When you hand your whims the reigns and let your curiosity lead you unfettered sometimes you end up in strange places. If you told me I would be spending any amount of time in a small town in the middle of the American West I would have rolled my eyes and said, "yeah right," but here I am, chilling in a barn-cum-guest house while I prepare to move down into metro Denver in a week. I've been here almost two weeks now which means it's about time for my bullish insistence that it will all turn out alright is now locked in mortal combat with the bear of 'WTF was I thinking?'

I only have two major concerns, but they are major. The first is about the job search. I've never had such trouble landing a job. Sometimes I would drag my feet about getting one, but since high school I have been able to find work when I needed to find work. Two weeks may not seem like a long time to the objective observer, but for someone who is going to have tuition and rent to pay soon I am seriously starting to wonder if there is something in my resume or approach that is sabotaging my efforts towards gainful employment. Considering I am using the same resume build that I did when I almost got that job back home, I don't -think- there's anything in there screaming "Stay Away" to prospective employers, but who knows. Maybe the job market is just that terrible. The only thing that can be done is to drive ahead and keep my eyes open for my chance. I did find a hidden pocket of library assistant jobs for some law firms, so maybe something will come of that.

My second concern has to do with the location. I like Denver, a lot. It's a beautiful city with a beautiful backdrop of mountains and plains and a strong public transportation system, which I still consider essential even with a car. The problem is that I love New York City, Seattle, and New England too, and am wondering to myself if I should have gone somewhere that had what I was more specifically interested in rather than somewhere that was just new and challenging. For example, if landing a position at the library of congress was my dream job, would it not have made sense to try getting into a program closer to the library of congress? Or if furthering my education in East Asian studies and Asian languages was something I really wanted to keep up with should I not have held out for Seattle? My decision was ultimately influenced by the fact that Denver accepted rolling admissions while every other school I was considering did not, and I was on the verge of going nuts if I was going to spend one more month languishing at home but in hindsight I wonder if I couldn't have exhibited just a little more patience.

That's not to say that I think my choice was a bad one. Every road to something leads you away from something else, and I simply have the time now to look around and wonder about what I am passing by in choosing this particular path. I expect that once I moved down into Denver proper and start meeting the other people in my program I will know more firmly whether or not the leap of faith I have made here was an intelligent one.

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I've also learned a lot of things from my life as an undergrad in Hawaii. I know what works and what doesn't. I'm looking forward to my time as a graduate being, on the whole, much more satisfying than my time as an undergraduate, but for that to happen I will have to work at it and resist the temptation to fall into a routine and drive through the next two years with blinders on.

So I'm keeping my eyes open for stuff to do and people to meet. There was an advertisement up for a language event involving food and free 30 minute classes, so I thought, what the hey, I'll go down, check it out, and maybe meet someone interesting. Turned out that the event was tailored to an older crowd as an extension of the adult learning program and the classes they were selling only met once a week. You can't get much done language wise once a week, but I've had such an itch to study -some- sort of language I was still considering signing up. Lucky for me the choice was taking out of my hands when the classes I was interested in were scheduled at the same time as my grad courses.

I am still heavily considering finding some way to start learning Chinese, but am trying to focus on the job front first, and -then- I will find new and exciting ways to spend my money.