Reading and Watching List for the Unemployed

Hello all 5 of my readers! Happy 5th! Sorry I didn't get a chance to write yesterday, I was exhausted after spending time with my niece!

So What do I do with all my time? Well I'm in school getting my M.A. so the work for that takes up a lot of my day. But when I'm not I read a LOT and I watch a LOT of TV. So here is what I am reading/watching this summer:

1) "Off the Menu" by Stacy Ballis. I read this in ONE day. Absolutely charming. The writing is clear and easy to read. A definite must read. Also has one of my favorite book doggies in it ever! Read in conjunction with:

2) "Jeneration X" What happens when terminal inner-child Jen Lancaster realizes its time to grow up? Well read to find out! "hilarious!" says Jon!

3) "My Name is Asher Lev" By Chaim Potok. Ok, I admit, this is a "HAVE TO READ" more than a "Want to read". Its required before my first day of insane 12 hour class days week a.k.a. Gratz College Summer Institute. However, the more i read, the more charmed I am by the book and the main character. Its about Asher Lev who grows up in a troubled Hasid family in Brooklyn and becomes an artist. DEF read!!

Watching


I've been eating up British TV lately, here are some of my fans


1) Sherlock: I am utterly, absolutely, totally in love with this show. Benedict Cumberbatch is such a phenomenal actor. The series, is obviously by its title, a reboot of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series. It takes place in the modern era and is just cool!

2) Rosemary and Thyme: This one was a surprise pleasure. 2 women, a former police officer whose husband has cheated on her, and a former college botany professor who got fired for dumping the chancellor of the university, team up to start a landscaping business and solve murders.

3) Marple: This is the newest remake of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple series. There are two Miss Marples, one in the first 3 seasons, the second for the last two. I love the first one, she is amazing. Not feeling the second o

What's been going on

Hi there! Sorry it has been awhile since I last posted. So here's what's been going on.

1) My Unemployment was approved. Apparently my company couldn't prove that I did not try my best. YAY!

2) I'm officially back in school. I am attending Gratz College for my Masters' in Holocaust and Gender Studies.

3) My niece Abby turned 2. We had her birthday party last weekend.

4) I won the Stennifer Summer Tour! What the heck is that? Its the chance to have lunch with two of my absolutely fav authors. Jennifer Lancaster and Stacey Ballis. Here are their Blogs: Jennsylvania (Jennifer Lancaster) The Polymath Chronicles (Stacey Ballis). This is super exciting for me. I have been a huge fan of Jennifer Lancaster since her first book "Bitter is the New Black" She is quite possibly one of the funniest writers I have ever read. Not only do I own all her books, I have all the audiobooks too. If ever I have a long ride, and I need something to entertain me, I hop on my iPhone and turn on one of her books. Her latest "Jeneration X" is great. Its also great that she is such a supporter of Pitt Bulls and Shelters. I automatically love anyone who expresses love for Pittys. My close friend Rachel as 3 of them and they are the sweetest doggies one could meet. Here's a pic of 2 of them:

As for Stacey Ballis, I came upon her through the wonder of www.amazon.com. I was looking for new authors and Amazon recommended her book "Room for Improvement" and I was hooked. I quickly read "The Spinster Sisters" and "Good Enough to Eat". Unfortunately her other books are not available on kindle so I have not read them yet. I am eagerly eating up "Off the Menu", the newest which came out TODAY!! Her writing is crisp and clear, and insanely entertaining. Her books make me laugh and smile on a regular basis. Also, she writes about topics I love, cooking, love, and reality TV. Because of this I feel that I understand her writing. The whole contest was in honor of the publication of her newest book "Off the Menu". I know it was selected randomly but I am soooooo happy I won! 

Go off and order their books! I command it!

I want to also take a moment to introduce my sidekick. her name is Diamond, she came to me 2 years ago from a WONDERFUL home, but she needed more one-on-one attention (i.e. she hates other animals with a passion). She's a total sweetheart to people, as I write this she is actively licking my arm to get my attention. She's about 8 years old but acts like a kitten half the time. Here's a pic:

Lest you think i'm a slob, this is my school work surrounding her. I was at the end of the day and every time i read something, I throw it down to the end of the bed. Right now the bed is clear!

So tomorrow i'm gonna post my summer reading/tv watching list, and some basic info about me so those of you who DIDN'T come from my Facebook list know who the hell I am!

My Day of Nothing

Today got off to a shitty start. I used to work from 3:30-10:00PM so my sleep schedule is set from 2:00AM to 10:00AM. At 8:45 I awake to banging on my door and a swarthy hairy man of greek/russian/turkish decent saying "My Friend, I'm Sorry my friend, I need you to move your car because I have a delivery coming my friend." Now there is a house being built 2 houses down from me and they have woken me up every day. They have inconvenienced us all by starting work at 7:45AM, working on the road until 11:00PM, and the police don't care. Needless to say, I was not happy about this wake-up call, but knew that these cut-rate asshole construction company (I've seen enough to know that they are not reputable) would just dump shit on my car if I didn't move it from outside MY house. So I moved. But first I slammed the door in his face. He got pissed at me and just kept repeating "My friend" loudly and tried to talk to me when I went outside. I ignored him and just glared at him as I moved. I swear the rest of the day they worked EXTRA-LOUD just to piss me off.

I have a paper due on wednesday which i made NO progress on because of the work. I'm starting to go stir-crazy in the house, and not accomplishing much.

On a good note, my blankets and sheets smell good due to a combo of Gain's Apple Mango Tango detergent and Dryer Sheets!

How It All Happened

Here's my Story, and I'm sticking to it.

I have sold life insurance for the past two and a half years. If you think that sounds boring, I promise you its a lot worse than it sounds. I won't say which company I worked for, but I will say that they have a famous spokesperson and commercials that come on cable at weird hours. 

I never liked my job, it was a paycheck. I had incompetent bosses, and frankly the intellectual level of the management was quite shockingly low. E-mails from supervisors were full of spelling mistakes and grammar errors, and my manager (the boss' boss) spelled the word hire "hier". The only upsides were the precious few of my colleagues who I could have intelligent conversations with. Those people know who they are because I've talked to them after leaving. That and one of my best friends works there too. He's jealous that I got fired!!

My termination was a long time coming. I was on numerous write-ups for my call quality. Its hard to get good scores when you have no idea what they are scoring you on! So when they called me into HR, I was not surprised.

I've never been fired before. Every job I have left, I left on my own terms. I did not know what I was going to do with all my free time. Then I decided to fulfill a dream. I have always been a student of History, and had a special interest in the Holocaust. I found out that Gratz College out of Melrose Park, PA has a mostly-online M.A. program in Holocaust in Genocide Studies. I decided to apply. As I was writing that past sentence, I got my acceptance letter!! YAY!! So I am going back to school and job searching. The point of this blog is to take a look at the modern-day job search and life of an unemployed over-educated, gay, white, Jewish man, in the City of Brotherly Love (Philly for those who don't know). I'll try to update often!

What am I doing now? Well I am taking 3 courses this summer. The first is a full summer online course entitled "Popes, Jews, and Blood" the other 2 are week-long courses. One is on Jewish Art, the other is on "Teaching the Holocaust" those occur in July.

Right now I'm writing a 5-7 page paper comparing and contrasting 3 trial transcripts from the Spanish Inquisition. Fun right?

I hope you enjoy reading this!