holiday time

Wishing you a merry Christmas. Digital ID: 1585592. New York Public Library

Meow

for a long time now i have not been a huge fan of holidays.

my family is one of those fractured families of the 1970s and 1980s. not saying this as a sob story scenario, just the way it is. so there is no traditional big family holiday gathering with presents and the like. i had that growing up sometimes, and it was great. but it’s not my life now.

although i went to my sister’s for Thanksgiving this year, traveling during the holidays, well, forget about it! travel is stressful, especially for the zaftig / non-crowd lovers. so it’s happily home for the holidays.

Plan

so i am trying to set up a plan of things i want to do this holiday season.

the amazing resource, “Ask A Manager,” has been a great voice of reason during my job search. i especially appreciated her advice on what to do during the holidays — or even during “regular” times — when applying for jobs. apply and then move on, keep going, but try not to obsess. grateful for the smart words of wisdom.

i have been spending a lot of time applying for jobs. but since it is the holidays i am going to take this time to work on skill building, will resume the job hunt — and will probably start temping and/or trying to volunteer somewhere interesting in January.

my websites need to be completely overhauled. it is a bit shameful at this point. i don’t feel super equipped technically, though, with web design. so i am going to focus on training myself — using the fabulous Lynda.com.

Listen

it’s important that i listen to myself — and focus on the technical things that i enjoy doing. then build from there.

i am very intimidated by a lot of this technology, like PHP and MySQL. heck, i am intimidated by coding and computer languages, have never been great at learning new languages (see my college transcript). oy. so i am going to heed my instincts and passions. and move on from there.

the great thing about the Lynda.com videos is that they are in movie-length bits. if i can manage to watch TV and movies, i know i can get through these videos. and enjoy them.

for some inspiration, the awesome Scott Miller playing Neil Young’s “Hawks & Doves.” (i prefer Scott’s version…)

Ain’t getting old,
ain’t getting younger though
Just getting used
to the lay of the land
I ain’t tongue-tied,
just don’t got nothin’ to say
I’m proud to be livin’ in the U.S.A.

and so it goes…

and my favorite New Multitudes track: