Start This Engine

Wait, What?

Here I am, writing this between applying for jobs that I probably will never hear back from no matter what kind of education I have. Isn't that a great feeling? Having two degrees yet nowhere to go with them? Graduate high school, go to college, get a masters degree! Yeah, not working out for me. Thanks for the advice, world. 

I'm writing a book. My thesis for graduate school, extended and edited for the reading world. In the meantime, my mother keeps telling me to start a blog. 

"You know, Joe told me that you should start a blog! It apparently is the first step to everything in your field." Mom, the first mention of a blog.

"Have you started that blog?" Mom, the second mention. In the middle of dinner. My dad glanced up from his food. He was probably looking out the window. 

"Write a blog! You work with kids all day! They're funny. Write about them." My mom, the most recent mention. Not sure if she's trying to get me into a lawsuit or what. 

Moms never give up. I'm still confused if she wants me out of the house or to succeed. Who am I kidding? Both. Always both.  

I can't tell you how many times she has come home with some convoluted job proposal. So-and-so told her about some company and does this and that. Or some guy in the store told her about an opportunity to do something or other. My dad gets mad when I snip at my mom, asking her to stop sniffing around for a job. 

"She's getting you opportunities!" He yells and waves his hand at me angrily. 

She's trying her hardest and I appreciate that. But she never comes home with anything solid or actually worthwhile. She will either tell me about something that makes no sense or tell me about something that is completely out of my league right now. 

And that is just jobs! Don't even get me started on her trying to find me a man! She came home from getting gas one day, "Shan! There's a really good-looking man at Wawa. He smiled at me and took my card. You should go see him."

"I don't have to get gas?" I looked at her with my eyebrows scrunched yet raised in absolute mortified confusion. "Am I supposed to drive over there, see him, and then go, 'Oh! I didn't want to get gas!' and drive off?" 

That's exactly what she wanted me to do.