Sunday, October 25, 2009

Resume your curriculum vitae...

I don't really have anything pithy to say today.

I keep applying for jobs, and WTF? I am starting to think everyone else knows something I don't know, like, my resume has a booger hanging out of its nose. I don't think it does, though. Maybe it's because I call it a "resume" when everyone here calls it a "cv." But I don't like to think that my job experience IS my curriculum vitae. I prefer it as a "resume," which I think means "summary" in the Frog.

My curriculum vitae - well, that's actually kind of a complicated question, isn't it? I mean, the "path of my life" (yes, I used to teach Latin. Wait, does that have to go on there then?) is something different.

Defining moments in my life? Nothing to do with work. My son puking on me this morning had more of an effect on me than learning HTML. You really DON'T mind when the puke belongs to your kid. No, really. This is a life lesson.< /duh>

The footnotes on my resume are actually what I'd consider the most important part of my "life path." Speaking Dutch, Spanish, Italian. That shit took a long time to learn. Graduating with a bachelor's degree after having to drop out of school during a major depression? That was hard. Re-enrolling in college and finishing - that was hard. Impressive sounding action verbs and being a "valuable team player" and all that happy horseshit is easy. That's all just crap people make up to sound important.

Another footnote: I have a residency permit and BSN. Does anyone realize what a huge fucking accomplishment that is? While TNT was busy losing my original birth certificate in the mail (can't have a permit without it!), I was uninsured and paying cash to squeeze out my first kid in a foreign country. That's some heavy shit. Oh yeah, and I like, can use Microsoft Office.

Who am I? Multi-tasker? Yeah, not because of work. Hard worker? Yeah, not because of work. Good leader? Yeah, but not because of work. Because life has made me a seriously tough mother who has overcome a lot to be able to take care of my kids. Oh, and able to prioritize and coordinate multiple tasks to complete projects to customer satisfaction. Shut the fuck up and die in a fire.

2 comments:

Michael Reynolds said...

I love your blog. I just happened to come across it looking for something else.

I was just in Amsterdam a couple weeks ago on book tour. Had I known of your blog then I'd have come by and chit-chatted about nothing of any importance. We could have both smiled for no good reason.

I actually wrote a similar sort of blog while living in Italy. (alblit.com) Think less weed, more pasta. And motorcycles rather than bikes.

Dolores said...

really really love your blog!, I am born in Europe, never been to US, but parts of me living in the blogworld - and that makes me feel very sad for the rest of me living in real Austria...I have a bakfiets as well, very uncommon in Vienna, raising two little kids and always struggling with money - maybe you want to read more: achtungkinder.blogspot.com