Welcome back

Greetings from Chapel Hill and let me say, it’s great to be back. I left Chapel Hill in mid November, spent the next four weeks in Hong Kong/China with my parents, came back to the States andspent the next three weeks with my parents. I arrived back at Chapel Hill last night.

Three weeks is the longest I have gone without blogging and I do appreciate all the readers who continued to check back every so often. The reason for the lack of communication has less to do with not having anything to write and more to do with not wanting to share some of the things that I went through – at least until I have had the appropriate opportunity to mentally sort out and understand my thoughts.

When I was in Hong Kong I interviewed over the phone with two American companies. Both had product manager positions. One is a financial services firm that was in the news recently because of the sub-prime mortgage situation and another is a company that sells business intelligence software. The one with the business intelligence software company went very well and I was granted an office interview. Right after I returned to the United States, I had an office interview with that company in McLean, Virginia. I thought the interview went pretty well but was informed the following Wednesday, the day after Christmas, that I would not be receiving an offer.

After getting the news, I closed my laptop, went to my room, closed door, and cried. I have never cried before because of a job I don’t know why I did that. I think it was mostly because when I was in Hong Kong I didn’t spend too much time worrying about the job search, after I returned I focused mostly on preparing for the office interview, and getting the news brought back the reality that I’d have to return to North Carolina and continue my job search.

So that’s where I am today. I am back to my normal routine at Chapel Hill and things are beginning to get scary. At least once or twice a day I get scared when I think about the different ways this job situation can possibly unfold. I worry about the assumptions that perspective employers will make because I don’t have a job. I worry about finding a job that’snot all that different than the one I had before business school. Last but definitely not least, I worry about never knowing for certain that I will be able to recoup the $200,000 investment (tuition plus two years of foregone salary) over the remainder of my working life.

It’s hard for me to focus on my job search with all these thoughts flying around in my head. One of the things I have since realized is that I have these worries mainly because either I temporarily don’t realize that God is in control or I have trouble seeing how this could actually be part of His plan. What I have been praying about over the past year has been not anything different than what I had been praying for during my first year in business school, and that is for God to put me in situations where I can be of use to Him and for His plans for my life to prevail. With the struggles that I am going through, it’s hard to see that. It’s almost as though He’s playing a game of chicken with me, He’s purposely withholding certain key things in my life to test the extend of my faith.

One thing that about my life that I am really I have is this recent trip to Hong Kong. Shortly after we came back I was having lunch with my parents and my father said this was the best trip ever. My mother then said “that’s because (my first name) came with us.” So I guess you can say that every cloud does have a silver lining. I just wish I could find more for my particular situation.