I wonder...

...whether having a job will be bale to change my social life. I have been feeling shunned from any kind of social circles for a long long time. I know that, just having a job does not create miracles all of a sudden.

As a matter of fact, I am alone since the day I graduated from the collage. before that I had tons of friends and very busy social life. Something happened afterwards I cannot quite put my finger on it though. Now, I am sure my grandmother's phone rings way more frequently than mine. I know I am the only one to blame. But what happened to me that makes me so recluse.

Is it because of the depression I have been in for a long time which makes me to push others away. Wait a minute. I was not that much of an outcast when I was in the states. I had tons of friends. It is quite natural to feel secluded when you sit at home all the time. For a long time, there haven't been anything going on in my life. So, I am hoping that this job will spur things up and give me more room to breath.

I hope so...

I GOT THE JOB....

Yes yes, I changed the title of my blog due to the long-waited/hoped/wished-for reason: I AM EMPLOYED !!!!!!!!

After three-week long interviews, yesterday evening I got a call from the organization I applied to and heard the good news: YOU ARE HIRED.....I am so relieved by the news. Now, I have to focus on the job and get ready to be in the work environment again, after almost a year long break.

My wife has been a huge support for me during the lows and highs of my job hunt journey. Having a partner like her is the best thing ever happened to me. All I want now is to pamper her, shower her with gifts...She deserves the best of everything.

I am also lucky to have this job which offers great benefits and huge opportunity to improve myself on top of my graduate degree. The most delicious part is that the weekends are off, can you believe that??? I know it may sound weird thing to be happy for, but it is so important to have your weekends to yourself.

From now on, I am gonna write mostly on my job; on people I work with, on projects I work on, on trips I may or may not take....I am so lucky to have this great privilege to work for them -- I am gonna keep the names of persons and places undisclosed in order to be able to continue writing. I don't want to expose myself, that would be foolish. This is much more fun...

Thus, I can complain about my job relentlessly here :)))

Unemployeds...Let's hear from you

I really need to hear from other unemployeds around the world.

How do you deal with unemployment?

What are your means to cope with the boredom, mounting stress, self-depriciation, and social isolation?

I do need to hear from you in order to find better ways to tackle this issue.

Please e-mail me or leave a comment to reach me...

The dog is gone...

Last Saturday, we took the dog back to the shelter for good. Don't worry, here where I live, they do no perform euthanasia on dogs, never ever.

My wife and I have never had a pet, let along a dog. Although she was way more patient with the dog than me, I was losing my ground. I was stressful, and, worse of all, angry at the dog at all times. I could not take it anymore.

After leaving the dog at the pound, I was relieved tremendously. However, my wife cried all weekend. The good thing is we talked before we made the excruciating move. She understands my point of view though and I understand hers.

There are some facts that make it harder to have a dog that I realized later and then convinced my wife. First of all, the dog has a really bad shedding problem. It is beyond belief which forced us to clean up the entire house every weekend. After 5 mins later, the house is a mess again. It was relentless. Second, the dog had this biting and jumping habit for which we tried to train her with the guidance of the books we purchased to solve simple training problems. Obviously, all the time we spent training her did not work a bit.

Another problem was and is that the vets working at the shelter are so used to telling "white lies" to prospective dog adopters that it is impossible to get accurate info regarding the dog. They are afraid to tell the truth fearing that we might return the dog. However, by doing that they put enormous pressure on us, so when we reach our boiling point, it is too late to turn things around. For the shedding problem, all my questions were dismissed. As if it were a miniscule problem, there was no way to convince them that the problem causes a real trouble for us. On top of that, the vets have no idea what kind of dog they are giving away. As a result, they don't have anything to warn the adopters about the dog, like shedding, behavior that sort of things.

I am not blaming anyone for my deed. But, I can tell you this for sure that I won't be adopting a dog from shelters anymore. There is this sticky emotion attached to the dog. Whenever you have a problem with the dog, talking about the problem becomes a tabu or asking for more info replied with this stonewalled attitude as if it were a shame to ask such questions.

Hell

Yesterday was a day sent from the hell.

I woke up with en uneasy mood. Went out to a short walk with my wife who stayed longer at home in order to calm me down. After the walk, we took a short nap. That far it was going fine. Then she left for work. I stayed at home. I checked my e-mails. there was nothing worth reading; all junk. Then I started to fell tense again. It got worse around 2 PM when I felt hopeless and desperate. To get rid of the sticky feeling, I began to clean up the house and took a shower afterwards which seemed to work. Then I prepared a hearty lunch.

Then I received a text message saying that one of our family member, who was 94 years old and had been sick for a while, passed away. The feeling of desperation came back with full blast. I felt very sorry and sad all of a sudden. To avert my thoughts, I trained the pup and played with her a bit. She was ok. I took her to the pee spot several times knowing that she had to go. She did not. After a while, I got tired and tied her leash and stayed with her watching TV. A minute later, she was peeing right on the rug while looking straight at me. I calmly said NO and raised up from the couch which scared her and made her run while peeing all around, drawing circles on the leash. She peed all over the living room. Sadly, I lost it again. I beat her up quite badly.

It is evident that yesterday was not a pretty day for me.

*******

I feel like I am lacking way behind of people with whom I was friend in high school and in collage years who were now doing way better than me. I promised myself million times not to compare myself with others, but to no avail. Even the guys who were goofy years back now are the money makers of their home. I, on the other hand, sit all day long and figure out how not to lose my mind out of boredom and self-pitty. I feel worthless when I see that others have every reason to be proud of themselves.

I had a friend in the high school who was very shy, specially around girls, and goofy since he was not that smart at all. We, along with another buddy of us, prepared the university entrance exam. He could not make it for the first year. Anyway, years passed. With the help of his father he landed a good job. Then he changed. He changed so much that he did even invite me to his wedding. The way I learned that he got married was like a movie scene. I called him one day, and his mom picked up and told me that he got married and living at such and such address. I was shocked.

Well, like that, I lost most of my friends. I literally ran out of friends. Mostly because they did good things while I was whining about how my life sucks terribly. It still sucks.

********

I hope I can turn things around soon. I don't like what I am becoming. I want to breath, want to take a long, fresh, sweet breath. I want to smile more often and crack jokes. I want to be able to live my own life, to be proud of myself.