the worst of times, the best of times

from http://fivejs.com/for-book-lovers-everywhere/

This has come true for me in its literal sense. I am job-hunting now and have been living on a very strict budget. The job-hunting seems to be going as well as my lovelife - which means there have been many possibilities but they have so far left me hanging or waiting indefinitely. I crafted a visually engaging CV which is both honest and brave. It has stuff in it that are not necessarily meant to impress but instead meant to express. It has a bit more heart, a bit more spirit, which were my intentions.

Today I went to the supermarket to buy food and cat litter. The cat litter could not be compromised but the food could. So I halved my food budget (less meat, more plants) so I could buy these two books.

I have wanted to read Anna Quindlen since I read a sample of her book Lots Of Candle Plenty Of Cake on Kindle. The Solitaire Mystery is a book I have read years ago and would like to read again. I never had a copy of this because my sister just lent me hers to read. I believe it's time I got my own, and it even has the printed autograph of the author.

I have this dream of getting a well-paid job in a publishing house or a book shop or a library.

When I was fresh out of college, after my mandatory stint as a teacher in my high school alma mater (a condition of my scholarship that mysteriously surfaced when I was already halfway though university), I sent out applications to many companies, one of which was a publishing house. That publishing house was the first to call me for an interview. So I went and they interviewed me, and made me take an editing test. They seemed to be very pleased with the results because the very next day they were offering me a job. Except that on that same day I also got a call from a well-known advertising agency requesting for an interview. I was young and naive. I declined the publishing house and went for the advertising agency (associated with fame, glamour, and ridiculously high salaries), which led me to a very successful career that I had to leave fourteen years later because I was longing for something like what I would probably have become if I had chosen the publishing house.

"It's odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn't know who I was. Then I invented someone and became her. Then I began to like what I'd invented. And finally I was what I was again."    -Anna Quindlen, Lots Of Candles, Plenty Of Cake