Me!Exercise June 25, 2008

That was my lame attempt at a play on the name of the Xbox game Yourself!Fitness.

Seriously, though. I love it. Especially the exercise where you walk around in half-circles…umm…I don’t remember the name of it. It’s like a twirly dance move.

I did a half-hour workout this morning just to see how it was, after only doing 15-minute workouts previously. I was sweaty, but I felt wonderful afterwards. Still chubby, but at the end when it said I had burned 128 calories, I was like “Sweet! I burned calories! and stuff!” I also restarted taking my multivitamin.

When I started taking the multivitamin before, I was getting headaches. At first, I thought it was because of the multivitamin, but after a week or so I figured out the real reason.

So the multivitamins have resumed, and I am trying to exercise on weekdays and eat less.

Goal: lose 50 pounds.

Wish me luck.

So Good June 24, 2008

Have you seen the newest “Pride and Prejudice”? You should. It’s very, VERY good. They keep playing it on Oxygen, and I watch it every single time. Even if it’s on two times in a row. I watch it EVERY SINGLE TIME.

At first, when I heard they were making another one, I was like “blah blah blah been done what could they possibly do different?” And Kiera Knightley? Skepticism reigned.

The nice thing about Jane Austen is that her books can be interpreted many ways, this one being a very good adptation of the novel. The 1995 version with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth was good as well, but I will tell you what I think makes this one just a titch better…

The soundtrack. I can’t stop thinking about it. I even downloaded it on Napster. Most of it is this beautiful piano music that is so hauntingly beautiful. At this amazon page, they allow you to listen to samples. I recommend “Liz on top of the world” and “Mrs Darcy.” They are easily two of the most beautiful.

Enjoy.

CRAPPY CRAPPY CRAPPY June 18, 2008

So my Grandpa dies in September, my Grandma dies in December, and my best girl dies on Friday the 13th.

I’m not really sure what kind of crap Jesus is trying to pull, but ENOUGH already. I’m not freakin’ Job.

Found this on my camera’s memory card yesterday when I pulled the data off it.

It’s a fantastic video, the last I ever took of our beautiful, gentle girl.

But then…

It seems that ever since she died, good things have been happening. We have been trying to sell a car, and someone came by to look at the car. He seemed very interested. Someone else is coming over tonight to look at it. A friend of mine put my name in for a teaching position at a local school, and they called, even though I don’t have my license yet. My DH and I have been getting along very well, and a few nights ago we went on a motorcycle ride with another police officer, whose father is on the board at the school who I will be interviewing at today. He said he would put in a good word for me.

And he basically said that if he didn’t think that I would be a good teacher, he wouldn’t even have offered, because his kids will be going to that school next year.

NO PRESSURE. *sigh*

A good friend of mine gave me a copy of Yourself! Fitness for the Xbox to use for a while, and I finally got around to setting up the program the other day. Boy was I sore after that. I’m so freakin’ out of shape. They ask you to do jumping jacks for two minutes, a few pushups, a few situps, and I was SORE. Awful.

Another friend of mine emailed me and let me know that one of the rescues has a litter of Akita puppies up for adoption, and that if we wanted, we could adopt one of the females. I was THRILLED.

Thrilled that they would offer, and thrilled that our Sumo won’t be alone for too much longer. A furry little poop machine would go far in healing our hearts, and we are always interested in honoring Pearl’s memory by helping another rescue.

We will see.

I am honored to have so many wonderful friends.

Job search, part deux June 11, 2008

Well, as I predicted, I did not receive a callback from Hollister. I did my best at the interview, but I am pretty sure that I do not meet their physical requirements.

The girl who interviewed me mentioned something called “The Look Policy,” which I did some research on. I’m not that upset about it really, but I believe that discounting someone for a position based on their physical appearance (I am by no means horrible looking, mind you) is a questionable business practice.

Here is what I found.

This article was actually written by someone who was hired at A&F, and who had serious reservations about what they saw there. I found it very insightful and intelligently written. Although it was a few years ago, so I tried to find something a little more recent.

Most of what I found were articles regarding lawsuits against Abercrombie for discriminatory hiring practices based on race. I had to dig a little deeper to find the ones about simply not hiring people based on what they looked like.

Newer articles are more difficult to find, but I found them.

This is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. Even the comments section, where people think they are being witty, reinforces his point. He is arguing that A&F is a pretentious company, and the people who are commenting in favor of the company are being so rude. It would be funnier if it weren’t so sad.

This article (yes I know it’s older) basically says what I thought. That even if someone has loads of experience (read: me) but doesn’t quite fit the type of look that they want their employees to portray (read: me), they are told not to hire them. Even if someone has no experience whatsoever, but is pretty, or attractive, they are told to offer them a job right off the bat.

The big rotten banana was this article I found about an interview with the CEO of A&F, who has had major work done to transform himself into one of the tanned, toned, goose-stepping members of his target audience. Yes! That IS him in the photo!!! It’s a bit gross, considering he’s almost 64 years old and is trying to look like he’s in college.

Here is another photo:

Someone’s a big fan of Hitler…

A quote from the article: “we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.”

Wow.

Amazing. Amazing that this company still has customers when they know that this sort of thing goes on. How can people shop at these stores when they know that the company’s hiring AND marketing practices are so shallow? I can tell you right now that I will never step foot inside one of A&F’s stores ever again.

I have an interview at Claire’s on Friday. They don’t care what you look like, as long as you like fake jewelry and ear-piercing. :)

where job? job? where r u? hello? June 1, 2008

I have been looking for a job for over two months.

I NEED A JOB. Like…bad. I’ve been putting out applications like gangbusters, and have got a few callbacks, but so far nothing has panned out. I’ll go to an interview, and it will seem ok, the people will seem interested, and then… nothing. No calls, no emails or anything to let me know that I didn’t get the job. Just nothing. I will call them, leave a message, or send them an email to see how things are going, and get no response.

SO FRUSTRATING.

Anyways, this coming week I have an interview for Manager-in-Training at the local Hollister store. It would be a fun job, and I would definitely do my best, but there is a problem…

I’m pretty sure they won’t hire me. Why, you ask? Well, because in the past three years I’ve gained like 40 pounds and I don’t fit that twiggy anorexic-looking teeny tiny image that Abercrombie touts to teens and pre-teens.

I hate to put that stigma on any organization, so we’ll see what happens. If it goes well, then I will personally renounce any accusations of physical elitism and declare Hollister to be a good company. I have very good qualifications (in my opinion) so really, their only reason not to hire me (horrible reason, mind you) would be my physical appearance.

I am working on it, though. I have downloaded the update that allows my Xbox 360 to play the old Xbox games, and starting tomorrow morning, I’ll be playing yourself! fitness (ha! playing!! ) every morning when I wake up at 5:30. Yes, I wake up every morning at 5:30 a.m., rain or shine, no matter how dark it is. Hooray for biological clocks! Er…or Circadian rhythms… And I have also been attempting to eat better, and less, and have a dietary supplement that I will be taking as well (GNC stuff, like a multivitamin).

Stay tuned for news of the Hollister interview, and whether or not my house gets foreclosed on because of my inability to secure gainful employment. *sigh*

Wish me luck!