Work hard, play hard

Myrtle Beach, SC

What better way to take your mind off of job searching than a little vacation time? For the past two weeks I have been living up summertime while I still can. From Myrtle Beach to the North Carolina mountains, I have had the opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet some great new ones. However, for the first time I was not able to fully enjoy either vacation due to the stress of "not doing anything" and "relaxing" instead of making the most out of my time to job search or continue researching news, stories and updates on the industry I want to dive into. During most vacations (especially when I'm on the beach) I spend the majority of my time reading page turning novels that lose me in the moment and take very little thinking because isn't that the whole point to relaxing and taking some vacation time to yourself? The start of this vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC with two of my best friends started a little differently. We drove down to the beach on a Wednesday afternoon and during that drive I received an email about an interview with an online advertising company that I had applied to a few days prior. The excitement kicked in and then quickly changed to worry that I was not going to be able to research the company properly like I would for any interview since I was at the beach. Thank god for smartphones and WiFi everywhere nowadays! So instead of reading my normal best seller book on the beach that morning I sat on my smartphone the entire time researching the company I would be interviewing with over the phone, following their Twitter feed and  reading their most recent blog posts. That night I could hardly enjoy myself because all I could think about was the questions they would ask me, how I would answer them and the questions I planned to ask the company. These have actually been the only thoughts running through my head in general for the past 6 months and it is starting to cause nervous habits that I have never had before like clenching my jaw, picking at my finger nails nonstop and continuously checking my email at a ridiculously unhealthy rate. Now when I don't hear back from a company within hours I fear the worst. Seriously what is wrong with me?
        Anyway the interview went well and I had really over prepared for it, but you never know what they may ask you. You never want to be that person that gets asked what the company does or about their latest clients and you sit there with a blank stare. From interviewing at multiple different companies and organizations I have learned it is always better to be extremely over prepared then to ever be caught unprepared but that is probably common sense. Once Friday rolled around I thought I could finally enjoy myself and not think about job searching, interviewing or researching anything. Boy was I wrong. That morning I woke up to numerous emails from people I had been trying to set up informational interviews with to possible new job leads. I spent the entire morning on the computer replying back and I think I ran into my friends condo 4 or 5 times from the beach to forward my resume to different people. I am definitely not complaining because I would rather have numerous emails about job leads in my mailbox than 0, but what a different vacation feel this was compared to my previous lazy beach vacations.

Sunset at the Highlands, NC

The snake that made me never want to get in the water.

     Next stop was the Highlands in North Carolina. Surprisingly I have never visited the North Carolina mountains so I did not know exactly what to expect but let me just say that I was pleasantly surprised. I guess you could call this a couples retreat as I went with my boyfriend and two other couples to our friends mountain house for four days. The ride into the town was absolutely gorgeous although it made me pretty motion sick due to the numerous winding roads that went on for miles.


 The vacation was perfect aside from the lack of WiFi, which stressed me out greatly since I had been planning to do some job searching and researching every morning during our stay. So instead of waking up early to do work on my laptop at the house I headed into the library in town each morning to get done everything I needed to get done which allowed me to enjoy the activities we did each day. I learned how to fly fish for the first time and although I did not catch anything it was a great experience. My boyfriend and his friends may say I wasn't completely fly fishing because I never actually went in the water due to a lack of fishing waders and an intense fear of snakes. Instead I fished from all of the rocks surrounding the water. Had I not seen the largest snake I've ever seen, I could probably call myself a fly fishing pro! Just kidding. We went out to eat at one of the nicest places I have ever been, drank some of the spiciest and greatest bloody mary's at Ugly Dog Saloon, (A place I definitely recommend to any young people looking for some fun in the middle of the Highlands) and saw one of the most beautiful sunsets in North Carolina.