How I Spent The Forty-First Week Of The Rest Of My Life

I'm really not sure how my interview went on Monday.  Besides phone interviews, it was the first one that I've had in over a decade.  It did seem a little bit short but thorough.  They seemed to ask every question that they could and I brought up all that I could about what would separate me out from other interviewees (if they existed).  I'm not holding out hope since it seemed like a mediocre date.

But with a girl that I really kind of liked.  And will still be Facebook (er idealist.org) stalking looking for another chance.

By Thursday, I was looking elsewhere by attending a job fair in Wheaton.  It was much better than the one that I went to in Arlington.  It was mostly retail (which I wouldn't mind working at once I moved to Rockville if I was in school at the same time) but I dropped my resume off with two of the staffing companies which were there (once which I had applied at a few jobs on Careerbuilder or Monster with).

Then I dropped by the area where they were critiquing resumes.  The woman who did so cut out my GPA and said to just list my college "volunteer" positions as jobs since I was paid for them.  Although I'm going to miss listing my germane accomplishments as an intern.  Getting old is no fun.

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Speaking of settling down, I put down a security deposit on the place my brother and I will (hopefully) be living in Rockville on Thursday.  I finally managed to convince him to live in a complex about a block north of the one that he wanted to live in.  If we get it, it's right behind a shopping center and off of Rockville Pike.

I'm just hoping that my credit comes back good enough to live there.  They seem to be pretty strict.  I'm feeling good about it though.  Better than my job prospects of working in an office right now at least.

Here's how I "spent" last week:

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11 ($41.12)

• 2:00 p.m. Amici's Restaurant - $9.00.  At this point, I'm such a regular that I should be getting free food.  Of course that's wishful thinking.
• 2:59 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  Since I wanted to write a blog entry on Michael Goldman 2.0, I decided to go back to Starbucks and get some peace.
• 4:16 p.m. Great Clips - $17.00.  Not knowing why except that I felt a bit scruffy, I decided that this would be the day that I finally got a haircut.  It was amazing that it was actually empty this day.
• 4:26 p.m. Harris Teeter - $11.12.  I bought a bunch of burritos even though I had a car.  The rest was just too expensive.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12 (Free)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13 ($55.70)

• 10:54 p.m. Sheetz - $33.13.  Knowing that I had a lot of driving to do to look for apartments, it was time to finally fill up my rental car.
• 12:01 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  I had a webinar to watch.  Unfortunately, the internet didn't work at all so I gave up.
• 1:21 p.m. Big Cheese Truck - $6.75.  The good thing about the fact that I couldn't watch my webinar was that I actually got to Friendship Heights to catch the Big Cheese Truck before it left.  Barely.
• 6:10 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  While looking for apartments all day, I came across some complexes that weren't in the book.  I used the working internet at this Bethesda Starbucks.
• 9:10 p.m. Taco Bell - $5.73.  I had received word about my interview earlier and I visited apartments that I liked.  I didn't want to head back to Virginia.  At least I got burritos.
• 9:44 p.m. Walgreens - $2.09.  Even running out of soap wasn't as bad with a car.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14 ($16.68)

• 3:03 p.m. Noodles & Company - $6.30.  I'm not going to lie.  The fact that there's a Noodle & Company in the Congressional Mall really did win me over to the neighborhood (especially after looking for apartments after not eating all morning).  I hadn't had it since I left Chicago.
• 4:37 p.m. Interfuel - $10.38.  Topping off the car in Springfield turned out to be an adventure.  Apparently there are two Budgets in the city.  Luckily, the wrong one was by a gas station.
• 5:17 p.m. Budget Car Rental - Free.  Returning the Kia Soul was very disappointing.  I really had started to love that car.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15 (Free)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16 ($14.00)

• 6:07 p.m. IHOP - $10.00.  Any day with pumpkin pancakes can't be a bad day.  They were so good.  I didn't even mind walking there in the cold for them.
• 6:45 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  Even though I knew I had an interview the next day, I figured it couldn't hurt to apply for a couple more jobs.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17 ($43.09)

• 8:31 a.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  Not wanting to be late for my interview, I took a really early train.  So early that the FedEx to print out a copy of my references wasn't even open yet.
• 9:26 a.m. FedEx Office - $2.61.  They had pretty paper that was worth the wait to print out on.
• 10:31 a.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  I don't know why I expected the interview to fill up enough of my day to not have to figure out what to do with the rest of it.  I decided to head over to my usual Starbucks even though I didn't bring my gym clothes.
• 12:56 p.m. Chipotle Mexican Grill - $9.00.  Eating seemed like a good idea even though I was in an application groove.
• 1:22 p.m. Kogod Courtyard - Free.  After eating, I had pretty lost my mojo.  But it was still too early to take the VRE home.
• 2:53 p.m. Safeway - $17.39.  Despite having had a car for the majority of the prior week, I never took it to go grocery shopping.  Instead I waited until I got to the city.
• 5:16 p.m. Subway - $6.09.  My grocery bags pretty much exploded as I got off the train home in Manassas.  Luckily the owner of this subway knows me and gave me Subway bags to replace them.

So that's $170.59.  But that was in a week where I may have gotten a job and an apartment.  Or maybe neither.  Hopefully both.  Who knows.  Anyway at least it was a week that showed some hope for the future in some ways.  I still keep thinking once I get out of Virginia, my life will look up completely.  So far everything in Maryland has pointed to that being the case.  My total money spent since I've been unemployed is $8344.71.