Hunh. Who Knew?

It's been ages since I've last posted, so I have some catching up to do, but first let me regale you with this little tidbit of information. Ladies, did you know you have a vestibule? I don't mean in your house (you may or may not; I personally do not), but on you. Kind of in you, actually (but not totally).

I went in today for my annual exam (men: that means I was at the gynecologist) and found myself sitting around the exam room/second waiting room, staring at the posters of cartoonish STDs and diagrams of the female anatomy when I spotted it smack dab in the middle of the vulva: the vestibule. It seems so welcoming, having a vestibule.

Instead of posting a picture of a vagina on my blog for everyone to look at when they visit (if you really want to see it), I've decided to post the definition (this was also brought on by my curiosity about whether this particular meaning of vestibule made it into my pre-installed Mac dictionary, which I'm proud to say it did. Go Mac!). Lo and behold, everyone has a vestibule! Men have three and women have four!

Here's the defintion:
vestibule |ˈvestəˌbyoōl| noun
1 an antechamber, hall, or lobby next to the outer door of a building.
• an enclosed entrance compartment in a railroad car.

2 Anatomy a chamber or channel communicating with or opening into another, in particular
• the central cavity of the labyrinth of the inner ear.
• the part of the mouth outside the teeth.
• the space in the vulva into which both the urethra and vagina open.

So there you have today's great discovery.

I still don't have a job. My dad sent me a link to an article talking about how some people get offered jobs because of their blogs (and some people get turned down because of them). This made me wonder:
a) Does my dad know about and read my blog and was this a not-so-subtle hint to be a little bit more intelligent on it (clearly failing miserably with today's post)? and
b) Do potential employers read my blog?

I think I've managed to remain fairly anonymous on here, so hopefully the answer to both questions is no. Part of me doesn't really care though. This blog is for fun and it doesn't affect my ability to work, so judging me on anything that I've written here is kind of silly (unless it's a positive judgment). Really nothing I do in my free time affects my work and if anything, this blog gives me some writing practice. So there. Hire me. Please. If you're reading this. I'm smart, organized, efficient, and super reliable. I swear.

My New (Old) Place

The gods are smiling upon me, at least on my living situation (not so much on the job situation). A few days after finding out that I didn't get the Google job, my old landlord called me. I'd been harassing him quite a bit, asking if anything was available in my old building.

I kept fantasizing about my old place–it was exactly what I was looking for: sizable, hardwoods (no gross carpet!), decent sized kitchen, upstairs (windows open when not home!), dogs allowed, lots of closet/storage space, central heating and air, and within walking distance of the bar, the grocery store, the movie theater, the 24-hour diner, and the best porch in Atlanta. My fantasizing, as it turns out, was not in vain (for the first time).

As I was saying, my landlord called me. He called me to tell me that the girl that had been living in my EXACT SAME APARTMENT had just given him notice that she was moving out in one week! I panicked a little, thinking about my total lack of income. He assured me that I could think about it for a few days and that he had no problem renting to an unemployed me. During those days, I asked people what they thought about me moving into a place that would eat my savings up more quickly than crashing with friends. The funny thing was, I was only asking people who I was pretty sure would tell me to take it. I thought for a while about whether to ask my parents about it. I've been getting a lot of advice from my parents lately–most of it requested, with some unsolicited nuggets of wisdom mixed in. My parents are awesome. Let me repeat that, my parents are awesome. Above all, they want me to be happy. That said, they are both extremely frugal, which has been a great example for me (no credit card debt!). I couldn't decide whether their desire to see me happy by being in my own place would outweigh their good pecuniary sense. It was too risky, so I kept the news to myself until I made the decision.

And of course I elected to take it (the folks thought it was a great idea. Again, they're awesome). I move in on Friday. I am SOOOOOOOOO excited! At last! Organization! Projects! Walking around in my underwear! Sleeping in my super-duper bed! Being messy when I want to! It will be a strange orgy of freedom and organization. I can't wait.

Otters holding hands

This video is way too long, but I love otters. They are my favorite non-pet animals. So otters holding hands, well, it's almost too easy. When you get tired thinking about how cute the otters are, listen to the people's commentary. I've noticed this at zoos–people make kind of dumb commentary (I am not exempting myself from this). Like that time at the San Diego Zoo when several of us simultaneously noted the tapir's HUGE (bigger than his leg) penis. Or at the Barcelona zoo, looking at the monkey's blue balls (they're kind of a Tiffany blue). Or at just about every zoo I've been to when chimps do something very "human." I love otters. And zoos. But I'm pretty sure these otters are "holding hands" so they can float en masse, not because they're dating. I guess it does say something that they want to float together though.

A Transitional Period

I've been pretty lax on posting lately, kind of because I was just lazy and uninspired, but also largely because I was applying for a job at Google. They own Blogger and I was paranoid that this blog was somehow going to affect my getting the job potential. I didn't get the job, so now I'm free to post again. I think probably they did read my blog. I mean, I told them I had one and I had a total of 8–yes, EIGHT–interviews/assessments with them. They're pretty thorough, so I imagine someone read my blog at some point.

They couldn't/wouldn't tell me why they didn't hire me, aside from saying that they were sure I was capable of the job, but thought someone else they were considering was a better fit. It's weird (to me) that they can't give you any constructive criticism because of legal reasons. Do people sue companies for being mean?!?! I don't really get it and no one's really been able to explain it to me, so if you can enlighten me, I would appreciate it.

During the course of the interviews, I started having working-at-Google fantasies. These mostly revolved around all of the free food they provide (I got to the point of thinking that maybe I didn't need an apartment with a kitchen) and their you-can-bring-your-dog-to-work policy. So I'm a bit sad about that loss (of something I never really had). I freaked out for about 15 minutes after I got the bad news. Okay, I was sobbing. It was terrifying. It is terrifying. I dropped out of school and am now homeless and jobless, with no opportunities for remedying either clearly visible at the moment. I still don't regret leaving school and C did an excellent job of calming me down, so I'm relatively good now.

But I'm back to square one. Maybe square zero.

Shortly after the Google rejection, I thought, "Hmmm... maybe this is a sign that I should try to pursue that career in carpentry (kind of my secret dream job)." I [sigh] googled "how to be a carpenter" and learned that you're supposed to start in high school, so, uh, oops. I have to admit that the prospect of having unsightly hands does sort of dissuade me from carpentry (but the creation of neat furniture!).

I've been looking at marketing, advertising (I have to admit that I don't totally know the difference between the two), project management, production, market research, etc. Oh, and volunteering at the dog shelter. And I briefly (very briefly) considered selling my toenail clippings to perverts, inspired by this article. I'm kind of all over the place, but I like to refer to it as "keeping my options open."

After lots of phone tag, I finally got the chance to talk to an old college buddy (L) last night. He's in a major transitional period now as well. He, in fact, coined this time period as "transitional," while I was calling it "floundering." His term is more positive, so I'm sticking to that. My best friend (M) is also on the verge of transitioning I think. Maybe it's because we've all recently turned 30. Well, L's job was basically uprooted for him, so I guess that's his reason. We all have our own reasons, but we all want change. And we're all a little unsure of what we really want and how to go about that.

I've reached that end of the post area where I start to ramble. If you have any words of wisdom, let me know and I'll pass them on to L and M for karmic purposes. And because they're great friends and I would do whatever I could to help.

As L suggested when we were trying to figure out if we'd be in the same city any time soon, "We can grab beers and cry into them. By which I mean be positive and determined, happening to life instead of letting it happen to us." Cheers to that.

This is Cool

It's a little over the top, but sometimes you have to be like that to get the message across. Pretty good public health promotion in a sea of crappy ones.
http://www.scaryideas.com/print/2011/