Absent

If the first rule of fight club is not to talk about fight club then the first rule of blogging is probably don't talk about what a horrible blogger you are when you haven't written in weeks. Or really a month.

So what have I been up to in my absence?

1. I graduated from graduate school. I am officially an MSW. (and unemployed)

2. My best friend  got married to the wonderful love of her life 

3. I saw Matt Nathanson in Concert after seeing a tweet about a secret concert he was holding at a venue right in my town.

4. I traveled to reunion weekend at my favorite place on earth. 

Hows the job hunt been going?

1. Got offered a job right after my last post with a Veterans Service Organization but turned it down due to a number of reasons not the least of all is that despite saying I couldn't start until June 6. They asked me to start May 5th and asked if I could skip my graduation and leave late for my best friend's wedding in order to attend training out of state. They also wanted me to decide by 4:30 pm the day they offered me the job. It just seemed like a poor situation considering it wouldn't even give me the right experience I needed to get my license anyway.

2. Interviewed for a Bachelor's optional Social Service assistant position at the army hospital I did my internship at. The interview went really well but the man who interviewed me said that while he really really liked me and thought I would be a fantastic asset to the team taking the position would be career suicide and that I am supremely employable in my desired field as long as I'm willing to move. He also emailed a plea to other supervisory social workers for Warrior Transition units which led too....

3...a potential job offer, I am waiting to interview, but I am sure the job will be mine for the taking once we talk. It is however, not in my ideal location. I will post about this tomorrow because it deserves its own entry.

4. I also made the highly qualified list for the Substance Abuse internship program the Army is offering but I haven't been interviewed. I am not confident I will be interviewed because I heard about it the Friday before memorial day and the program starts in early July so I imagine they'd already started interviewing. I would love to be interviewed but I am not a veteran or a military spouse so I'm doubting its a go.

So thats about all to catch you up on thats happened over the last month (at least the things of significance)

Whats coming up?
-Trip to where I went to college to see some friends and old professors on Wednesday
-Mumford and Sons in Concert on Thursday
-Possibly a trip to NC (to get a shooting lesson) or an Indigo Girls concert this weekend

Getting Started

Well, here we go again, Blogger. We had a torrid love affair 2 years ago at the beginning of my grad program which lead to a nastygram from the Army and subsequently them shutting us down. But now with just 5 weeks left of grad school and 4 weeks left at our internship it feels like a good time to start up the ol' blog wheels again. That, and one of my best friends, has started a blog about her life's journey and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so I'm blogging my journey too.  We're just not going to talk any sort of specifics about our internship because we don't want another nastygram.

So when you're on a journey or at least just starting out its best to start at the beginning. I'm Sarah. I'm 25 (oh look a girl telling her real age!). I am about to graduate from a Masters of Social Work program in mere 32 days (cue panic at finishing my thesis, 2 final papers, 8 journals, 1 process recording and 1 presentation). I graduated in 2007 from Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa with a BA in Religion and Social Change. Remind me to tell you about Juniata some day and why my major doesn't look like yours did. After graduation I spent time working for congress, a union, and finally landed a dream job using that strange undergraduate degree for a Christian organization (despite being Jewish) that did hunger and poverty advocacy and lobbying. And there I remained for 18 months before leaving to head to graduate school.

When not working for money, I spent (and still do) a lot of time as a volunteer (and eventually as a paid employee) with a civilian organization that provides fun things like massage nights, brunches, picnics, dvds etc at a military hospital here in the DC area. Its through this volunteer opportunity I learned about the issues facing our wounded warriors and fell in love with the military. This was all very strange for a pacifist who has more peace signs in her wardrobe then any other symbol. Eventually I'll tell you why I can be a pacifist and do the work that I do but regardless I soon realized that I needed to figure out how to do this for money. Enter MSW program.

The program itself has been a challenge, not academically, but just major lessons in time management, frustration tolerance and dealing with "the man." I have also dealt with personal struggles regarding my health during this which have been trying. The program in the end I hope will get me where I want to be in life--as a social worker for the US Army either civilian or uniformed.

I am happy school is coming to an end (I want my weekends back!) but I'm a little scared about the future. So far I am not employed and have no real prospects which is a little scary. I'm grateful to have lived at home the last two years (for better or worse) and that my parents won't be kicking me out anytime soon but I'm ready to be a grown up.

So this is where the journey begins, 5 weeks before graduation, looking for employment, preparing for the future me!