Classes and Job Hunt

Classes began on Thursday. Already going crazy. My baby being at the hospital gives a bigger complication. Seems madness, but I go on. I'm lucky to have a very supportive husband that helps a lot.

Taking Flash and Dreamweaver CS3, going towards a diploma in Web Design. The idea is to be able to work from home when I finish it. It will compliment my BSBA in computerized information systems, and my MBS in Human resources and marketing. I believe web design shall bring together my artiste and my techie skills. Since it uses both, I think that I am in the right track for actually working in a field that I enjoy.

After 11 years of working within IT I realize that I am not happy. I feel I let go of my dream to do something simple: Painting. My vocation is painting: Murals, oil painting, watercolors, decoration... I enjoy it and have done it for free, for a long time. My passion for art began with my painting at 5 years of age... I was foolish not to persue a professional career based on that. No, so many years later, I feel a need for more than cables and servers and help desk support and systems administration... I feel a need for being creative, and to paint.

I was too scared to actually do something about it. I had reached a comfort zone where I had a very stable (and boring) job that I knew well, a nice office, stability of paying all my debts, stability to actually go get a house and just keep on breathing. I worked in a government agency, had all holidays both local from Puerto Rico and federal from US... So life was good... Stable, simple and good... Stable, predictable...

Then I had my baby and stability shattered. She was diagnosed with SMA and I had to quit my job, do an emergency move to New Jersey, and stay there. In just weeks, my stable safe world vanished. No job, plenty of debt, and a life-death situation with my baby. Enough to go insane, for most.

The time came to establish priorities. Baby is the highest. Everything evolves around her, as everything about her can threaten her life. I must stay at home to care and supervise her specific requirements. I knew that to keep sanity I needed something from the outside to give me a sense of the "real world". So I started the webdesign diploma... Mainly as a hobby, as a survival mode for keeping contact with other people, for keeping my mind sharp... Thanks to this, being in a "home bubble" has been bearable, as time passes fast and I have no time to think too much. It is a plus that I'm also completing something that will eventually help me complete my "artsy" dream.

I've been job hunting, but the economic situation has not helped. My being overqualified at most jobs doesn't help either. Our current location is lousy to persuit my career goals... even emergency ones. But I won't give up.

I need to land a good job, so we can move to the place I get it, so we all can start to think about actually having a "stable" home, and life. That is the master plan. Now, to put it in action...

"If you don't stop, you'll make it"