I hate Indian summer.
most people like it. Not me. It's hot all summer long, then it finally starts to cool off to a pleasant fifty degrees, I put all my summer clothes away and dig out my fall clothes, then it gets hot as hell. On top of it all, I almost always wind up getting sick around this time. I hate it.
On top of that, the air conditioner isn't working. I have it set at sixty but it still won't go below seventy seven. I'm giving it ten minutes and I'm turning it off and opening some windows.
I sort of regret dropping out of my day classes. Not because I miss going to them, but I would have left more options open if I'd gone. Well that and for the past couple of years I've attempted going to school two other times and both times dropped out in frustration. (Well, the first time I dropped out three weeks before the semester ended because I simply couldn't take living in the basement of an insane old woman in Milwaukee for one moment longer. When weighted against going back to Chicago and having the chance to pursue the developing romance with the man who is now my boyfriend, it wasn't much of a contest...)
Of course, I didn't drop out completely. I'm taking two classes, which is probably better. I'm retracting my vow to never go to school again. In fact, with my level of frustration, two classes are probably better than making myself go full time when it's frustrating me and then dropping out completely because my level of aggravation gets beyond the rational stage. I like the classes that I'm taking, and I can always take more when we get back to Chicago.
Besides which, I hate the school and I hate the town. If I manage to get a job that pays decent and am able to save up the money I need to get out of this town even two months earlier than planned, it will be worth it.
I am thinking that I may go to school when I get back and kind of forget that Valley ever happened. Harold Washington College has a better range of video and animation classes than Valley does, and it's the same price. As much as would like to get away from the whole community college experience, I can go there for a year and accumulate enough credits to go to UIC and actually have residency. It's better than what my alternative is: go to Valley for a year, then go back to Chicago and pay $12,500 in out of state tuition for some place I lived for three years before coming here. At least this way, I only have to pay $5,500 -- a lot more reasonable of a sum.
I still may go to Illinois Institute of Art. I still have reservations about the whole thing, but I did like the school when I visited and I'm thinking that the accelerated pace would work well for me. I get so frustrated by the pedantic pace of most of my classes at Valley and in the very least it's doubtful I would encounter that.
I'm not a hundred percent sure that I'll be a serious student when I get back, but I won't rule it out. I'll see how I feel after I finish this semester.
Meanwhile, I'm plugging away at my job search. Of course, job hunting in a town like this is a very different experience.
I received a call for an interview at Davenport University. It was a job that I very much wanted and so I was excited about the opportunity. She scheduled an interview for Monday. As I was sick in bed Friday, I was awakened by a call from the woman, cancelling with what basically amounted to the " something suddenly came up" excuse. Had I been feeling better, I would have told her--as she said she was keeping my resume on file--to please file it in the trashcan because after such flagrant unprofessionalism, I would not consent to a further interview if requested.
I had another call back. It went well until the man asked my minimum pay. Now, I know I'm not too likely to make fifteen an hour here but I also know that the equivalent based on cost of living places me at around ten an hour. My minimum was nine. At that point he excused himself from the call giving the "we have a lot of applicants" line of bullshit. I still am trying to adjust to the fact that I scared someone off for asking for nine bucks an hour. I mean, I know wages are lower here, but they seem to be lowest among office jobs. I've seen retail positions that are close to what they would be in Chicago. I don't see the point of the extreme difference for office work between Chicago and here. I mean, it has a lot more responsibilities than retail, and a lot higher expectations. So I'm not about to take a job that pays maybe two dollars over what I would make working at Target or slinging coffee.
Yesterday, I received a call from another job. They wanted an impromptu phone interview. Again, a case of blatant unprofessionalism. I have never seen a place do that. Every place that has ever done that has always forewarned me. The idea is to be on equal footing, so that you can not only get "in the zone" so to speak, but so that you can think of questions you might like to ask as well. I consented, but then I intentionally asked for more than I knew they would give me, so that they wouldn't ask me for an interview. (I asked for twelve bucks an hour, heh.) Any place that pulls a power trip like that during the interview process is going to be very shitty to work for.
I did get a message on my machine from a law firm. Maybe they'll be better. I guess I should go call them back, huh?