Why I quit my NGO job

Sometimes, you think for a long time about something, and then, finally, you do something about it.

On July 15, 2011 I quit my job--the job I knew I was lucky to have, the job where where I spent 10% of each month getting a papercut on receipts. It was an absolutely superb job to have for the time that I had it. It allowed me to return from living in Egypt, set up life in Washington, DC, and work on developing democracy in three countries: Jordan, West Bank/Gaza, and Iraq. Over nearly 3 years, I took work trips to Iraq, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania and, from those, personal trips to Austria, Spain, and Turkey. I edited proposals. I wrote reports. I prepped for meetings. I gave presentations. I did things I would never have thought I could do, like successfully shepherd over twenty Iraqi non-English speakers, some of whom had never left Iraq before, through the Romanian metro system (a place I had never been before).  I learned a lot.

Quitting is scary, but if you think you need to quit, you are almost certainly right.

And then there was a time when I felt like I was not learning as much. And that if I were to get a promotion, which I felt it was just about time for, it wouldn't really matter. I would still do what I already did. And if I were promoted again, after that, I would still do largely what I already did, with incremental increases in responsibility but little variation in function.  (I would probably have been able to stop reviewing receipts. That would have been a plus.)

And this was disturbing. It seems obvious, in retrospect, that it was simply time to leave. I had been good to my organization and it had been good to me, but we needed a break. Why does it take us so long to disrupt the status quo?

Temptation: Not a great way to begin your day

This is the first thing I see every morning:

What shares real estate with neglected eyeglasses and my cup of water on Nightstand Lane. 

It's impossible to not consider, bleary-eyed and blinking into the sun, about how to rig life so that I can call in sick and sit in bed and read. Every day.

Or not even every day.  Maybe, just like, once a week.

Sigh.

What can Brown do for me? Easy--stop requiring signatures.

Dear UPS,

I note on your website that you declare, in a pantheon of languages, "We <3 Logistics."  I must say I find this declaration remarkably Kafkaesque given my recent interactions with your company, which have been frustrating mostly due to their lack of logic and inconvenience.  How about, instead of declaring your love for logistics, you let your actions do the talking?

I shop online because I have a job.  The whole point is that I come home after shoe stores are closed and voila! My new shoes are sitting in a box outside of my house. Coming home to a yellow sticker on the front door is NOT as much fun.  Telling me you will come back on Wednesday from 2:00-5:00 is also not helpful.  A burning question that keeps me up at night is this: which Americans find this system workable?  WHO is home from Wednesday from 2:00-5:00?  What is their job and how do I get it?

My id is trying to tell me something.

When I think about walking around an MFA program, having nothing to do but read books and write, it fills me with joy.  Joy, I tell you.  The very idea fills me with joy, makes me smile and close my eyes like I can already feel the warm literary sun on my face.

I signed up for a GMAT prep class because I thought it would compel me to study, and that if I spent the money -- money I don't really have to spend--I would keep up with the pace of the class.

I forgot to attend today.  I didn't skip class. I just forgot to go.  Learning GMAT math is supposed to be my number-one priority, and I straight-up FORGOT.  I was engrossed in this essay, and ordering a copy of Walden from Amazon.

At what point do I stop fighting nature?

For St. Patrick's Day, I wore envy

My friend Katie has this amazing blog, Eating Stuff Everywhere.  When I read Katie's blog I think I feel like other girls feel when they click through photos of their high school friends on Facebook and are overcome by desperate urges to have babies and homes with nightstands to put Yankee Candle Company candles on. In other words: why is that not me?  I want, I want, I want.

I lived in Cairo for a year and it was the most alive I've ever felt. I had an apartment on the 26th floor of a building on an island in the middle of the Nile. I could stand on the balcony with light from my bedroom shining through floor-to-ceiling glass behind me and listen to the call to prayer roll through thick hot air from dozens of directions, staring out over the maze of cream-colored stucco building rooftops to where the city skyline faded into rusty haze on the horizon.

But then I got overwhelmed by the fact that my rolodex was the biggest in Egypt and that was not where I wanted to build a life. Or so I thought. So I applied for one job in Washington, DC and I got it. It was a hard job to get.  Many other people wanted it. I remember knowing this, and being very nervous sitting at my 26th floor kitchen table preparing to do a phone interview via Skype.

I am 25 and single and I am about to reconcile two document boxes worth of expenses from our field office.  The sun is shining and there is a great big world of people selling oranges by the Mediterranean and I am in Washington, DC giving myself paper cuts on 10-pound stacks of receipts.  I feel like this was a terrible, terrible mistake that I'm too risk-averse to recover from.

I tried to explain this to my dad on the phone last night and he suggested I move to Newellton, Louisiana, where we have a small camp on a lake. I said Dad I miss being jostled in markets thronging with 20 million people in exotic garb who know what living feels like.  I don't think retreating to sleepy southern town with population 1,227 is going to do it for me. At precisely this moment I opened the fridge and bent over to remove organic green beans wrapped in a plastic bag. I paused with my head in between the door and the fridge, bent over, surprised by a spasm of tears.

I can see myself becoming quiet desperation and it is the most soul-withering feeling imaginable.

StrogaStruggle; or, Why the Silver Bullet is Always Illusory

LivingSocial recently tried to tempt DCists to patronize the yoga-strength-training-fusion establishment that opened in Adams Morgan over a year ago to the fanfare of teal flags under the name Stroga.  If you think yoga-strength-training sounds like an amazing idea, I agreed.  Jealous, laboring under a previously-purchased Pass to Elsewhere, I imagined Stroga full of sweaty urban yuppies with bods of steel stretching taught buns to the heavens in downward dog, their Dartmouth sweatshirts carelessly flopping around their waists, Deloitte nalgene bottles standing at attention. Consequently, when a Groupon went out last year for deeply discounted classes, I was shocked. Surely, the place was already bursting at the seams with beautiful people and their wannabes?

I imagined sweaty urban yuppies with bods of steel stretching taught buns to the heavens in downward dog, their Dartmouth sweatshirts carelessly flopping next to Deloitte nalgenes.

Turns out, it isn't.  Turns out their absolutely stunning space (a former ballroom) is actually for rent for evening events as a way to help the business generate income.  Turns out, Stroga isn't doing as well as planned.  Now we were even more curious.  How could it not be?

To welcome 2011, I bought a membership to Stroga, and pranced my spandex-clad fanny across the "hip-grit" 18th & Columbia intersection in Adams Morgan (revelers take note: this neighborhood is so much better during the day), sweeping past the belly-dance advertisement into the reception of this vast and elegant space.

At first glance, the room itself certainly did not disappoint.

Women of a Certain Age

At what point does hooking up with someone on the regular become "taking a lover"? "She took a lover" sounds ever-so-much more sophisticated than "and then they started sleeping together."

I now round up to 30. I might have to consider it. There's such a wonderful sense of agency involved.