The search continues for the elusive job. I haven’t been posting much these days, I have been either riding a train, tram or bus to/in Colonia and Dusseldorf,  walking uncounted miles or trying to communicate to someone in my less than perfect German about what skill I may posses that would make them hire me. I have going somewhere almost everyday now, our tickets will expire at the end of the month then going to Koln will be out until we can afford it. I need to start learning 3D, I have the software, 3D Studio Max and a big, thick how-to use-it book to go with it, but I can’t use it on my laptop, my grapchis card is not that powerful I guess. I have installed it and when I open the program I can’t see any of the 4 view windows. I just see the desktop thru where the views should be. I can see everything else, menus, tool bars etc…

Without the 3D, I don’t know how much of a chance I have getting hired in an VFX company. Some companies look like they are really struggeling to keep the employees they have, the economy sucks here too. I have had some positive feedback and a promise that if anything comes up they will call me. I don’t know how much of this is lip service and how much is genuine. I also don’t know hwo much skin color weighs into all of this, I have seen only one other black person in all the companies I have looked at. But I continue to hand out my resume  (and follow up), talk to who I can get to give me a few moments of their time. Gotta keep trying, right? It might also be time for me to just start doing  freelance work and working on my list of making money on my own online. I have many ideas, I just got a paypal account set up and I think I should start moving my ideas from the paper to the in development stage. Who knows? I may have one take off and I won’t need to to the “gotta get a job” dance anymore. That, my friends, would be magnificent. The possibilities are there for me to make a pretty good living and create passive income streams.

Let’s see, what else have I been doing? I went to the store the other day to buy Qtips. Simple, huh? Ha ha ha, not so fast. Simple if you know what the damn things are called in German. I didn’t think about that when I left the apt., I am just thinking to go buy Qtips. I get to the store and start looking around, trying to find them. I looked up and down every isle and couldn’t find them. That’s when it dawned on me, I can’t ask where I might find them because I don’t know what they are called here! Qtips is just a brand name in America, so I think ‘ ok, their real name is cottom swab’, how would I say cotton swab in German? Well I know the word for cotton, baumwolle, but if I said “I need baumwolle for my ears’, they might think I am trying to put a sweater in my ears. I am not gonna even try to imagine the word for swab, I might as well make something up, how about cotton on a stick? In the end I just left the store, I went home and looked at the empty box cover. The name is something I would have never have guessed so I thought it would be better for me to just take the lid with the name on it to the store. Ends up Susanne went and got them, she knows the name. Today I got asked  in Koln if I was Arabic. Arabic? Interesting, I am adding that to the “What nationality do people think I am?’ list. Polyneisian, Puerto Rican, Arabic, Haitian. Cool, the list keeps growing, I am always surprised what people come up with.

Oh yea, something else that happened recently, a few hours after the post about being positive and all that stuff, I got down in a deep funk. Hilarious! Here I am trying to share a little bit of what has been helping me get through this rough time and I crash and burn, forgetting my own advice. Susanne got down there with me and pretty soon we were at each others throats, each blaming the other for the situation we are now in (me with very little money and her having to support both of us). We had to get a coaching session with Joe to get up and out of it. It is tough keeping the faith that it’s all going to work out somehow. But I know it will, I just can’t see it yet and I am impatient. It would be really great if everyting would start working out say, tomorrow. I would wake up and the sun is out in a heavenly blue sky, the  little birds are chirping their little asses off, the deer are running throught the forest, everyone is walking around smiling, waving hello to one another, there is a harp playing some beautiful song………………………………

Disney movie. Yea, sure. Make my day Uncle walt!

Well folks, it is that time of the extension again, the “only a few days left and then what?’ time of the extension to stay here in the country. Wheee! A thrill a minute here! Last time  (back in July), I was so stressed I couldn’t talk to anybody, I could barely breath. I made up this story in my head that I would be pushing a shopping cart with all my possessions around Muelheim, penniless, a bum. And then I bought into my own story, made it a possible reality and voila! instant MEGA STRESS! I got my extension anyway by coming up with a praktikum (internship) at the last moment.  This time is a little different, no promise of anything, nobody is hiring (at least not me!) and not sure if I remember how it feels to have money I made from working anymore because  it’s been so long since I have done this.

So what in the hell to do this time? Stress again until my hair falls out and I am totally useless? I decided not to this time. I decided this time was going to be different. I can’t do much more stressing, it is not very productive and takes a terrible toll on the mind and body. What Susanne and I have been doing is listening to Jennifer Hough non-stop (I talked about her in the Road Map of Miracles). She had been a BIG reason I am still here and not some insane, over-coffee’d monster. Through listening to her coaching with others, I have been successful in keeping the drama at bay. And I can do some goooooood drama! A lot of it comes from childhood, honed by many years of dedicated practice. The OH MY GOD!!! channel on life tv and the “I CAN’T DO THAT! NETWORK”, a very popular one, I used to watch that one all the time.

I have been self coaching myself (and Susanne has been another HUGE help with coaching also) through the last several weeks. I am finally getting it, how to turn off the drama channel and get back into a positive mental state. Back into what Jennifer calls “the miracle zone”. I gotta tell ya, it has been much smoother this time. Sure, I have my moments where I think all hope is lost and I am destined to wander around in destitutional vagrancy (my own  made up word) for the rest of my life, but now those moments don’t last long, there are less of them and I am able to flip  around much quicker. I can step outside of the mind chatter, look at it and know that is my conditioned mind taking control.

What happens now? For starters, I got another 3 month extension while we wait on paperwork. I am not at liberty to say how at the moment (yes, it’s totally legal), but it involves both Susanne and I and I will be able to get a work permit as well as a real permit to stay. I just found out yesterday and got my extension today. I can’t tell you how relieved I am, even though I don’t have work yet, this makes things a bit easier. One step at a time. What a heck of time too, it’s like giving birth to a new me through being in labor for three weeks. I can’t thank Jennifer enough for her work with Quantum living, I don’t know how I would have made such a radical change in so short of time and it is needed if we are going to succeed in this endeavor of moving to another country without a real plan.

The other day I finished my photoshop tutorial, Design an Epic fantasy Scene, I really like this one, I wanted some new inspirational thing to keep me going. It has a quote from James Cook, I find it very fitting for us; “Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again”.

I just got back from Koeln (I have no umlaut on my keyboard) after another round of  handing out my CV/resume. One of these times this will pay off and I will finally land the job I have been waiting for. Where it will be I don’t know. It could be Koeln or Dusseldorf or Aachen, Frankfurt, Hamburg… I have expanded my area to the bigger media
cities. Keeping up the positive energy is hard to do and having no money doesn’t help.

I know I have to keep trying though, it would be just as hard for me back in the US, trying to get that first job in motion graphics or vfx or editing. That’s just how it is, it’s who you know and unfortunately I don’t know anyone and for lack of a better way to say it, that sucks! It has been fun to go cold calling on companies though. The look on the faces of the people I talk to is priceless. They ask me “how did you find us”? The internet, of course! Endless searching.
From what I have been told, not many people do this, it is more of an American thing to do. This is what they taught us in school, keep going to companies,that whay they see who you are. So here I am, going to these companies with my basic German and resume in hand, it’s another adventure.

I get to see some of the cities this way, get to know my way around which is good because we will be moving out of Muelheim when I can find work. I have my google map printout of the companies location and I look up which train I need before I go, that way I don’t have to spend alot of time looking on the train schedules at each stop. Most of the people I have met at the various companies are nice, they are helpful and most do get back to me when they say they will. A few, even though they don’t have anything open have given me a list of other companies to contact. I try to follow up with a phone call and this for me is often times harder than meeting the people. I am just not much of a phone person, I guess. On an up note, Susanne got her first freelance programming project, so now at least one of us has somekind od income. She was so excited! She worked hard on the first part of the project and now the client wants to give her more work on the future. Well done!
Now it’s my turn to get employed and soon.  I don’t know if I can get another extension to stay here. I have got to get a job and health insurance. I don’t know how other people have done this; I have read far more posts about people not finding anyting and having to go back to the US broke. Some try again, others just say forget it and give up. It is tempting, to go back home, but something inside of me will not give up. Plus what in the hell am I going to do there? Unemployment is high there, especially for people just out of college. So I guess I will end this post with a shameless plug for myself

ANYBODY OUT THERE HAVE A PLACE IN THEIR COMPANY FOR AN UP AND COMING, JUST OUT OF SCHOOL MOTION DESIGNER/VIDEO EDITOR? I AM A VERY HARD WORKER, SELF MOTIVATED, EAGER TO LEARN AS MUCH AS I CAN ABOUT MY WORK, WILLING TO RELOCATE AND FUN TO WORK WITH.

Oh yea, I can make coffee too!

This morning, while down in the storage room in the celler rooting around for my mukluks and the harness for the sled dogs, I thought to my self, “What in the hell am I doing here?” Back in Ft. Lauderdale it is 88 degrees with a low of 79. Here it is about 50 or so degrees, to me it feels like one step away from snow after spending the last 4 years in Florida. It has been gray for a number of days, the floor is cold, I have wool blankets on the bed already and fall has just started.

It feels like upstate NY, where I grew up, when I go out now days. And I have to go out,there is no supermarket in my living room. It’s kind of like sticking your hands in the luke warm dishwater to fish out the spoons on the bottom. You can’t see but you can feel the peas, noodles, loch ness monster, whatever floating around in the depths of the grimy water. So you make your best yuck face and plunge your hand into the murk. That’s what I feel like when I go out into the cold grey weather, plunging myself into the murk. I knew that it would be cold here but thinking about it in sunny warm Florida is one thing, actually living in it is something else.

So now it’s winter here, I still have no job yet, down to my last hundred dollars in the bank in US and soon that will be gone. Susanne is paying rent and buying the food now and the train tickets. My three month extension is almost up, so I gotta find work soon but I will not put my energy into imagining what can happen if the extension runs out and I have to leave the country with no money! I managed to pull off two possible jobs at the last moment to get the extension in July, unfortunately neither worked out to be anything. So here we go again. I am trying to get my money out of my 401k from FedEx, but it is not easy, especially when the new contact information I sent them (human resources) never got entered on my account and emails never answered. I will have to call Vanguard and beg to get the money out and into the bank, it’s not a whole lot but enough to give me a little breathing room for a month and since I cannot roll it into my Roth, might as well use it. So yea, it is another fine dreary day and I am feeling pissy.

I know the job will come soon, I have my motion graphics reel almost done and I can replace the 4 not so good clips I have up on my site now and I have business cards now but getting the “no’s” out of the way to get to the “yes” is workin’ my last nerve! I am bucking the odds here being older than your average student and trying to get a job in a country where they encourage women to retire at 40. To me,that is pure bullshit.  I am just getting going with a new career, I certainly don’t feel like I am supposed to retire, in fact just the opposite! I feel more alive than I have felt in years. I loved being back in school and being in Florida, now I am in another country living a new life with a plethora of new experiences. I LOVE doing motion graphics and compositing, making digital art. There is so much to do, I’m not going to let anybody tell me I need to be put put to pasture. HELL NO! In fact, once I get working I want to get another set of free weights and start pumping iron again! On of my favorite actresses, Mae West, lifted weights well into her 80’s. Helps with keeping strong bones and I love having muscles.

Wow, I don’t feel so pissy anymore, I feel a little charged up, ya know? (I am playing the first tune off of my disco page, Good Good Feeling, oh yea, feeling better now!) Being here has been a challenge, not easy but still well worth the effort. Susanne and I did it the way “your not supposed to do it”. Moving without any real plan other than wanting to go. If I were to post something about this on one of those expat sites they would eat me alive, tell me that I was supposed to have researched this or that (like I don’t know this?), made plans in advance, called me stupid, yatta-yatta-yatta. Yea, so what? I am not everybody, where is the adventure in being like everybody else?

This will work out, the journey is pretty damn exciting and growing to meet the challenges along the way is even better. To me that is what I am here to do, create my art, push myself beyond what I “think” I can do, go explore my world and in some way contribute to humanity.

Well enough for this post and being pissy, I gotta find the hunting socks and see if the parka still fits!