My own stimulus plan...

I came back to the states in mid-November, after spending a great 8 months overall in Morocco, to the worst economic crisis of my life. Sweet. I got to enter the job market as someone who hadn't worked or networked in a year, up against some stiff competition and unsure of what I wanted to do with my life, career-wise. After hitting up every online resume site and spamming everyone I knew with a plea for a job through whatever means necessary, I realized it just wasn't going to happen. I went on a handful of interviews and found that I was way over-qualified for every job offer I received. I was looking for something to do with my life, some way to have meaning, and was just getting depressed and feeling worthless. I was rejected from pretty much every job I actually wanted and also didn't get into the graduate program at Tufts that I applied to. So...what to do now.

It was around that time that I was driving to the gym with my cousin, Carolyn, when I asked her if she was interested in going away on a trip after her forthcoming college graduation. Carolyn and I have been spending a lot of time together lately, since I returned home from Morocco and she's fantastic. I can easily imagine myself traveling with her, as we get along so well and I really love her company. So, we decided then and there that we'd leave for Europe shortly after her graduation and I would find a job post-haste that I could work in the interim to earn some much needed cash. I was stressing before about just taking any job that I knew I would hate and falling into the same situation I was in before I left my last job. I imagined I would take some position that was way too easy for me, that I found boring, that I would get stuck in and my drive to excel would leave. Now though, when I had a plan and plane tickets to leave in the near future, I could take a job...any job, and do something besides apply to all of these jobs I knew I didn't want, while I worried about getting older and still not doing anything I could be proud of in this world.

So, now I have a job at a well-known patent law firm in downtown Boston, where I make decent money, covering for someone on paternity leave. It's just database management stuff and pretty dry, but at least I have a reason to get up every day and SOMETHING to look forward to in my life.

Our plan originally was to go for two months and make up our journey as we went along, going from place to place on a whim and seeing where we ended up. That's still mostly the plan, although a list of things I want to do and see has taken shape over the last few weeks. Also, I decided that maybe 2 months is not really long enough. Maybe I'll stay over there indefinitely. Why not? Me, a backpack and some great company for a couple of months, then hopefully meet some new people and check out some cool places after that on my own. Right now, I'm trying to remain flexible and just take each day as it comes. C'est la vie and all that!