How I Spent The Twenty-Eighth Week Of The Rest Of My Life

Since I'm not beyond my first six months of unemployment, educating myself last week felt like a step in the right direction.  I now feel almost fully qualified to run a social media campaign.  At least I know the best practices for doing so.  With this newfound arrow in my quiver (yes, I am still spending too much time on OKCupid), I finally applied for the Civil War Associate position at the National Parks Conservation Association.

Maybe telling them how I would run the campaign was a little over the top, since they have a pretty strong Twitter presence at @NPCA, but I am serious that I want this position.

To supplement my application, I am going to brave the heat tomorrow and capture a lot of Manassas' grandeur.  Right now it actually has some since today marked the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run and the town (excuse me, the Independent City of Manassas) has activities all weekend.  And they're mostly bus accessible.  At least tomorrow.  If I get an interview, you can be sure I'll bring these along to show what I offer in terms of being a marketing team member.

At least their web presence isn't all press releases like a certain other association that will remain nameless.

The funny thing was, on Tuesday I took a tour of the National Portrait Gallery immediately after sending in my application.  The random topic (as chosen by the docent and not known in advance) was the Civil War Room.  It seems like a sign.  I hope it's a sign.

In other news, I applied for my first for-profit job at a research place out in Bethesda.  I think I'm going to hit a lot more of those up.  If I want to do entry level research, it's not like a marketing firm is any worse a place to start than a not-for-profit here.  I really need to compile all of these places that I applied that are not on government sites for permanent keeping.

Since, you know, that's required by unemployment and all.

Here's how I "spent" last week:

TUESDAY, JULY 12 ($77.17)

• 10:38 a.m. FedEx Office - $7.22.  I don't even want to talk about what the CTA left me for a going away present.  All I can do is try to clean up the mess they left my North Community Bank account.  This took faxing, so I stopped by what is quickly becoming my home office away from home.
• 11:41 a.m. National Archives and Records Administration - Free.  The free noon program was on Good Humor suing Popsicle.  Thankfully, they gave us a free one of one or the other as a bonus for attending.  That could have gotten ugly.
• 1:32 p.m. Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe - $17.00. I had to come back and try the food after my dating debacle there.  It was pretty amazing.  Expensive as heck, but I got out for under $20.00 by just getting an entree.
• 2:35 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  Since I was in Dupont Circle, I figured looking for work at a fancy Starbucks might encourage me.  Except most of the people in it were similarly unemployed.
• 4:01 p.m. U.S. Post Office - Cleveland Park - $.54.  Unfortunately, one of my forms needed to be mailed in on this hot day.  So it was a good thing I knew about this post office next to a Metro stop.
• 4:11 p.m. Exxon - $1.71.  I had a venti iced tea lemonade.  I felt the need to buy gum and other things to make up for the real reason I was there.
• 5:06 p.m. Safeway - $27.70.  My plan to shop in the city and then eat dinner were thwarted by a train delay. But I did get the shopping done.
• 6:43 p.m. City Square Cafe - $19.00.  Since I got home a train earlier than I expected to, I decided to stop by for happy hour.  The potato gnocchi was awesome.  As was the macaroni and cheese.  Though I really should have only gotten one or the other with all of the groceries I had on me.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 13 (Free)

THURSDAY, JULY 14 ($125.00)

• 8:52 a.m. ASAE: The Center For Association Leadership - $125.00.  Probably the best triple digit expenditure I've made while I've been unemployed for sure.  What a great conference!

FRIDAY, JULY 15 ($19.85)

• 1:22 p.m. Truckeroo - $10.00.  I returned to the food truck carnival for a second month running.  This time I had it down to a science, getting one main and one dessert.  The lines were not nearly as long this late though.
• 4:26 p.m. Magic Putting Place - $4.00.  For the second time this week, I returned to the site of a bad date to exorcise the demons.  It turned out that I actually golfed better while having a panic attack.  Who knew?
• 5:28 p.m. Taco Bell - $5.85.  It's sort of sad that when I go a week without Taco Bell I get cravings.  And this one being right across from mini-golf didn't help.

SATURDAY, JULY 16 (Free)

SUNDAY, JULY 17 ($10.52)

• 8:27 p.m. Walgreens - $10.52.  On recent weekends, I haven't left the condo at all due to the heat.  This is probably both good and awful.  It took running out of toilet paper to get me moving.

MONDAY, JULY 18 ($40.90)

• 12:09 p.m. County Center Owner's Association Clubhouse - Free.  Another Monday at the gym.  Though I still felt out of shape since I need to go more than once a week.
• 3:57 p.m. Wegmans - $40.90.  I felt like less of a Woodbridge resident because I've never been here.  Now I have.  They had a lot of fun groceries that I ended up buying.  Though the sushi was probably something I couldn't afford.

So that's $273.44.  Ugh.  I really need to slow down as I'm not really getting any richer collecting unemployment.  And I am bored regardless!  Hopefully I find something soon.  It's getting to be temping time for sure.  My total money spent since I've been unemployed is $5926.06.