Updates!

Hello hello!

I've been incredibly busy lately, which is funny, cause it's not like I have anything I really do. However, somehow, I've managed to make myself feel as if time is running away from me at lightning speed. No worries, I'm on my way to catch it.

So, for some updates:

After School Program - Beginning in January (most hopefully) I will be the Director of an After School Program in the area. Logistics are a pain, but if it all works out it will be GREAT!

Zumba - Teddi and I have started attending free Zumba Classes at a local church every Monday and Thursday. The gym is PACKED (because it's free) with people of every age, race, job occupation, rhythmic ability, size...but not gender. This means we've got lady rednecks, doctors, teeny children, crickety old people, and two especially rhythmically challenged excited participants. Recently, I've spent a lot of the class singing along to the songs - i'm sure people appreciate this joyful addition. It's a beautiful experience, and I like to schmooze with the older adults after the classes.

The Woodlands- Dan, Teddi, and I have started going to The Woodlands Assisted Living Home once a week. I interned here in college, so it's great to be back with my oldies. Life really slows down, and they remind that life is gonna work out for the best. No frets :D

Harry Potter - I've been reading Harry Potter for the first time, and I think I'm enjoying myself. Harry's been my best friend lately (it's incredibly hard to make friends post-college life), and we're getting along great. Honestly, Snape is more of my main man...Fred and George are a close second. Ron is cool, and I think I'd get along with Ginny. Harry's kind of annoying, but I think i'ts good he's around. Oh, and I'm down with Dobby.

Rednecks - Recently Teddi and I took some time to classify rednecks. Here's what we came up with:

1. Redneck Men
2. Redneck Women
   
3. White Trash Rednecks
4. Druggie Rednecks
5. Redneck Preps
6. Redneck Lesbians (often with mullets)
7. Ghetto Redneck (my favorite)

Be on the redneck prowl, I'd love to had an eighth category!



The Blog - We are all behind at writing on it. You know, we gotta live our lives and do our lost generation thing. Jenn is here for the weekend, the whole LG2 team back together again.

Peace and Snape Love,
Laura

I got a job!

Sooo...my jobs for the past couple of months have been applying for jobs and part time ABA therapy for kids with autism. The therapy job isn't that bad. They just can't give me more than 15 hours a week. That pays for my gas each month, and that's about it. I like food a lot. I don't think I will make it very long without it.The last time I blogged I had applied to the Children's Museum. I never heard anything. Since then I have applied to Old Navy, Kohl's, Macy's, Belk, Bed Bath& Beyond, Brusters, Sears, and many other places. No luck until my very intelligent boyfriend suggested that I apply at Cracker Barrel. He thought they would appreciate my southern charm. And TA DA! With absolutely no restaurant experience I got a job as a server at Cracker Barrel!!! I super excited to be making enough money to pay for rent, utilities, groceries, and have some left to put in savings. It's SOOO exciting except for the fact that I'll have to ease off of my 24 addiction. I may need intervention. OHHHH yeah!!! I also get a Cracker Barrel apron with my name on it!!! I've never really had anything with my name on it...like the pencils and rulers and things that all the cool kids had. For some reason the world has decided that my name can only be spelled with a "Y."

Reporting Live From the Shallow End of the Real World

(Stunned by the blinding light, the Jennifer squints her eyes, finally emerging from the rock under which she had been hiding. She stretches her arms, yawns deeply, and then makes a feeble attempt to communicate with the outside world...)

Oh, hi there! Hope I didn't keep you too long while I was finishing up my hibernation. It sure is a lot of work being unemployed. So where were we...oh yeah, the Lost Generation 2.0 Report! Let me just - wait, we're on air? Already? Is this thing even turned on?

Testing, 1, 2, testing.

Okay, I think we're good.

...annnnd ACTION:

Good evening, fellow Americans.

This is Jennifer, reporting from the front lines on Atlanta's Jobless Graduates Phenomenon.

To ensure the accuracy of your information, I have entrenched myself into the [non]working class by taking up residence in the only location willing to harbor those unable to pay rent: my sister's apartment.

Over the course of these next few weeks, months, years, or however long I'm actually able to keep up with this, I'll bring you all the latest on my post-graduate developments here in the metropolitan area. Be sure to tune as I cover many relevant and informative issues, such as:

• The vast array of career opportunities available to history majors (i.e. Beer Wench at the Renaissance Festival)
• Interesting new job openings, followed by an open table analysis of why I am "over-qualified" for them
• More interesting new job openings, followed by an open table analysis of why I am "under-qualified" for them
• Hollow excuses for not submitting my resume (including "but if I want the typeface proportions to match up with the Golden Ratio I have to wait for the newest version of InDesign to become available for upgrade!")
• Documented cases of existential breakdowns and empty musings over "Who Am I, Really?"
• Crafty Corner: fun and creative ways to fend off post-grad bordem while littering the living room with little scraps of paper too small to be picked up by the vacuum cleaner
• and many, many more!

So before I sign off for the evening, I'll leave you with one handy hint for avoiding grad school while also putting off a real career: do what I'm doing and get your graphic design certification at an accredited Center for Lifelong Learning Institution!* You get all the benefits of grad school (developing new skills, having some vague notion of a purpose, guaranteed social interaction with other human beings, etc.) without having to devote every waking hour of yet another four years studying something you aren't even sure you want to use in the "real world."

*Seriously. It's pretty great. I mean, ultimately I'm trying to find some kind of creative, fulfilling line of work in another city right now, but having interesting and sporadically scheduled classes until then really does make my "figuring things out time" feel a LOT more productive and bearable...

Well thanks for having me on the show, folks!

Until next time, have a lovely evening, and just remember:

Don't quit your day job!*

*[insert goober wink here to acknowledge my awareness of how lame that last comment was]

Tweny-Four...

I'm Laura. I think Teddi mentioned me, and yeah, i'm late actually posting on the blog. Honestly, it's probably going to happen a lot. However, I'll get around to it, and you'll get some posts from me. Jennifer, on the other hand, well...you may never hear from her. She's around, in Atlatna, taking some Graphic Design classes and dreaming of finding a job somewhere. But, alas, that's not really happening. As Teddi said, we are The Lost Generation (2.0).


As for my background. I graduated from Furman (with Jenn and Teddi) in May and then taught at two camps for June and July. August I found myself back at home with my parents applying for jobs, and spending my days a little like this :

1 - Rise
2 - Make tea (ask me for my recipe sometime) and watch The Cosby Show
3 - Go on a run*
4 - Shower
5 - Complete makebelieve tasts (cleaning my room, going through papers, running errands)
6 - Find something to cook for supper
7 - Go to grocery store if needed
8 - Watch Ellen and cook supper
9 - Eat supper with father
10 - Watch tv with mother while applying for jobs
11 - sleep

*I later stopped running ... it seemed like i was gonna be in denver forever doing nothing (but the above schedule) for the rest of my life, so I, "let myself go."

Yeppp...those were my days. I did, however, find time to have a yard sale in hopes to make a little extra cash (since I had no job) and helped my parents clean out the attic. Thrilling life.

Last month I landed a part-time job at The Children's Museum of the Upstate in Greenville and found out the after-school program I was hoping to help start was actually being brought to fruition. I quickly packed my bags, and moved in to a lovely little house with Teddi. The after school hasn't started yet, so for now my week is my weekend and my weekend are my weeks. That means, I work on the weekend (when everyone else catches up to themselves) and relax during the week (when everyone else loses themselves).

Today, Teddi got called off work, so we spend the morning retrieving applications from various stores for her to apply to ... and then ... watched 24 ... TEN STRAIGHT EPISODES! It's really quite terrible that we can get all the seasons on netflix. This means, we can't stop watching...it's terribly addicting. However, it also doesn't matter because, being The Lost Generation (2.0), we don't have anything else to do - no jobs, no money, no fun (except for netflix).

peace, part-time work & poverty,
laura

I'll pester Jenn, maybe she'll throw up a greeting for our (zero) followers! :)

Here I GO!!!!!!

Hi! I'm Teddi. You will soon meet the other authors of The Lost Generation 2.0, Laura and Jennifer. We are all Furman University graduates, desperately searching for jobs. Here's my story. I decided to go to a really expensive school against my father's will. This generation has always been told that education is one of the best investments you can make. HA! I took out $100,000 in student loans. I thought it was smart because I would be going to a really great school. Surely that would land me a job! They even told us that during our four years at Furman. Well, here I am after graduation with a degree in music education. No job. I'm deferring my loans. SCARY!!! I'm freaking out! My plan is to go back to school for nursing. People will always be getting sick, right??? Anyways...to pay for nursing school and rent and food I have to find part-time jobs. So here goes my job search. Day 1: Applied at The Children's Museum of the Upstate. Stay tuned...