Its Monday and I still don't have a job. After 2 weeks and 30 aps I have gotten a grand total of zero phone calls and/or offers. Tomorrow I'm going to call on managers at a few places and see if that helps. I wonder how many of the aps I filled out are sitting on some desk or under some counter. Something tells me I'm not going to get the job at Goodwill, since its been a week and I've stopped by that place once already after submitting my resume. If I can't get a job at Steak and Shake, well, that will be a whole new era of injured pride. After 2 weeks I haven't got much pride left.

I'm starting to get really excited about teaching abroad somewhere. There are a lot of opportunities in Japan right now with different companies, and the Department of Defense has some intriguing things. With them I could teach in England, Japan, Belgium or Spain. Since its the military they don't let you chose your destination, but they ask preferences. I think there are more openings in Okinawa and the Pacific than in Europe, but one never knows. I'm holding out for 2 years in England. It pays pretty well, room and board are covered if you live on the base, and I'd be teaching things like literature and composition rather than ESL. Its too late for me to apply for the JET program, but there are others I'm applying to. The more I think about it the more it seems like this is something I really want to be doing. I want to be teaching somewhere other than the US, somewhere other than a conventional classroom, for the next few years, or one year at least. Imagine a year in Japan or Belgium, how amazing would that be? The people I'd meet, things I'd see, pictures I would take, experiences I would have and soak up? I'd finally be out living the life I always wanted to, one of exploration, rather than always preparing for life and seeing it through peepholes, metaphorically speaking. I'd be ingrained into new cultures, new foods, new clothes, new ways of seeing the world, with new people. Dare I say that it may be possible I'd even meet some women to have fun with? How fun would it be having some hot Spanish girl showing me her country? Ahhh, its been awhile since I've felt anything close to giddy.

The other day Gina said that I am always calm, very calm...or that is what she sees of me. I wonder how true that is. I do need to take more risks, live outside rather than so much inside. I need to allow myself to get angry and scream at people that make me angry, and to scream in joy when the feeling overtakes me. The closest I've ever come to physically expressing joy is when Al and I went running in the rain, jumping in puddles down Oak street. Why don't I ever let myself feel that way? What is it about sadness that is easy and compelling? Why would anyone want to focus on the negative?

I was thinking today while cleaning about the attatchments we develop on fictional characters. Books, movies, t.v. shows, they all have characters artificially constructed but yet they place a hold on us. We wait for the daily or weekly adventures our favorite characters go on, but we're really waiting on the ideas the writers come up with, that's all. There is no truth to be found in the "X-Files," only the things that creator Chris Carpenter and his writers have made up. So when he ends the show he'll tie up lose ends that way he envisions it, period. There isn't a tiny universe were our fictional characters live in, confined to the realities of their shows. There are only the wims of some writers and producers. What if we woke up tomorrow and television didn't exist, or at least, suddenly every television in the world didn't work or disappeared? What would we do with ourselves? How would we function? How would we live without the comfort of our fictional friends and false realities? Where would we be in a world without Doogie Howser, Monica Gellar, Fox Mulder, Mark Green, Sam Beckett, The Incredible Hulk, etc? What would we do without them?

I wonder.