Catch 22

Some pertinent information that I left out of the other two blogs is our majors. Hubby graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology and Sociology and I got a BS in Family Life, with a minor in Women’s Studies. I also would have had a minor in psychology except that one of the required classes that I needed to complete it was taught by a professor who wouldn’t work with me or help me at all – his class was ‘online’ but the work load and time commitment was probably at least double what the credit hours said it would be. I had to drop his class or die from anxiety attacks, and I chose drop the class. Of course, this is the same professor who ended up shooting his girlfriend and then himself the end of this summer.

Anyway both my husband and I have rather general degrees and the question we are always asked is “What do you do with a degree in that?” The answer I like to give is “Whatever we want.” However it’s becoming more like “Whatever we can get.” Family Life and Women’s Studies sounds like a whole lot of wasted time and money, but I do not regret a single dollar or second spent. The choice I felt faced with in college was “Specialize” or “Generalize” and both have their ups and downs. Specializing in something like “dietetics” would be awesome, I’ve always been interested in nutrition, except that if I got all the way through college and found out that I didn’t actually like it that much, tough. However, generalizing may not make me awesome at any one particular thing, but I have a well rounded idea about many different things. I have not closed myself off to any opportunities – or so I hope.

 I’d also like to explain that majoring in Family Life does NOT mean that I learned how to cook, sew, iron, tend babies, and be a domestic housewife. A degree in Family Life includes classes in sociology, anthropology, dietetics, finance, psychology, and development. A minor in Women’s Studies means I took sociology, psychology, anthropology, English, and development classes which all explained what being a feminist means, how women have always fought against unequal treatment and still are, how women are abused, manipulated, discriminated against, itemized and mistreated in the past, present and what can be done for the future. These classes opened my mind and my heart to all discrimination and mistreatment of all peoples considered the “minority” and that alone is worth more to me than money.

My husband also went the route of generalizing instead of specializing I believe for many of the same reasons as I did. Anthropology is the study of human culture, and sociology is the study of groups of people. So presumably a job where he works with people, for people, around people, or near people would suit him just great. Essentially these degrees make him well rounded, open minded, understanding and accepting and what employer would not want that?

Online applications are the reason why we still don’t have a job I am pretty sure. All of the major companies are switching over to online applications it seems now. They don’t even have the paper version any more. I really do not understand why they have done this because they now can’t tell if the person applying has good hand writing or enough sense to write in blue or black ink. Honestly though I really think the online applications are hurting us. Resume paper was invented to give the person applying a better chance at getting a job, useless now. In fact, if there is an online application the person applying may not even get a chance to submit a resume and that makes it even more difficult.

 Good news is that the Police Departments for the most part are still taking the paper applications and resumes. The PDs in this area are always accepting applications, so my brilliant idea is to apply once a month so they know how badly we want the job! There is of course the possibility of them disqualifying us for putting in so many applications…but there is no warning anywhere about that and at this point it certainly can’t hurt. Right?

We have even begun looking out-of-state for jobs. Now, the reason we moved in with my mother after college is because the thought at the time was that once we have a job, then we can get a house and have kids. When we have kids I’d really like to be near my mother. I also felt like God had called me back to the area. We had had plans to go to Seattle, Hawaii, or Portland but none of it felt right. Coming back home it turned out my little brother left sooner than anticipated for Army boot camp, then a friend of mine found out some terrible news and suddenly it was clear to me why we needed to be in the area for reasons more relevant then future children. So considering now to leave the area makes me a little sick. Moving costs money and we won’t find anywhere to live for as little as we’re living with my mother, and that is money we don’t have. Supposedly though there are jobs outside of Idaho, perhaps even law enforcement jobs. So there is our Catch 22.

Now if anyone has any questions, comments, ideas or concerns about anything at all just leave a comment or send me a message on facebook and I will address your thoughts as promptly as I can. I hope everyone is staying safe and warm this month. Love to you all!