Moving On

This month brought many unexpected turns, two of them begin particularly large. The first is that I now have a job at the Coho Cafe in Tofte, MN, where I work the counter, waitress, and act as a prep cook and pizza cook. The second abrupt and unexpected change in my life is that I no longer live at home. I moved out and into a three bedroom apartment that is leased by the cook at Coho--Patty. I share the spacious arrangements with Patty and her two cats--Gizmo and Tala--and until Sunday, with a Bulgarian student named Atanas (or Nas, for short).

I love my apartment. It has a big kitchen and a deck on the back that overlooks woods and Lake Superior, not to mention it gets wonderful morning sun. My bedroom is a good size, has a queen size bed, and two windows. One window has a lake view through the trees while I am sitting in bed, and it just so happens that at this time of year that is the precise spot where the sun rises. It is amazingly beautiful. So, that window gets the morning sun, while my other window gets the afternoon sun. My plants are thrilled. Speaking of which, I have many pictures I've been wanting to post. My avacado tree has taken off--it's huge!

So, for now I sit tight, at least until the end of October. At that point, I will hit the job search with full-force again. I am determined to be out of Tofte before the end of the year, though I don't yet know where I'll go or what I'll do. Just somewhere else and something else. The job is ok and the apartment is great, but I know I will soon be lonely, and I believe there are greater things waiting for me.

Hopefully my next post will be full of pictures (I tried once before and it went terribly...) I have been up to some fun and interesting things, and I'm curious to know how a collage-blog post will look.

A New Map of the World

Life post-college hasn't exactly turned out the way I thought it would. Not even a little bit. Every job opportunity that I have pursued has either fallen through, or not worked out. Call me over-confident (or other names), but I thought I wanted to teach in an area where schools were desperate for teachers--where I would have no need for a 'portfolio' and no problem securing a job. I was wrong.

Mission Status:
Japan - failed
South Korea - failed
Texas - failed
Alaska - aborted
Minnesota - failed

Now it is September, and I am beginning a job as a waitress. Which is fine. Just not what I had planned. However, an unexpected twist suddenly appeared in my path. His name was Moody. He is a car salesman.

Due to a story involving that car salesman that is too laborious to recount, I am now looking at jobs in Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I told this to my grandmother today, to which she promptly replied, "I thought you wanted to go to Africa." I do, but I have student loans to pay off first. I can make a ton of money in Dubai.

And yet, as I sit here just now, an interesting realizaiton is coming to me. The UAE is actually part of Africa, and not the Middle East. So I wonder if God is about to completely rearrange my conceptual map of the world, and my life.