and the unemployment continues.

i forced myself to leave the apartment today to distribute copies of my resume around town, having finally gotten a power cord for the printer which has been sitting, misleadingly, on the desk since we moved in. i headed down to the south city mall, which can barely be accurately called a mall (especially compared to the mall of america), where i got used to hearing "not hiring" from gum-chewing 16-year-olds. part of the frustration with this failed job search is not even being considered for jobs that i'd formerly considered to be "beneath me". even burger king isn't hiring. this is quite an exercise in humility.

bryan's job at subway is barely a step up from unemployment. his manager is the king of all cheapskates: neither orientation nor his training day were paid, the employees don't get paid if they have to stay later than 10 pm to finish cleaning, and the expectation is that after one day of training, new employees will have mastered their new job to perfection. apparently no one has ever heard positive feedback from the manager, but all have been subjected to his scathing reprimands. sounds like fun. it's good that bryan's working there and not me, though it seems like even his calm personality may be threatened by this job.

on the upside, we're both becoming skilled painters, having just completed our third painting project at the church. it's incredibly satisfying to remove the painter's tape and roll up the tarps to reveal a clean new look. yesterday i was even able to exercise some administrative skills in helping the youth pastor with a Publisher project that had been frustrating him. i've been pretty cautious about involving myself with youth ministry projects at the church, as the youth pastor just started working at the church the week that we arrived and i want to give him some space. bryan and i will probably end up working with the family ministry that the senior pastor wants to start in the next month or two, which is closer to what we want to do long-term anyway. bryan even wrote his senior project on family ministry, which just means involving families with young kids in the church in a way that makes them feel welcome and not burdensome.

on monday we've been invited to the pastor's house to watch the superbowl, though it starts at noon here, and have promised to bring a classic american football snack. any suggestions? we were thinking about a classic layered dip, but haven't seen fritos or refried beans here, and these seem to be staples. we were then asked if we'd like to stay for tea afterwards, leading us to envision cucumber sandwiches and petits fours before realizing that we were really being invited to dinner. it should be an altogether enjoyable superbowl party, at which i may be (for once) among the most knowledgeable football minds, though i'm guessing we'll miss the commericals that make a lackluster game so much more watchable...

sorry no pictures this week...as you can tell, we've been really boring :)

-rachel