Monthly Archives: December 2005

A Glimpse of Clarity!

Posted in Career, Me Me Me! by

Yesterday, while zoning in the trance-like state I am able to achieve while monitoring recorded phone calls for quality control, I suddenly found myself struck by an odd sense of clarity. This clarity, as you might have guessed, concerns my BIG question, What Should I Do With My Life.

Fortunately for me, Mom had given me a book for Christmas with this very title. I’ve only started reading it this past week, but I’ve been impressed by two points already. First, I’ve been scared that I just don’t want anything, that I have no more passion. That it has been beaten out of me. Not true! I learned that people who struggle always have passion – if they didn’t care about anything, there would be no struggle. So that’s important lesson number one.

The second thing I’ve realized is that I need to have fun. And that it will be possible for me to do this in my career. Basically, in applying for all these government jobs, I’ve been barking up the wrong tree. I’ve always gotten everything I’ve truly wanted, and the reason I’ve been getting NO reponse to these applications is probably due to the fact that I don’t really want these jobs. In the past, I’ve truly enjoyed working – with animals, with writing, with being creative, with interacting with people while educating, with art. And there are jobs out there like this! For me!

So, I’ve decided to pursue a career in conservation education with zoos, museums or aquariums. There are lots of jobs posted on the AZA website, and several sound interesting. A couple even pay pretty well! I’ll be able to educate, entertain, utilize my creative talents, and work for a cause that I believe in. AND, I won’t be abandoning my education (Brett, if you’re reading this, those manuscripts are STILL on my list of things I want to finish – keep the faith!).

Well anyway, it was just a glimpse. Tomorrow the clouds might come in and I might decide to pursue telemarketing from a tiny, dark cubicle for my career. If that happens, either shoot me or point me to this blog entry. Thanks!

Ho ho ho (hey – are you talking about me???)

Posted in Animals, Cats, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats by

‘Twas a quiet Christmas this year: the warm glow of a muted TV, the happy hymns of James Brown’s Funky Christmas playing softly in the background, the smell of apple cider and cinnamon air freshener wafting through the air…and oh yeah…our mayhem-otic zoo of animals trying to destroy each and every present as we tried to unwrap them!!! Chaos reined in our living room, the cats shredding anything with ribbon on it, spacing out on catnip, the dogs trying to see if each package had a squeaky in it. Teddy Bear whining for more dog treats, Michael squawking to get out of the cage, and Leo…lurking in the back room just daring anyone to disturb him while he plotted…plotted for destruction.

Actually though, it was good – Mom and I got lots of great gifts; I think my favorite was an Indo Board that kind of simulates surfing or skateboarding – you have to balance on this roller thing and try not to kill yourself or damage the walls in the house when you fall off and the board goes careening out from under you. I’ll be posting pictures of me with broken limbs shortly…But I also got some PJ’s (thanks for supporting my lounging habit, all), and a watch jewelry box (woohoo! A nice organized home for my Swatch collection!), and various other fun things. After opening all the presents, Mom and I went up to Uncle Danbo’s house where he had bought and prepared a fabulous feast for us – turkey, green beans, cranberry sauce, candied yams, and cornbread. Yum! It was in fact the easiest holiday ever – no cooking, no cleaning up. Merry Christmas to us!

Anyway, we went to see “Memoirs of a Geisha” on Christmas Eve – excellent flick, you should go see it. It’s a little long and the book was better, but still outstanding if you like that sorta thing. And just so you can get a picture of how my weekend went, here’s a photo montage of Zoe during her reign of terror as we opened presents (yes, her eyes naturally have an evil glow about them that the camera captures quite nicely; this, my friends, is the horror I live with daily):

Oooooopss! Here are some pictures I forgot to post!

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me! by

 

 

 

 

Ok, so last in the beginning of November Miranda and her friend Aron came with me to the Wild Animal Park for a little bit of fun. While I’m working, there are a lot of parts of the park I don’t get to see, so I caught up on all the goings-on that I couldn’t check out while I was on the clock. We went on the 3D simulator ride, the carousel, spent some time in the petting kraal, and then went up on the hot-air balloon that takes you 400 feet up above the park. Here’s a picture I took of the campsite from above (it looks better at ground level, I tell you):

Here’s a frisky Desert Bighorn Sheep, and me with a little (actually quite fat) gazelle named socks.

Hakuna matada, man…hakuna matada.

Posted in Entertainment, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Music and Dance by

Yesterday I went to see the Lion King with Bre and her family for her birthday. It was such an amazing show – it was performed live in downtown San Diego in the huge “broadway” theatre, which I had never been to before. The costumes and sets were absolutely incredible – they had antelopes, elephants, a rhino, zebra, and giraffes which were operated by people walking on all-fours using stilts! The costumes were a combination of makeup, clothing, and puppetry – the people actually had the body shapes of the animals, after they were all made up. We had seats in the very back, about as high up as you could possibly go, but it didn’t really matter because it was such a good show (although I wish I could’ve seen the detail on the costumes a bit better). It has been a while since I’ve done something cultural like that, and I’m so glad Bre invited me to go with her – we got all fancied up, and I liked seeing all the little kids there in their cute little outfits, too. Bre’s mom treated us to drinks (try carrying two full glasses up to the third floor balcony amidst screaming kids and women waiting in line for the restroom without spilling…) and dinner afterwards at the Olive Garden. I had my standard sausage and peppers with penne pasta – yum!

Thought you’d like the update – oh – and I finished my Christmas shopping for the year, too! But don’t get too excited – I’m rather poor this go-round, so I didn’t have very many presents to buy 😦

Back to work…

Enough with the recorded phone calls…

Posted in Career, Complainments, Me Me Me! by

Woohoo! They’ve finally decided to expand my duties at work, letting me climb out of the pit known as “listening to recorded phone calls for eight hours per day”. Someone in the department was let go, and they’ve decided to keep me on for a while so that I can pick up the slack. I’ll be trained on monitoring consolidation phone calls (yes, recorded ones…), but I do have a fun project that involves creating an intranet website. Because I’m working in the Quality Assurance/Compliance department, I’ve decided to call the site “QuAC Net” – on the home page there’s a rubber duck, and the whole site has a subtle (or not-so-subtle, as the case may be) duck theme. It’s pretty funny, and the boss likes it a lot!

In the meantime, I’ve applied for a few more jobs – I’m really excited about an application I put in for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife as a communications coordinator. Lots of fun educational, writing, and media projects – I think it will be a good fit, if they decide to consider me. So keep your fingers crossed for me –

Yours truly,
Milto–I mean–Marci 🙂