Don't call it a comeback....

Hi guys!

I'm not sure yet if this is a for real comeback, but I do have one other post in pike, already written (more or less) and waiting. We'll see how my time situation goes.

So much has been going on in my life, but I want to tell you a particular story. I've written in the past about freaky coincidences, and now I'm going to tell you about another. Actually, I've had two recently, but this one feels more like one that makes me believe there must be some kind of plan in the world.

I've been really struggling on my pitiful fellowship salary, and I've needed to find another job. I decided to look for something like a tutoring job, and my boss suggested looking at places that do SAT prep courses. I was successfully hired by Princeton Review last week, but I also interviewed over a month ago at Kaplan (where I was not hired). Both these interviews were group interviews, and at the Kaplan interview, they actually decided who they hired right away, after the interview. So there's this group of near strangers, left alone in a room for fifteen or twenty minutes while their fate was being decided just outside the door. (Okay, so it wasn't quite that dramatic...but it did feel strangely like a psychological experiment.)

I've been toting around a button for a while now which reads, "I Stand with Barbara Lee"(if you don't know who she is, click here for more info). This guy who was sitting in front of me noticed it and struck up a conversation with me about it. We chatted for the rest of the time we were sitting there about the war and peace activities going on around Boston, and I got his email address so I could send him some info about an event that was taking place the next weekend.

He seemed really cool, and he was awfully cute, and we seemed to connect right away. I decided not to pursue it, even though that connection was what I was looking for (I had recently had a not-so-good date with someone I didn't connect with at all), because it seemed kind of silly to go after someone based on a ten minute conversation. I mean, I didn't really know anything at all about him - for all I knew, he could have been engaged. So I emailed him the info he wanted, and he emailed me about something else, and I think we exchanged one other set of emails, all specific to events we thought the other might be interested in.

Fast forward to Saturday night. I had been at a training all weekend put on by Mass Jobs With Justice, a coalition of labor organizations, and my roommates and I decided to leave early because my friend was having a party. By the time we got home and got ready to go, it was after ten. I was tired, cranky, and still slightly hungover from the night before (let me tell you, those union activists know how to party!), and I really didn't want to trek all the way out to Somerville (an hour on the T, or thirty minutes in my car) for a party. But I had left the training specifically for this, and I really wanted the opportunity to meet new people in Boston. So we went.

I walked into the living room, and the boy from the Kaplan interview was sitting on the floor.

I was totally floored. I mean, I'd been thinking about him every now and then, wondering if I'd run into him somewhere, but never did I expect that we'd end up having a mutual friend who has known him for years! We talked all night, and we're hoping to make plans to get together this week.

Anyhow...stay tuned.

Peace,

Jen

PS - A couple of people have emailed me in the last few months that I haven't gotten back to...my apologies, there was a problem with my email. But I'll write back soon, I promise.