Interview

Well, it went well! Had two people interviewing me which was VERY nerve-wracking, but they were both very nice and didn't ask me any difficult questions that I hadn't prepared myself for.

They gave me the first spelling test since I was 11 which was a novelty, and a gruelling typing test which involved me typing a page of text in 3 mins (NOT easy, I can tell you), but I think overall I did well.

Hopefully I'll hear back from them early-mid next week - keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Interview Day

Big apologies for not writing anything interesting this week - have been thinking of nothing but the interview I have in a few hours and the gruelling trip to Manchester tomorrow morning.

Will write again later, post-interview. Expect either positive waffling or short, dejected sentences.

Christ, I'm nervous.

Job Interview

Holy cow farts batman - I've got an interview!

It's with The Herald on Friday, and I have to say I'm more than a little nervous. Usually with interviews I can bring the crippling nerves down a couple of notches by thinking to myself, 'well, I don't really want the job anyway, but I'll do my best and see how it goes...'

This time that's not going to cut it. I want this job so much I'd go religious to get it, or miss my cousin's wedding - which incidentally I might just have to do.

With any luck in a couple of weeks someone will ask me what I do for a living and I can say, 'Well, actually, I work on a newspaper."

Aaaahhhhhhh!

Must remember to ration my coffee intake on Friday morning.

Party Guest

There is something about telling people you are unemployed that annoys me more than being asked "How is your job search going?" on an all-too-regular basis. It really angers me to my very core.

I was asked by someone I barely know at my friend's birthday party last night what I did for a living. I told him I was unemployed and he, instead of branding me as a victim of the recession or a lazy benefit claimer, said, "Ah, I wish I was unemployed."

REALLY?! Do you REALLY? Do you have any idea how depressing, demoralising and boring it is to be unemployed? How embarassing it is to have to admit that you do nothing for a living when asked? Fine, if you think it's so great then let me have your job and you can go on the dole, then we'll see what you think about it.

Barely containing a full-blown rant I managed, I think, to explain how hard it is at the moment to find work and I found it incredible that this person appeared to have absolutely no idea of the situation. It's got me wondering how many other people have little or no concept of the difficulties faced by those who are desperately trying to find work.

It's a frightening thought, but I suppose it's true of many things. People who don't read newspapers or watch the news or know someone directly affected won't realise the full implications of something like unemployment.

Question Time

I watched Question Time last night with great interest. Thankfully, Nick Griffin managed to blunder through the programme, exposing his policies for the bigoted tripe they really are. What I found surprising, though, that the other panel members, even Mr Dimbleby himself, and the overwhelming majority of the audience were ardently against him before he opened his mouth. Something in me expected (and maybe feared) that the proceedings would be a lot more, well, political, than they were in that I expected Griffin to be a lot more eloquent, and the other panel members more willing to listen. Or pretend, at least.

So he had a pretty terrible time of it, leading many to fear that in the wake of the programme he will be victimised for being 'picked on' or whatever. Surely not. Not only did he come across as racist, extreme and faintly ridiculous, he was also resorted to incredibly childish methods of defending himself. Early on in the show he was attacked for using the figure of Winston Churchill in his campaign leaflets and so on, and Jack Straw really got stuck in with the verbal tomato throwing. Griffin retorted in the only way he could, by making a completely irrelevant remark about how his grandfather had fought in WWII while Straw's grandfather was in prison as a conscientious objector. What tripe. Playground tactics - for shame.

I did, however, feel sorry for Griffin on one score. Poor chap. I mean, being told that people only vote for your party out of frustration for other parties must have been like someone telling you that someone only slept with you because they were bored.

Ouch, indeed.

Rain, rain go away,
I need to buy some food today.

Block

Struggling to think of things to write about today, maybe I'll knock up a few words on Cllr Bowyer, or delve into the creative desert that is the city of Plymouth. I don't know.

Need to think of something before the papers forget about me entirely. I wonder if my recent publication will assist my job application?

Had a nice relaxing Sunday today. Read the paper, drank coffee, spent two hours playing Battleships and Bowling with my nephew on Skype - you know, the usual.

Cllr Bowyer

Well, I emailed him asking him to elaborate on his proposals for combating youth unemployment and he replied this morning. He spelt my name wrong - instantly making me dislike him - but he complimented me on my article which was nice.

He made clear that his 'slight' (when he basically described every young person as a criminal waiting to happen) was unintended - duh - and then pretty much repeated everything he said in the article I read. Oh well, looks like more talk and little action then. At least, I suppose, he's trying to get voices heard. Maybe that's the first step towards getting things changed.

Newspapers

I bought a copy of The Herald with my usual Thursday morning Western Morning News on a whim today. I'd read something interesting on the website last night and I wanted to see if there was more detail in this morning's paper. I was wrong.

What they DID do, though, is publish the 400 words I sent them!!! Apparently you shouldn't expect to be told if this happens to you. Take note.

Now, I have to go back to the shop and get a copy for my mother...

Productive Day

Done loads today, not just sat on my arse reading the paper as usual (although that did work itself into my day).

Went food shopping yesterday, I had to make an executive decision that my savings account wouldn't get an installment this week - I'm sick of being hungry so I spent loads of money on food. Today I have done laundry, tidied, completed my first 'c-word' present (everyone is getting handmade stuff this year), and I'm off in a minute to make a stew with all the veg I have in the fridge. I love doing things like these, it makes me feel like a proper person.

In other news: I'm reading 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' at the moment, it's really good but really depressing. Don't read it if you have or ever want children. I'm only half way through it and my future is a designated child-free zone. Yes, I know it's fiction and not everyone's children turn out to be sociopaths...but then not every clown is a Pennywise (of Stephen King fame) and how many people can't even look at one? Point proved.

"Youngsters Need Chance to Work"

There's a little article in the Herald today that provoked a response, not because I agree with it entirely, but because it proves that there is still a massive amount of misunderstanding towards unemployed young people.

It is, by and large, a very encouraging little piece reporting what a certain Counsellor Bowyer says about unemployment in the Plymouth area. He understands what the employment market in Plymouth is like and admits that, "Plymouth is likely to make a slower recovery from the recession than other parts of the South West". To combat this he proposes creating incentives for employers to take on younger people, but the reason why he proposes this is what worries me.

Don't get me wrong - I welcome his ideas with open arms if it will help me and my peers to get a job, but his reasons for getting young people out of unemployment are not to stop us from becoming disillusioned or politically apathetic, but to stop us from, "getting bored and getting into crime".

Are those the only options we have? Employment or crime? Jesus - it's like we're holding the country to ransom or something. "Gizza job or I'll start muggin' old ladies in the street, innit." Get a grip. The reasons why we should be singled out and given help into employment are not so superficial.

Drunk Co-op Guy

I was just in my local Co-op after a late night chocolate fix when, in the queue I had an interesting exchange with a drunk guy who was valiantly striking up a banal conversation with two female students. He was asking them what they were studying and, assuming I was a student too, pointed the same question at me.
"I'm not studying anymore" I said, sticking my bottom lip out.
"Ah, whaddya do now 'en?"
"I'm unemployed, living the high-life of a graduate." I retorted. The sarcasm was, I admit, entirely defensive.
He shrugged and said (slurred) that he felt bad for me.
"Shit happens." I shrugged. A bumper-sticker response, but his time had come at the till so I didn't have time for my usual in-depth philosophical discussion of the whys and wherefores of living at the, excuse the phrase, shitty end of the proverbial stick.

Despite the fact that the guy was almost entirely nonsensical, I really appreciated the empathy he gave me. It's the greatest degree of compassion for my situation I have had from anyone but an immediate family member or close friend since I became unemployed.

Once he had staggered back out into the city one of the student he had been talking to asked me, "Why are you still in Plymouth?" and I automatically gave a frighteningly honest response. "I have no idea." And I really don't.

What has Plymouth really got to offer me as an arts graduate besides unemployment? I'd like to find out how many BA students are currently enrolled at the university, and explore this more. Why is the university attracting so many, while the city does nothing to keep them here?

Bring Back The Black Line!

There are certain aspects of wartime rationing which I personally don't think were such a terrible idea. I'm not talking about meat, dairy, bread or even sugar. I'm talking about hot water.

Today I was denied the simple pleasure of a mid-afternoon shower because some selfish girl (no, before you start burning your bras at me or send Germaine Greer to have a go - it really was a girl) used all the hot water this morning having a bath.

Now, since I am fortunate enough to have the pipes from the bathroom spewing their soapy effluence right outside my bedroom window, I know precisely how lavish the bath in question was. It was steamy, it was soapy and it was, without a shadow of a doubt, very girly.

Bring back the black line, I say. A six inch bubble limit on morning baths so the rest of us might at least have a snowflake's chance in hell at having a luke-warm shower when we wish. End bathtime selfishness! Bring back the black line! - Could be a national campaign.

Waiting

Still no reply from the paper.

I seem to be spending my entire life waiting at the moment. Waiting for that feedback, waiting for that parcel to arrive, waiting for responses to the jobs I applied to this week, waiting for my sign-on appointment...

I wonder when things will actually start to happen? I used to think that once I left university my life would finally kick-start, but really I'm just in limbo and my patience is wearing thin.

How ironic would it be if I got a job waiting tables? Hahah

Emailed off my 400 words earlier and have spent much of the afternoon either a.) checking my emails or b.) thinking about checking my emails. My head knows that I shouldn't expect a response within the week, but my mouse-clicking finger doesn't seem to get the message.

The little optimist in me wants this to be a massive opportunity, but I think I'm more level-headed (or just plain negative) than that. We'll see anyway. Whatever the outcome I'll just keep writing, it's turning out to be quite enjoyable really. I'd like to think that at some point I could make something of it, even if it is just to carry it on as a hobby.

Time for bed now, I'm shattered for some reason. Must remember to take book back to the library tomorrow and buy a paper.

Plymouth Herald...

So I'm busy trying to write this 400 word piece for the Herald that I've been asked to do. It's harder than it sounds, it's very difficult to impress in 400 words. But I think I'm getting there, maybe. Have taken some advice from India Knight (God bless Twitter for allowing us to harass our heroes) and might have a chance at getting published. Scary.

In other news: had a really nice evening in with TV and housemates last night, might actually finally be bonding with a couple of them. Makes living here a lot more pleasant I can tell you.

Will write again later, probably after I've sent an email back to The Herald...eep.

Glastonbury Ticket Day

This morning passed in a haze of stress and expletives, yes, it's October and that means the dreaded T-Day was upon us. I don't know why I get so stressed, this is the 6th year in a row I have managed to get a ticket to the best festival in the world, but I do. Perhaps it's something to do with how heart-achingly difficult it was to procure one the first couple of years, the anxiety is still there.

But anyway, I managed it. Well, my sister and brother-in-law (whose internet DIDN'T decide it would stop working on the most important day of the year) managed to get it for me. As far as I remember we do this every year, it never happens that we each manage to get our own ticket. God only knows what would happen if one of us decided we weren't going to go one year.

But that's very unlikely. We just love it too much.

Google: The #1 Evil Genius

I am ashamed to admit that I have spent the better part of the last five hours trying to score myself an invitation to Google Wave on Twitter...and I'm not even sure what it is. What I do know is that I want in.

Basically, Google have done it again. They have created some...THING, some lovely piece of technology that they say will revolutionise the way we think/communicate/breathe/live and get us to sign up for it months in advance. Then when the release date comes they only allow a set number of people access to this new technological nirvana. Now, here comes the clever bit. To these lucky first batch of consumers they award a small number of invitations to send to people they know so they they can share the joy. For the rest of us mere mortals this means we get stuck in a frenzy of desperation trying (and failing) to get an invite.

They did it in 2004 with 'GMail' and now it's Google Wave. I have absolutely no idea what it is. But apparently it's very clever and very pretty.

But I'm not the only one gagging for access. Half the world, it seems, are willing to do just about anything to have a look at Google Wave, and I do mean anything. But why? Because some multi-national .com company says it's pretty cool? No. Because they say it's cool and won't let us see it!

I'm wondering if the same could be applied to job hunting. So maybe one day I rock up at an employer and say, 'Hey, I'm clever and pretty, but you can't have me working here.' By Google's standards I'll have every employer in the country chasing after me, literally begging me to let them see just how clever and pretty I am.

Hmmm...maybe not.