The heart of the matter

Let's catch up internet, it's been a while.

Once I got back from Panama, I was lucky enough to find a job fairly quickly in San Francisco. I worked for Hamilton Family Center, and for the most part I enjoyed it. For the summer of 2010, my family was planning a trip to Poland to visit distant relatives. So after a year and half working with low-income families to find permanent housing, I had an opportunity to parlay my family trip into a two month cycling journey around Europe. I took it.

I quit my job, and it felt like the right thing to do. Everyone I talked to encouraged me, said they wished they had done something similar. I was a little worried, but I wanted to move on from that job at some point and a biking trek was as good a reason as any.

The trip was great, and I still tell people that I don't regret it at all, but the process of looking for work, the cold, anonymous grind, is much more difficult than I expected. I've been looking for a full-time job for more than a month and a half now, and even though I've been able to make ends meet, it has been a non-stop hustle. Just since I've been back I've worked five different jobs, and many times I've felt like I'm in a post-modern novel.

So before I get to the existential questions and big picture observations, I'll write a little bit about how I've been playing the rent for the past six weeks. Seems like a good place to start.