As the holiday season approaches (quicker and quicker, it seems) I am quite comfortable with the fact that it is November. I am even comfortable with the fact that it will December in just a few short weeks. What has just hit me, though, is that soon enough, it will be 2004. I swear, it seems like I just started getting used to it being 2003. So, I began to think, what happened this year? What did I achieve, spiritually and otherwise? How was this different from other years?

In January, I moved out of my parents house to the co-op in Chicago. Back to my birthplace. I was working at American Eagle in Orland and transferred to the downtown store, which I thought was so prestigious. I was feverishly applying for other jobs, and worked in a flower shop in Hyde Park for the week of Valentine’s Day. I went on numerous job interviews, but nothing really came to fruition in terms of full time non profit work. The field was incredibly competitive. I did land a part time gig at Northwestern Mutual Financial Network. I worked both there and AE for a short while. Then Grandmother died. I found out while I was at work at American Eagle, and that was the last day I ever worked there. They closed a few months later.