"Too much time on my hands"

It's a darn good thing Jews don't subscribe to the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins, because if we did I would undoubtedly be guilty of sloth.  I certainly wouldn't want my watching an entire season of a show on Netflix over the course of a few days to be the cause of some Divine wrath.  Besides, I don't think our renters insurance would cover the couch if it were mysteriously struck by lightening on a perfectly sunny day.

Since I was 15, I have always had a job or been a full-time student, and sometimes both concurrently.  Every summer I have had at least a part-time job, typically working between 20 and 35 hours a week which is just enough to keep one occupied.  This summer, for the first time, I am unoccupied.  Sure, moving was a big deal and the weeks surrounding the  move were hectic and busy, but now that everything is unpacked, organized, filed away, and set in its appropriate place, I find myself without a whole lot to do.

"But it's New York!" you implore.  Yes, yes. New York City, center of the universe (bonus points if you can identify the song I just alluded to), but I seem to be suffering from the same malady which affects so many of today's youth:  "I'm booooorrred.  There's nothing to DO.  Ugh."

It's hot and sticky again outside and quite frankly I'd much rather hang out on the couch in front of a fan or the air conditioning instead of venturing to the subway where the stagnant heat is amplified to an impressive impersonation of a warm oven.  And sure, it might be a small price to pay for the reward of lounging in a library or a coffee shop or under a shaded tree in the park, but it always comes back to the same old excuse - that I simply don't want to.

Don't get me wrong, I have things to do around here, and I've been doing them.  Laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, cooking, more grocery shopping, more cooking.  I'm actually finding that I kind of enjoy participating in these very domestic activities.  They're comforting.  Making a home feel like a home is comforting.  Walking out to brush shoulders with silent strangers is not quite as comforting.

I keep hoping this is a temporary thing, but my job hunt over the past couple months has, so far, been disheartening.  The application-to-response ratio is less than ideal, and the application-to-interview ratio is even worse.  Being a young and relatively inexperienced teacher is challenging enough as it is when everyone seems to want "Two years of experience, required," but being a young, inexperienced teacher in a field that is rapidly dissipating in public schools is even worse.  I want to be a music teacher.  Specifically, I want to be a strings teacher for a school orchestra.  Not only are there an aggravatingly small  number of jobs in that field, but they're disappearing before our eyes as schools are forced to focus more on the core subjects of math and English Language Arts (ELA).

This could be a rant about the state of music education in today's schools, but I'll leave that for another day.  For the moment I'm just frustrated at my lack of occupation and afraid of how long this may continue.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find another TV series to get hooked on.