another start

I'm back from vacation! Not that I have been on vacation since my last post, but I guess it seemed that there was so much stuff up in the air about where I was going to be ending up - I just decided to wait until things were a bit more certain. I was in Lawrence, KS for about a week and a half - enjoying time with the family and my friends from college and high school. I attended 3 weddings - yes, 3. It is that time of my life when suddenly everyone is getting married. One was my high school friend, Justin; the second - two friends from my schol-hall days; and lastly - my cousin. All in all it was good time and relaxing to not be in the office. I actually left my laptop in Chicago...so I only had "webmail" access...meaning, I couldn't really "do" work - even if they needed me :)! Speaking of work...a job...an income...my survival for the next year:

I'm staying with Teach For America...however, mid-July I will be transitioning to the Talent Recruitment team to be an assistant to 2 Directors of Talent Recruitment (DTR). The team is much smaller than the Recruitment Team that I was a member of this past year. There are 10 DTRs and 5 of us assistants. It will be a smaller network to work with - but Talent Recruitment works across the entire organization finding good matches for staff positions. The position will be much better for me since it will not have the 70+ hour work week that I had during the recruitment season this past year. And this position pays overtime!!! So if I have to work over 50 hours...I'll get it back in a paycheck. Granted, this doesn't mean I'll be rolling in the cash...but hopefully my personal/professional alignment will be a little better this year.

I'm also moving! I don't know where yet, but I want to be close to my office and closer to my friends that are in the city (Chicago). Right now, I'm looking in the Lakeview/Ravenswood/Lincoln Square/Lincoln Park areas...and luckily, Robert is spending next weekend with me to hopefully find a place that has a neighborhood that doesn't support illegal dealings...not that something like that happens on current street at all...

So basically, I'm starting over...granted I have a small network of friends in the city, but my two closest friends are headed to other states and jobs...so that has made things a little sad in these parts, but I'm still lucky to have the Reddigs so close in Madison and the Buschlemans in Dayton and staying in Chicago is definitely worth it for another year.

I guess you should probably know that I've become a "vegetarian"...so no meat - except I do eat fish. I gave meat up for Lent and well, I've just kept it going...it really weird because I don't really notice that I'm not eating/buying/ordering something that doesn't have meat in it - I've just learned to enjoy other foods more so. I will say - that on a random occasion I'll get this huge craving for Arby's Beef 'n Cheddar...but fortunately, I do not work/live by an Arby's...so the temptation leaves pretty quickly.

I guess that's it for an update. If anything changes - I'll be sure to let you know. :)

~mitzi