Monday, April 21, 2008

Sheesh, been a while eh?

It's Monday night and it's been a tough day. Heck, a tough couple of days really.

I'll start at the beginning, sort of.

I had that interview on Thursday of last week, and it went more or less well. I fear I came off as inexperienced and unprofessional and unprepared. That's because I was unprepared, kind of. I had looked at the company's website and such, but the info I gleaned completely slipped my mind in the interview. It was laughable.

Anyway, I have no doubt that they will contact me this week, saying, "We've decided to go in another direction" or some such feather rejection.

Ahhh, Green Day just came on my Internet Radio. Nice.

Moving on. I had gotten a job from a client on Wednesday night but got pretty much nothing of it done until Friday. Then I finished it today. Friday was an interesting day. I spent my time on Helium, writing a few articles and then looking at jobs. It was kind of a blah day, unfortunately. I've been wanting to move back to Alaska lately, and it's kind of depressing because it's so expensive to live up there. We saw some lots for sale in Wasilla, one of which we might want to explore buying so we can build later, and that made me even more eager to get up there. Ugh.

So then Saturday was incredibly busy, with gardening work and other stuff, topped off by a last minute request to move somebody. I gathered some guys and we showed up, but it turned out the dude wasn't able to move. I have since been trying to help this fellow get his feet under him.

Sunday was busy as well, with Church meetings and several visits which went really well.

Today I had this client's project to do, but I woke up feeling sick, with a sore throat and running a slight fever. I hadn't slept all that well either, so it took me a while to get going. But get going I did and finally churned out the work.

Now I'm done. Tomorrow I will write 3-5 articles for Helium, rate for thirty minutes (this will take me two hours), then I will work up a newsletter for ChartedCourse.

I will then have the rest of the week to work on The Cabin, although I expect to get another job from this new client. If I do, I'll bash it out fast. Unless it's some esoteric topic like Medieval Minstrel Songs or something...

I got a call from a company I applied to a little while ago, which is called Pearson. They are an education company and I applied to be a technical writer with their SLC office. Anyway, I imagine that today's call was a preliminary interview. The guy I talked to said he would send my resume off to the hiring director in Salt Lake City.

So I should hear back from Spillman and Pearson this week. I'm also headed to Austin on Friday for an interview thing that lasts six hours. This is what they call an 'Interview Event' for all Texas Teaching Fellows candidates. See, the lame thing is that they just e-mailed me saying that they no longer have openings in my field of preference: ESL. But I already bought my tickets and I am excited to see what Austin's like. And it'll be neat to see Jena again, of course! The plan is to do the interview and get my name on a waiting list, even though teaching is not my first choice.

What this all adds up to is that I am feeling a little stressed (little... ha!). But I get to see mountains out my office window, I get hugs from kids during the day, smooches from Annemarie whenever she's around and I feel the need, so stress is a minor irritant when all is said and done.

Am I aiming too high as I try to get into a job as a technical writer? The truth is that I would prefer to be a copywriter or editor at a journalistic publication, but I'm having trouble finding openings for those anywhere that we want to live.

But in conclusion, on Friday I found a job that I could get as excited about as I am about The Friend. It's at Challenger School, which is a worldwide school for primary and grammar school. They are a great company and they want an educator who is a writer, or a writer who is an educator. I am both, so I really have to fight the hope that always seems to boil up when I find a choice job.

Why fight hope? That's dumb. Okay, I'm not going to fight the hope. If I compare hope and despair, hope comes out looking like a good cup of tea. So I figure I'll take it.

That's why I know I'm going to be a bestselling author, even if at the same time I write that doubt comes knocking.

carpe somnium

If you can't feel the determination, I can. In my bones, the corners of my eyes and the set of my jaw; I feel it.

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