How I Spent The Thirty-Ninth Week Of The Rest Of My Life

This has certainly been a busy week.  That's why it's been almost two weeks since my last post.  I didn't find a job, but the second best thing happened - I'm finally getting out of Woodbridge!

In the back of my mind, I always wondered when my younger brother was going to end up in the Washington D.C. area, but it turned out to be far earlier than even I expected.  He got a potential job with the FDA in Rockville.  And while it's a bit disconcerting that he's gotten three government jobs in shorter than the time it's taken me to find one, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.  He needs a roommate since he's having a hard time finding a way out of his lease in Indianapolis.

We've been looking for places all weekend.  He wants to live in Rockville since a lot of the places in Silver Spring apparently have roach problems - that were never mentioned in reviews of Rockville properties.  Though the Silver Spring properties are right on Colesville Road and I love seeing the city.  I'm even willing to pay $800 per month to live in the living room of one of the giant one bedrooms in one.

We'll see who wins the war of wills.  Either way, I'll be living in a city that people (including, hopefully, potential employers) have heard of for more things than an IKEA being there.

Also exciting that in order to be able to get around Maryland this weekend, I rented a car.  This means that I'll be able to better get around for the entire week.  I think I'm going to go to Ocean City on Wednesday.  Though after driving so much this weekend (especially visible since the car has 5 miles on it when I got it), I'm not sure if I want to drive anywhere for the rest of this week while I have the car.

Here's how I "spent" the last week:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 (Free)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 ($14.70)

• 2:44 p.m. Subway - $6.09.  My marathon of webinars continued well into this week.  Instead of eating lunch, I sat online.  By the time I reached the Subway, I was a hungry mess.
• 3:06 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  I knew that I had a blog entry that I wanted to write and that I would do it unless I was at a Starbucks.  It worked.
• 5:08 p.m. Harris Teeter - $4.61.  There hasn't been much food in my apartment for a few weeks.  I decided to go extra cheap and get a bunch of burritos for the week.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 ($18.43)

• 9:45 a.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  In yet another day of webinars, I needed to make sure to be by wi-fi by 10:00 a.m. I managed to make it into the city just in time for this cast.
• 1:51 p.m. Chipotle Mexican Grill - $7.00.  After applying for a few jobs after the webinar, I finally made my way over to Chipotle for a late lunch.
• 2:10 p.m. Kogod Courtyard - Free.  This was a chance to apply for more jobs before attending a seminar on resume writing, but I decided not to do any more damage before I learned how to properly write a resume.
• 4:23 p.m. Farragut Square - Free.  After all of the writing that I had done, I needed to decompress and do some reading instead.  This was a good place to do it.
• 5:27 p.m. Shake Shack - $7.43.  Unlike the last time I attended a networking session, I decided to eat and be in tip top shape for this seminar.  This place's mushroom burger is pretty good.  I couldn't even taste the mushrooms.
• 6:01 p.m. The Meyer Foundation - Free.  The most useful piece of information that I got out of this seminar was that my three page resume was too long.  Most people are looking for a one page summary resume.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 ($20.53)

• 12:02 p.m. Washington Sports Club - Free.  I found it really weird that after attending the resume seminar the day before, I wanted to apply for jobs more than go to the gym.  But I still did the latter.
• 1:46 p.m. Truckeroo - $12.75.  Not wanting to miss a chance to get many of the food trucks in D.C. in one place, I attended my fourth Truckeroo of the season.  I've yet to miss one yet.
• 3:17 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  The long day the day before has exhausted me.  Still, I decided to try to go to Starbucks and redesign this resume.  I got some bad news there and so I just ended up sitting there feeling awful instead.
• 7:03 p.m. Taco Bell - $3.78.  After my really awful day, I needed some Taco Bell to make me happy again.  It mostly worked.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1 (Free)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2 ($5.28)

• 8:46 p.m. 7-Eleven - $5.28.  Fall had begun in earnest in the D.C. the day before.  But I still craved a Slurpee.  And some of their unhealthy burritos.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 3 ($37.76)

• 11:51 a.m. Washington Sports Club - Free.  After my horrible Friday had spread into a horrible weekend, I needed to de-stress at the gym.
• 1:05 p.m. Panda Express - $3.30.  Arriving in Columbia Heights, I saw the Panda Express and realized that I hadn't been to a Panda Express since I left Chicago.  It was as mediocre, yet satisfying, as I remember it being.
• 1:15 p.m. Target - $24.37.  Since the weather seemed to be getting colder, I figured that I needed to get a hoodie before it was too cold to leave my house and get one.
• 1:59 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  I wanted to go to my "original" Starbucks in D.C. but it was really full so I ended up back in Chinatown.  Where I still didn't apply for any jobs since I didn't feel well.
• 4:59 p.m. Subway - $6.09.  The fact that I wanted to take a nice nap when I got home had me stopping at Subway after taking an early train.

So that's $96.70.  I think this might have been my first week under $100.00 in months.  Of course, I spent more than that on the rental car this week so I more than made up for my lack of spending.  Once I'm in Maryland, I'm going to definitely have better luck than I did in Virginia with bringing money in than I did in Virginia.  It just feels more right.  So it was worth it.  My total money spent since I've been unemployed is $7855.30.