there and back again and then there again!

I'm about to embark on a mini-adventure: a quick trip back to Spain to visit friends, and hopefully see a few new places--but friends are the priority. I decided that it was a rather silly idea financially (to which my sister decidedly agreed--since when did she get all responsible and stuff?) but then, the timing was pretty good: the research job I've been working on in schools finished up before Christmas, and I'd been planning to quit my side job at an entirely too infrequently visited Mediterranean restaurant nearly since I started two months ago. The problem with working two part-time jobs without benefits is that you don't really make money.

By the time you pay the bills, and the loans and eat and go out a bit, there's your monthly income! So I didn't really have much money saved up, but I was looking at tickets and they were so cheap! And then a housesitting gig came up, providing me with three months' free rent...the perfect post-trip, no-job cushion! So I decided to do it. And I leave in 2 days! ¡olé!

Now, the other thing all this job changing thing is doing is making me think pretty seriously about a career (and, as my wizened older sister cautioned, it doesn't look good on your resume to change jobs so often--no one will want to hire you, assuming you'll leave after a few months). My roommate mentioned once that she learned about climbers who went up to the top of wind turbines to fix them, and this sounded like a pretty great job, so I've been doing some research. Rope access technician does sound like a job I would enjoy! But unfortunately though the original certification can be obtained in a week-long training course, you'd have to have some other skills

(welding, for example, and be certified in these other skills) and until you've reached a level 2 or 3 (several years' worth of work/experience) you might be hard-pressed to find work, unless you get on with a good company early on. A lot of freelance type of work at the beginning. So it would be great if I already had a side job, with a flexible schedule. But it's not an investment I can probably afford at this point, and also probably not something I'd want to do for decades (is there anything out there??) and thus I am, a bit regretfully, putting that idea back on the shelf. Next? (Ok, Kevin, you win...)

Well, I'll work on the next idea. In the meantime, it's time to take a holiday in Spain! And then get back and find a job ASAP. (It will probably be another temporary job I don't particularly enjoy, which will help me get by until I move to South America in the fall. I haven't quite figured the details of this move out, yet, but no worries. The adventure is there. Probably just for a year, and then I'll come back and be a real adult, I promise. Maybe. Don't hold me to that. I may have

been crossing some fingers in there, which is tricky while you're typing, by the way).

Until next time (probably next year), do something to improve your karma, drink some good tea, laugh with friends, hug your family, and wave to the sun.