some small success

1. I have been applying for jobs, sent out four resumes/CVs in the past week. I keep hoping I’ll find something fast, and can quit with no notice next week while my manager is on vacation. Knowing my luck lately, though, not only will I not find a new job, someone else will probably quit next week. sigh.

2. I submitted a paper proposal to the Graduate Studies in Music conference at the Graduate Center. It didn’t get chosen, but I was invited to  participate in the morning session, which is a large-group discussion about the philosophies involved with listening.

3. Some customer left her lucky bamboo plant at my store the other night. After politely waiting til the store closed, at which time she had not returned to claim her lost plant, I decided to take it home with me, hoping that it might help to change my luck lately (I fear I have angered the gods somehow).

4. Nick got pulled in at the very last minute to be the sound designer for a theater festival, the preview week of which begins next week. It is turning out to be WAY more work than the directors let on, as there are 27 short plays, an increasing number of which are requiring sound cues. However, at some point they will pay him $300 for his services, which isn’t that much, but which is something, at least. Plus, a few of the directors are pretty well-organized, and very interested in working with Nick again.

5. I am days away from paying off one of my delinquent credit cards. It feels pretty good.

And then there are the many things stressing me out at the moment.

1. Both of my classes this semester are complete duds. My "Opera and Culture Since 1900" class is really a disabilities studies in disguise. In addition, 85% of my classmates are female opera singers, and not of a very high intelligence.

2. I have an Ethno outline due tomorrow. It’s supposed to be for my final project, except I’m still not entirely sure what my final project is going to be, seeing as how the tall pile of books I requested through ILL just arrived TODAY and I couldn’t even carry them all home, let alone sort through all that information in time to put together a coherent plan for a final project. Jesus.

3. My mid-term paper for my Opera class has to be about some aspect of race, gender, or class in one musical number of West Side Story. I’ve settled on racial profiling and deviant behavior in "Gee, Officer Krupke" so that Nick and Matt can help me write seven stupid pages of brilliance, but in truth, I could care less about West Side Story, or opera at all for that matter.

4. Because my manager is on vacation next week, my entire spring break has been sucked up by Starbucks. My mid-term is supposed to be due Tuesday, I have no idea how I’ll finish it. And THEN my final project proposal + bibliography for the Opera class is due the first day class resumes, and I’m not entirely sure how I’ll come up with five sources with such limited access to the library, or even enough time and energy to think about my topic. At least I have a topic? 

I really need to not be working at Starbucks, but alternative jobs aren’t really presenting themselves, and I don’t seem to be getting offers from any of the few to which I’ve applied. I would like to regard my invitation to participate in part of the GSIMS conference as a sign that my luck is slowly changing, and that things are getting better, but I’m too tired and stressed out to be very optimistic.