manaista

So I now have an ACI Concrete Field Testing Technician- Grade 1 certification!

What does that mean? Concrete things (...and better pay), hooray!

It's one of those things I need to get for my job to show I know what problems to look for and how to perform the various tests on concrete before it gets placed in a structure. It's just one of a bunch certifications I need like soils, rebar, welding, etc.

Life stuff:

Mainly been busy with the new job and moving to a new state and such. So far it's been alright, no regrets, stress and anxiety have been stable.

Art stuff:

Still been moving at a snail's pace with a variety of works in different states. It's mainly been trying to find the time and energy to do more stuff. I'm just trying to figure out how to improve the overall speed and quality of the process...

Hope things have been going well for everyone else too. There may be long periods where I'm "quiet", but I am still here in the background. I'm more than happy to make time to chat and share ideas with you all!

I have finally been offered a job that will hopefully lead me on a happier and more fulfilling career path! For those of you that don't know or remember, for the last five years I've been working in a factory near my home town in East Tennessee as one of their inventory monitors. There are things I like about the job, but I feel need to move on to be happy.

My new job will be as a field technician for a construction and engineering consulting firm in near the Raleigh North Carolina. It's much closer to my bro already living in the area. The job also sounds like it could more easily lead me into a career more closely related to my academic background in engineering then Environmental Studies (Geology). Apparently I need a Geologist In Training certification and five years of related experience to to even take the Professional Geologist exams.

Right now my energy and stress levels are all over the place with suddenly putting my life in a new direction.

Art stuff:

I have been working on some things and I have plenty more I want to do, but my schedule is going to be very sporadic especially for the next few months. One con (or pro) of changing to a construction based industry, there can be seasonal or weather related slow downs. That might open the temptation to expand into secondary gigs... and by secondary gigs I mean I might consider something like commissions...

Here's just a simple update to say hello to you all and that I'm still around. For the most part not too much has changed on my end. Work is still taking up most of my time and energy. I know I mentioned a while ago how they still had me working several 12 hour shifts for days at a time. Thankfully the amount of overtime I'm doing has gone down.

Job hunting stuff:

Still aggravatingly no progress on that front. I really am stuck on what I should do differently. I'm not interested, or qualified for the various open positions on my current work. I also feel like I don't want to invest more of myself into the company. Stuff like LinkedIn and various job boards have given me mixed results (about as successful as asking for a job here). Most of the in person stuff I can think of have not really been feasible with my schedule.

Art stuff:

Really it's been just a struggle of when I have energy, I don't have the time. Then when I have the time, I don't have the energy or focus. There are a few random things I am slowly making progress on. Part of it is just trying to keep the inspiration.

Other stuff:

As if I don't have enough drama to deal with, I have Covid now too! Thankfully for me and my parents it hasn't been too serious. It just feels like a bad flu for us. It will give me some extra free time to draw for the next few days, although it will be a bit hard to focus since I'm feeling pretty cruddy too.

Anyways, I hope you all are hanging in there. This is just what's going on in my world right now.

I know it's been awhile. Work has been consuming most of my time and energy.

In some ways it's improved with much needed changes in management, them finally agreeing to hiring more people for our group, and actually acknowledging that I'm human!

In other ways it's still gotten worse... there's still 3 of us for what should be a 7 person team, recently I've been working at least 4 weeks straight with no weekends, and several of those weeks I have been working back to back 12 hour shifts for up to a week at a time! I really am not exaggerating that either...

Job hunting stuff...

Progress on some fronts... and some I'm still trying to hold onto my fragile self esteem while getting rejected and dehumanized over things I have no control over.

Art stuff...

Horribly slow. Mainly just from not having time or the energy. Although there are few things I'm slowly progressing on. I'm mostly doing some simple things to at least have something to show.

Anyways, I hope you all are holding up too through these increasingly crazy times.

Hope everyone is doing alright. I just figured it's time to give some quick updates on how things have been going on my end. It's been.... okay I guess.

Work stuff:

I know I mentioned it a few times, but it has been pretty rough. I'm still in the same position as an inventory tracker at an auto parts factory. It feels like they keep asking for more while taking away more of the resources to actually get the work done. A lot of my physical and mental energy goes to dealing with the same problems with mixed support from management and my teammates.

Job hunting stuff:

What little time or energy I do have leftover should and often has gone to finding a new opportunity I can call a career. A lot of persistence with a lot of demoralizing ghosting and rejection over factors I have little control over. Some things I run into a lot of: Job says "Entry Level" but wants 2-3 years of very specific experience, the algorithm recommending jobs I'm grossly overqualified for, the algorithm recommending jobs I'm grossly underqualified for, getting out competed by 3000 other candidates for this oddly specific job, or even getting ghosted when it's just me and one or two other people....

On a side note.. any advice on how to improve professionally presenting myself online would be more than appreciated.

Life stuff:

So my brother is going to be expecting his second kid early next year and my dad is going to retire from his job next summer. My parents are then considering moving to North Carolina to be closer to my brother and I'm most likely going to move there too if no promising opportunity keeps me here.

Art stuff:

I should have a couple of pieces coming very soon. One is ready as soon as I make time, another should be close, and several more in various stages.

Anyways, enough ranting... hope you all have been holding up through these crazy times and thank you all again for all the support you have given through thick and thin!