Hey Irene-

How are you? Hope life’s not being too hard/stressful on you. You and I should really try to chat more often…

Anyway, with our common interests primarily lying in babysitting and taking care of kids (and the extremely fun responsibilities that such a job entails), I was wondering if you have any other jobs and/or responsiblities that take up your time.

Although I do not currently hold a job, I can safely say that I have had some work experience over the years. My very first “career” was actually as a full-fledged babysitter, in which I was responsible for taking care of some family friends’ two boys, both of whom were fairly good for the most part. In the mindset of an eleven year-old girl (who desperately wanted to buy the latest Backstreet Boy and/or N*Sync CD), being paid $5 an hour for watching two boys play video games all night really wasn’t so terrible. As I grew older, I began working as a clerk in the gift section of a local community pharmacy in Burlingame (the local rival city next to San Mateo), where I learned how to work behind the register and saw the true importance of organization and cleanliness (because the pharmacy was an older establishment, everything there was always coated in dust, dirt, grime, and other stuff I don’t even want to think about- needless to say, Lysol and Swiffer wipes have been my best friends since then ).

With a few odd jobs under my belt, when I was fifteen I got a summer job as an optometrist’s assistant in Palo Alto (a city not too far from San Mateo), where I spent the next few summers and school breaks working there to start saving up money for college expenses such as books, dorm room and board, and meal plans. The cost of going to college is crazy nowadays- and with my family already giving me so much over the last eighteen years, I hoped to help my parents by paying for at least a small portion of the seemingly endless bill. Anyway, working at the optometrist’s office was an awesome experience because it required me to become a more independent, professional person. In addition to peforming secretarial tasks such as working on the computer, scheduling patient appointments, and interacting with patients on the phone and in person, I also learned how to perform pre-tests on patients (i.e. the glaucoma and field/periferal vision tests) as well as gained some experience in repairing glasses and selling frames to patients who were looking to buy new glasses.

Now that I’m going off to college in the very near future *gasp*, although getting a job is not at the top of my list, it is definitely not out of the question. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens…

It would really be great to learn more about you (I feel so awkward talking about myself so much…), so please send me a message, ok? Hope to talk to you soon!