I feel like I owe everyone a big, fat explanation.

It's been a period of extended transition for me, as Lana puts it.

I think that's a nice way of saying: "You keep getting and quitting jobs because you have no idea what you're doing with your life."

Let me refresh your memory: May - quit Causecast. Unemployed May - September. Started AmeriCorps in September. Quit AmeriCorps in October. Started working at Homegirl Cafe and Free People in November. Quit both in December.

Sigh.

I was beyond thrilled to start working at Homegirl Cafe, but since it was only part-time, I had to pick up another part-time job working retail at Free People in Manhattan Beach (in addition to babysitting!) in order to pay the bills. I was driving all over LA, spending a ton on gas, working crazy hours between all three, and only loving one - Homegirl. Two weeks ago, I was offered a position at Direct Partners, a cool marketing firm/ad agency (I keep telling myself it will be like Mad Men) as part of the 4-person team working on the Playstation account. It was a chance to actually use what I studied in college - graphic design, journalism, marketing - and gain experience at a pretty prestigious company.

So I took the job. (It wasn't that simple. It was at least a week of being completely depressed over "selling out" at 23.) Now, this meant quitting two jobs I had started only three weeks before. That was pretty rough. I mean, that Free People discount to Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie was pretty rad, but making little money + spending it all on clothes = disaster. Leaving Homegirl was a little more hard. I felt like I was really letting everyone down. But now, I can be refreshed enough to volunteer each Saturday (really!) and spend some evenings doing design work for them.

I'm excited about Direct Partners. I feel like I'm going to learn a ton and it's going to be harder than I thought, so it will nice to be intellectually challenged once again. So it's a new phase, again.

PS: I found this tidbit on Wikipedia today as I was researching Playstation:

"Soon after its release in Japan, the PS3 was released in North America on November 17, 2006. Reports of violence surrounding the release of the PS3 include a customer shot, campers robbed at gunpoint, customers shot in a drive-by shooting with BB guns, and 60 campers fighting over 10 systems."

Dang.