cruisin for a bruisin 2

Job interview in a couple of hours and I am nervous as all get out. It's a sales position basically and so all my general anxieties over being a bad salesperson are resurfacing. Got to trick this person into thinking I have my shit together. Got to be confident in myself and my abilities and my accomplishments. Smile. Make small talk (have you heard about my mayor). Sell my damn body. This is that furniture store all over again. Who is going to trust me to sell expensive anythings?

Ok the knot in my stomach has loosened slightly. Let's see how this goes.

cruising for a bruising

I've been a major chump lately, all lacking motivation and the general desire to do things that require any effort and concentration. So here I am in a library trying to write a cover letter. I'm writing here in an attempt to break whatever it is that is blocking me from just doing it. Anxiety I guess. Putting myself out there, something I hesitate to do under the best of circumstances. These are not the best of circumstances.

I've been wanting to start a routine, make it an unquestioned part of my day that I get out of my house for even an hour or two a day to work on resumes and job hunting. I have to say an hour or two because I'm basically trying to trick myself into getting work done. These are the coping strategies you learn when you are a serial procrastinator. Anyway I've been having difficulty doing that. Creating a routine. Something in me is resisting real hard, fighting back with stupidly alluring ideas like 'you can start tomorrow' which is such a terrible, awful and seductive phrase that wins me over more than it should. Tomorrow is a powerful concept. There are a lot of tomorrows.

This is helping a little I think. Just laying out my anxieties usually does. Which is why I should do it more. It's odd/frustrating: I'll often think, while in the midst of a good anxiety sesh, I should write this down, deal with it through words, and then I wont. Because if I did then I would have to deal with whatever was making me anxious. My dark passenger (sorry I'm sorry I called it that I'm just trying to simultaneously personify and other whatever part of me is responsible for this) is too smart for that.

I'm applying for a nutty job that I probably wont get and I'm not even sure is a good fit for me, career-wise, but it has the two major benefits of being tangentially related to what I'm interested, and hugely disruptive in terms of my life. I am pro-disruption at this point, just looking for something that will shake things up. A change of scenery is desired. I'm hesitant to say actually say what the job is for fear of jinxing it. Also, mild embarrassment? Think DFW and his supposedly fun thing he'll never do again. Don't know why I'm being so coy now. Nothing coy about my desire to gtfo of here and do something else. A friendquaintance recently got a job as a flight attendant (had to google what the right term for that was) which on the one hand is like, huh thought you were bound for bigger/better things, but on the other hand is like, wow am I envious of the amount of travel you get to do, also your pay and benefits.

Ok feeling slightly better, wish me luck xoxo

summer just, like, ended

Started a new writing project with some friends and friends of friends and I'm feeling rusty. Also feeling a lot of anxiety . It's been one year since I went back to school and my life is not noticeably different. There's more clarity of purpose at least but the metaphorical clock is ticking. Feel like I need to come up with some sort of employment fast. How can I do that with out feeling like I'm settling? Maybe I should just settle. Hate being that over-qualified guy. Well I'm not so much 'over-qualified,' more like I have an abundance of non-relevant qualifications.

But this writing thing might be neat. Might be. Still early days and I don't feel super invested in it. It's nice that it's someone else's responsibility. Someone else can worry about SEO and social media and posting things to reddit. Met with one of the guys spearheading it. I'm skeptical at his ambitions. Podcasts? But I think it's a mark of growth (or something) that I can step back and say sure let's see what happens. It's a lot easier to do that with someone else's baby. I'm the guy with doubts. Is that worth something? The trick seems differentiating between being practical and being negative. Not always so easy.

This also means getting back on the old horse ("You're doing heroin??" "No! I'm back on the bike!" "What's bike?") Haven't written serious history stuff in awhile. Got that performance anxiety. But it's like this: you choose something you are genuinely interested in and than try to communicate that interest with words. It's not that hard.  

some people crash 2 or 3 times and then learn from their mistakes

Great Job Hunt of '13 update: still unemployed. I've been saying "funemployed" recently because it is moderately less depressing. What people who aren't unemployed (aka the "employed") forget is how dispiriting the experience of unemployment is. What a blow it is to your sense of self-worth as a person. I can't find work, and what if it is because there is something fundamentally wrong with me? I have a fraud complex at the best of times and this doesn't help. I read Studs Terkel's oral history of the Depression recently, and that was one of the themes running through it. How the Depression wasn't awful just because people were hungry and poor, it was awful because it hit people where it hurt: their sense of dignity, their concept of themselves as functioning, productive people. It didn't matter that everyone around them was unemployed too. The Great Depression was a catastrophe on a personal level as much as it was an institutional one. 

All that to say that I'm struggling with a similar problem. The longer you look for work without finding it, the less confidant you become in yourself as a person capable of working. Am I looking in the wrong places? You could make the argument. Am I being picky? Undoubtedly. I don't like the idea of settling, or maybe there's a fear that there's nothing else out there I'm really even capable of doing. I'm trying to land a career, not just a job. A frustrating distinction. Feel like I'm only circling around the issue here. Anyway.

it feels real wrong smiling

I didn't get that internship. I found out on Monday. I spent the whole day waiting for a phone call and not being productive and then I got an email around 5 and I knew what was up. I've spent the last few days in a funk. Merde, but things feels grim and all I seem capable of is playing unhealthy amounts Victoria II (seriously my right arms feels funny, is that an early sign of carpel tunnel??). It doesn't help that I recognize this behaviour as being counter-productive, intellectually I'm all over this shit, but I can't translate that into actually doing something about it. It didn't help that Tuesday morning I saw one of my classmates had landed a job at the HD Institute.

I can recognize at least that this the beginning of something unhealthy and unproductive, and depression may be around the corner, but what can I do about it? Self-doubt is creeping in. I could have cried on Monday. I don't want to go back to working for my dad. "Working." I've been out of school for a month and my energy is fading and my chipper attitude is feeling more and more forced.

Reading this Richler bio has at least sparked my inner diarist, so maybe expect more posts or something (he wrote, and promptly died).

i got the beach in my toenails

Got a phone interview for the internship up north tomorrow. Did I get it because of my connections, or because of my qualifications and experience? Is there a meaningful difference either way? Just hating the idea that people are interviewing me out of obligation or worse, pity. But really that's not a helpful attitude, and it's not how I'm approaching this, I don't think.

I really really really want this position, but you wouldn't know it from how little I've prepared for the interview. Is that because secretly I don't want it? Generally speaking, my procrastination is largely a function  of fear, if history is anything to go on.

On the one hand I want to win this position on merit, because I'm the best qualified. On the other hand, it just feels mathematically improbable that I will ever be the most qualified person sitting in the figurative waiting room. How can I be? I'm sitting on top of that big bell curve, along with every other mildly ambitious young cultural worker in this big dumb city.

This is the worst pep talk, I'm sorry. I've been allowing myself to speculate on my new Yukon life, instead of my normal routine of feeling guilty for assuming I'll succeed. I think I may have taken that from Mental Traps. Whether I imagine myself winning or losing, either way I am speculating. If there's a choice, why not imagine the future in which I am significantly more happy? Must be some residual Protestant guilt lingering somewhere.

I'm ready to uproot myself. Not really, but it feels necessary, like ripping off a bandage, good in the long run, something you'd best get through quickly, etc. People all around me are doing it, or have done it already. I regret not going away for school. Regrets are dumb, generally, but that's one that seems to linger.

I have the skills and experiences. I have the tenuous personal connections. I have the right attitude. I am eager and young. What could go wrong?

Well, someone could be more qualified. The known unknowns, and the unknown unknowns. Who else is out there? I lost out at TFPO to someone who was bilingual, though the director had only nice things to say to me.

I'm 0-2 in interviews so far, if you're keeping count. I'm not discouraged yet, I don't think, especially not compared to some of my classmates. I'm competing with them for the same jobs, but I don't feel overly worried. Not to take anything away from them, but I think my odds are pretty good. I hate that there is even this element of competition between us all, I wish we could all just commiserate and support each other and be cool. Easier said than done. It'll be easier to be friends once we're all employed.

I'm rambling because I don't want to go to bed.

I'm reading a biography of Mordecai Richler, and it has turned out to be be a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It helps that Richler led an interesting life, and the author does a good job establishing the context surrounding him, whether it's Jewish Montreal of the 1930's and 40's, or post-war London and Paris. But it's also a nostalgia trip for me to, because it's reconnecting me with one of my favourite authors from when I was a teenager. It's not hard to see why I was attracted to Richler's prose. The young, boozing, cocksure Mordecai Richler was everything I aspired to as 17 year old with literary dreams. Some differences between Richler and me: he worked really hard. He took his writing seriously, and worked at it daily, no matter where he was. he wrote his first novel at 22, and though I haven't read it, it sounds like a book a 22 year old would write.

Here's the problem with writing: in order to write something really good, like say, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, or St. Urbain's Horseman,  first you have to write The Acrobats. It doesn't work any other way. You have to write something not very good, something raw and unpolished and you need a youthful arrogance not to be able to see it. I'm cribbing this from Merlin Mann now, but if you want to be good at something, first you have to be bad at it, and that is a hard thing to get over.

But anyway, Richler uprooted himself and skipped across the ocean to hang-out in post-war Europe and have ridiculous amounts of sex. Why can't I do the same? Except in the other direction, and probably with less sex?    

job hunting for dummies

The great job hunt of '13 is under way. If I'm comparing this go-round with the last time I was seriously looking for work, about this time last year, I'll say this: it's a lot more straight forward. Not that looking for work is ever easy, but the last 8 months have put me in a good place. If nothing else it confirmed for me what it is I want to be doing, and what it is I don't want to be doing. I know more now, and knowing is huge.

I got a call today telling me I didn't get a job, and then ten minutes later got a call to set up an interview. Am I dong something right? The TFPO curator sent out a depressing email last night informing everyone who applied that she received 57 applications for this ridiculous little position, and that she wasn't holding over-qualifications against anyone. Christ. I appreciated the email though. Job hunting can be dehumanizing so it's nice when you receive some acknowledgement that you do indeed exist. Anyway she called me today to set up an interview for Monday, so I at least made the short-list. My hope is that I'll be up against some knobs with PhD's and not much else. I have the Centennial Advantage(TM). But seriously, what good is a college education otherwise?

That email also made me realize how badly I need to get out of this city. While I like the romance of the  idea of making it in the big city, it seems like an increasingly difficult proposition. I'm procrastinating from writing that Yukon application at the moment. I've convinced myself that I could hack it up north, not just on a professional, can-I-do-the-job level but on a more personal, am-I-ready-to-uproot-myself level. I've been saying I need to get out of the house literally for years now, and there will be no other time in my life where I am this unencumbered with obligations. Realistically I could ship out tomorrow for all that's tying me down.

I want this job! 6 months in Whitehorse, and the good months too, all 20 hours of daylight and wikipedia says it's the driest city in Canada, which is rad. Ok! Just trying to psych myself up here. I want this job. I am qualified for this job. I'm right for it, and it's right for me.

everything happens to me

Life lesson: you don't have to do it all alone. Trust people. They are a resource. You do not know best. Collaboration yields so much more. Don't try to carry it all alone. Your noble sacrifice is really just kind of selfish and weird. Don't martyr yourself on too much responsibility. Seek input from others!

It's not complicated, it's just hard to do sometimes. It's not that you're not capable of making decisions on your own, you are, but just remember that other people bring different perspectives and different points of view. What's leadership? It's not telling other people what to do, as much as I want it to be.

I wish I was better at handling criticism. I try to be ok at it, but I still get that squirrelly feeling. It's not personal (except when it is, though it usually isn't), don't take it personally.

happiness, the pursuit of

Hey! I'm happy right now. Like literally smiling as I type this. I thought it would useful just to mention this for posterity, to have it recorded somewhere that, yes, this an emotion I am capable of. It might not last, I might become overwhelmed (well, I will become overwhelmed, but let's pretend for now that it might not), things may become darker down the road, but for today, and tomorrow and a maybe a few days more, things are really good. I'll hold on to that for as long as I can, or at least the memory of it to remind myself why I'm doing what I'm doing. And what's helping fuel this beyond my own small successes (and the fact that I picked up a fucking stylish pair of new glasses yesterday (material possessions make man happy, news at 11)), in a funny self-perpetuating sort of way, is the successes of my class mates as well. The thought of all of us reaping the work we put in (with some grumbling along the way) and triumphing and accomplishing new things and basically being out there conquering the world every Tuesday and Wednesday is kind of special. These people are starting to mean something to me. Their successes are my successes, mine are theirs, we are in this together (almost ended that with a cynical little 'etc' but today is not about cynicism). ENJOY THIS FEELING WHILE IT LASTS.

here i am, once again (i'm torn into pieces)

Periodic update time: big things coming this week. School resumes tomorrow. Internship starts on Tuesday. So! I don't feel prepared. I doubt any one in my class feels particularly ready, so I'm not special in that regard. But still, I've never worked a job that I truly wanted to make a career out of. It just means added pressure. Not caring about your job is a useful fiction. If you screw up it's because you weren't really trying, not deep down at least. I can't fall into that trap, that trap of looking busy without accomplishing anything. I want to accomplish things. I feel like a part of me hasn't gotten that message, that there is a part of me that is ready to shrink away from the challenge, to duck out of sight whenever possible. It's the fraud complex inside of me. For how long can I trick them into believing I am a competent human being? Worse though is this idea that I'm just trying to trick myself. The ruse isn't for their benefit, it's for mine. These are unhelpful thoughts so it's good to shine light on them, spray a little disinfectant in the darker corners of my mind. (I have this idea in my head that just by writing down my problems I can make them go away. Which I think is why I so rarely do write down my problems: if I write a problem down and it fails to go away, my ruse is revealed and I am exposed as a charlatan. Better to hold on to the idea of writing as a cure-all without putting it to the test).

But ok, I am not so dumb or useless as I fear and I am not so smart and resourceful as I would like. Somewhere in the middle. My marks were good last semester, in fact they were superfluous to the point where I have trouble taking them seriously.

I'm re-reading Mental Trap. I feel like it helped in the past, and it's interesting to see that I have actually internalized some of the lessons. Some of it I'm having trouble with. Sometimes it seems like the author is advocating for a very passive existence: e.g if you avoid making plans, you can't be upset when they don't materialize. That is, if you have no expectations of the universe, you will never be disappointed in how things turn out. He argues that it is the difference between what we plan and reality that causes discord and unhappiness with-in us. I.E if you have no plans to watch Community when it returns, you can't get upset when it is yanked from the schedule. I think I might be misreading this part.

Maybe I'll write more (he wrote, and then died, suddenly). I'm reading more at least, so that's a start.