This blog never had a “point” so I’m wrenching one out of this foul mood I’ve created for myself.
It’s only a month since I finished uni and although that doesn’t sound like much time in the grand scheme of things, it’s long enough for me to burrow down into a nice pit of self-pity and sulk.
I studied journalism and broadcasting at uni and for the last 18 months I’ve been entirely focused on obtaining a cadetship with The West Australian Newspaper. I’m passionate about print journalism and my ambition was (is Sophie, is!) to be a court reporter. I threw myself into my work for the last year particularly and I did everything I thought I should to get myself a spot as a cadet journalist for 2012. I worked hard at uni, I stayed employed for the newspaper in the call centre for their classifieds, I did placement with them and had work published in the newspaper. Everything seemed right on track. I got through to the final round of interviews and everyone around me told me they thought I was a shoe-in. It all seemed like I was in the right place at the right time. But then I didn’t get it. Instead of taking the usual 4-6 cadets they had in previous years, they only took 2. And I wasn’t 1 of the 2.
It wasn’t until I actually got the news that I realised how much I’d invested in getting the cadetship. Of course in the year leading up I just took the ‘positive reaffirmation’ path and told people that that's what was I was expecting to do next year. If they asked what my back up plan was I told them I would take some time to “re-assess my options”. Well the “re-assessing” has started and it SUCKS.
I went to Bali as an end of uni celebration with a friend last week and we both spent the 5 days whinging about how hard we’d worked for nothing (admittedly my whinging was more constant and self-pitying than his was). He narrowly missed out on a graduate position as well so we fed each other’s moods. By the end of the week we realised there was only so many times you could say “it’s all for the best” or “something good will turn up” before you stop believing it.
I decided to allow myself a little bit of time to feel sorry for myself. I gave myself a week. That should’ve been enough time for me to be as upset as people were allowing me to be and I thought things would look a bit brighter at the end of the week. Well it’s been 3 weeks now and I’m still sulking. I’ve also stopped writing. Usually writing is the one constant activity that keeps me both happy and busy. When I was at uni most of my work was writing so I was able to genuinely enjoy my study. The “days off” I gave myself after I finished uni to have a rest and re-coup have now turned to weeks and my sulking has kept any sort of inspiration at bay- actually that’s a lie as well. I haven’t even needed inspiration because I haven’t even bothered to try. But I’m reaching the end of my tether with all of this.
I’m decidedly unsure of what lies ahead of me in terms of work/future study/next week but what I am sure of is I don’t want to feel like I do anymore. I have to do something about it. I’ve felt myself slipping away in the last few weeks. Not in an over-the-top ‘the world is coming to an end way’ but more in a ‘I can’t laugh or smile at anything and everything is boring and lame and I’m becoming an unbearable human-being’ kind of way. I’m incredibly unpleasant to be around at the moment and quite frankly I’m sick of myself (I can’t even imagine what the people who’ve put up with my mood lately must be thinking).
So this little blog that I’ve been tinkering away on for the past few years is now changing direction. Instead of being my dumping ground for erroneous writing and articles, it’s now my online promise and my public declaration that I’m going to at least try and make the most of what was given to me. I was born with a brain and I put that brain to (somewhat) good use and got a degree. I refuse to be one of those graduates who wallow around and end up in some job they didn’t even want and could have gotten without a degree anyway. But I’m pretty sure I can’t do it alone. I need other people to be my positive reaffirmation now. So I’m asking a favour. Come with me as I start actually ‘re-assessing my options’ and try and figure what happens next in the life of an arts graduate.
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