Anglo Adventure

Travel with a sense of humor

Tag Archives: Writer


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My Résumé, the Mad Skills Edition

Skill #105: Finding spring before it actually begins.

Skill #105: Wildlife spotting.

Let’s be honest. Resumes aren’t meant to show off our real skills. You know the unseen stuff, the stuff your boss never includes in a performance evaluation, but probably should.

I’ve listed mine below, just in case you want to hire a drum-miming-broom-dancing-popcorn-making writer.

And so you don’t think I am bragging, I’ve listed the stuff I am not so good at. Comment below with your own mad skills!

My mad skillz résumé: 

  • Balancing a 600-page-plus tome on the treadmill as I run

-Drum miming as I run
-Imagining myself in an action movie as I run

  • Interpretive broom dancing

-Car dancing
-Elliptical dancing

  • Creative theme party planning
    My latest: Turtleneck & Chains (Inspired by The Lonely Island’s hilarious hit single. It’s BYLB. That’s Bring Your Light Beer).
    Previous: Nautical Night. Or I Think I’m On a Boat.
  • Dawson’s Creek Trivia
  • Popcorn making
  • Recognizing relatively obscure Biggy Smalls songs
  • Doodling Venus flytraps in the margins of my notepad
  • Deconstructing every nuance of My So-Called Life
  • Moving cross-country/international (3 times and counting!)
  • Finding freakishly good new snacks at Trader Joe’s
  • Identifying a good doctor by their magazine collection. (I.E. You’re a Doctor & you want your patients reading Web MD Magazine? GTFO.)
  • Making fairly elaborate quesadillas.
  • Jump roping.
  • Sweeping
  • Occasionally dice games & poker. I don’t play often enough to find out if I am actually good. So we’ll list this as a maybe.
  • Sprinting through airports
  • Finding the best pizza in any neighborhood, city, or small town
  • Picking hotels

Things I need to work on:

  • Balancing my mug of coffee in the car
  • Parallel parking. Spent most of my life in or close to various metro areas. Still not happening.
  • Eating produce before it gets moldy
  • Remembering reusable grocery bags
  • Dressing for the weather
  • Holding those handles on the bus for long stretches of time
  • Walking in heels, uphill/downhill. I firmly believe Seattle’s massive hills were the impetus for grunge fashion.
  • French accents.
  • Trapezing. Because you actually have to move your body when you trapeze. Who knew?
  • Carrying lots of stuff and arranging it properly before trying to open the door
  • Driving small cars, like FIATS
  • Finding my keys
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So You’re an English Major

This is a picture of a painting of a painting.

What life looks like after graduation. (I don’t know who painted this.)

So you’re an English major. Welcome. It has been almost ten years since I graduated college and I prepared some advice, as well as responses to common questions. No other major has been so scrutinized, so deemed USELESS by the gainfully employed. Useless. What an awful word for a fantastic study.

If you’re reading this, it’s probably too late to change it. But you wouldn’t want to.

My “useless” degree in English taught me to examine the fabric of life. Everything is present in books. Everything. A writer observes and records. A writer makes his characters suffer so we know what it will be like when we get there.

I learned about love, death, desire, war, sex, passion, food, junk, poverty, disease, diplomacy, philosophy, social issues, activism, etc. I still don’t get commas though.

In short, an English degree is the universal degree. You just need to learn how to market it, how to make it work for you.

Let’s start with advice from one of my favorite writers: Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.~ Murakami. Continue reading →


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Job Woes & the Search for my Mr. Miyagi

travel blog expat quebec expat blog

What Elwood does when I look for jobs

I am two parts commercial writer, one part travel writer and one part creative writer. I have six years experience, including two managing other writers. I moved to Canada and back. Now it’s like I am on the other end of an electric fence and I can’t get back into the job market.

Maybe they could sense that I was in Quebec, like a baby bird rejected from its mother because a human touched it.

I have been looking for work since April, when I moved back here. I have had countless job interviews. I am not desperate, not complaining, but I am frustrated. I need work and although I currently freelance write for multiple travel publications, there are long stretches of time spent in PJs writing a humorous inner monologues from vampires and bizarre stories about old folks’ homes.

I need to make money. Continue reading →