Monday, July 25, 2016

Blindsided

Good news: Chris got a Lucasfilm job!!!! We were trying not to get too excited about the possibility of a job, since it definitely wasn't a guarantee that there would be an open position at the end of his internship, let alone the possibility that he would be the one to fill it. For his end-of-the-internship presentation, he showed off what he was able to accomplish over the course of his internship, and all the on-lookers were very impressed to see what he was able to create in such a short amount of time. At the end of the presentation, his Lucasfilm supervisor told him that he was the best intern they ever had, and the Lucasfilm recruiter spoke up before any of the other recruiters and said, "We're keepin' him!"just so the ILM people would know he was already spoken for. What an awesome way to end this internship!

Bad news: We can't afford to live.
I know that sounds super dramatic, but it is so true! All the housing options we were looking at before we heard the salary amount were dropped like hot potatoes once we heard the numbers. Its not even like we could live somewhere and pay an absurd amount of our paycheck to rent because of the income verification most all property owners require. You need to be making 3x as much as the monthly rent to even be considered. And everywhere within a 2 hour commute distance for Chris is WAY out of our price range.

It feels like we were having an exhilarating joy ride when Chris was offered the job, and then we fell on our backs and got the wind knocked out of us. And I'm not sure we have completely recovered from being blindsided like that. Our entire outlook on how our family was supposed to turn out (me a stay at home mom with Chris getting to work at a studio) seems to be frustratingly out of reach.
However, it has allowed us to step back and consider options we never would have thought of had our ideal plans go through. Maybe our 'ideal' family life wasn't the best? Or maybe we need to persevere through this and things will fall into place?
All I know is, if anyone has a comfortably furnished box we could borrow for housing, send their contact information our way.

2 comments:

  1. Sooo lame! Is Chris considering any other jobs outside of California that would offer a lower cost of living? Or is he completely set on lucasfilm?

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    1. We have considered other animation jobs. The problem is that there are literally less than 10 main 3D animation film studios (in North America) and all of them are in cities with freakishly high costs of living (LA, Vancouver, Connecticut, etc). If it comes down to it, we can fall back on his computer science degree. But his passion and love is for animation so we are first trying to make that work.

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