressed in skeleton suits, and the stage was decorated with lots of lots of little Halloween-y touches. They acknowledged that a lot of the people there had probably been there back in February, so they changed the show up as much as they could. They did do a number of different songs including the Halloween song that was free to download, in addition to many of their most popular songs. Towards the end, Tom (the lead singer) was out on the stage alone and did “Hey There Delilah”. Even though I had felt guilty about buying the ticket, I really enjoyed myself at the concert and was glad that I went.
So..... this Macy’s job thing. When I talked to the guy at the career fair, he was saying that it would be at the State Street store in the city and gave me a number to call once I got back home. I have called him multiple times and left more than one message, but I have yet to have him call me back. At this point it has been almost a month since I called him and I’m about ready to give up. If he doesn’t want to call me back, then they must not want me that badly. I don’t know; any opinions?
That pretty much sums up what’s been going on in my life recently. Sorry about the long gap between my last post and this one, but sometimes it can be hard to find the motivation to write. It would probably help if you let me know that you appreciate reading this or at least find it somewhat entertaining.
