Update

Happy belated fourth~! Such crazy, unorganized-ness. Most everything I love has been abandoned for immediate needs:

1) Finding another job. Ick - what an energy suck. I've been on 7 interviews during the past year, 4 of which had gotten me past the first round. These 4 were especially hard to take, as it was between me and another candidate, and always the other candidate won out. The jobs range from my specialties (grant and contract management in a non-profit) to far stretches (bi-lingual IT customer service specialist in the Japanese auto industry) but nothing pans out. My most recent rejection was especially annoying, since they wanted to talk with my current supervisor - if my boss was amenable to such things, I wouldn't be looking for another job! I told them I was open to letting them speak to my current supervisor once an offer was made. Wrong answer, apparently. An interesting discussion of this topic could be found here. So the job search continues...

2) The second thing that is somewhat related: test prep! Social work burnout has lead me to reassess and develop new career goals. In order to reach my new goals however, I need to re-enter grad school, hence the GMAT. GMAT studying is no fun.

How to cope? A number of things, but the most effective one (but probably not the most constructive) is just running away from my problems, albeit temporarily. A trip to Colombia in August is in the works. For July 4th, we took the LIRR to Glen Cove, where a group of us claimed a blanketed patch of grass for the day, at a small park (see pic on top left). Apparently, the property was originally owned by J.P. Morgan, who then donated the land to the public when he died. It has been an especially rainy summer this year, and the 4th was one of the first days it was nice out. Actually, it was painfully, gorgeously sunny - the skies were an unbelievable color. It made me so happy!

Some unrelated items: just read a great book, Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. It's 700+ pages, but I read it in three days - so good! Although it was a fictional account of Marilyn Monroe's life, it was still very gripping. Feeling inspired by the book, I also watched the Seven Year Itch, which was surprisingly hilarious... and speaking of movies, there's a movie out in select art theaters now that was very good - Departures. This movie is funny too, but is mostly really, really sad. I know someone whose only experience in Japanese cinema was watching The Taste of Tea - if you are expecting the same experience, I advise you to beware that diversity in cinema does exist, so please go in with an open mind : )