Stumbling Around

It's now been approximately a year since I completed my Journalism course at University, almost 5 months since my graduation ceremony.

I am still unemployed.

At the moment, I feel like I am stumbling around with nothing to do. I am getting more and more depressed as time goes by, becoming less and less enthused about any application I hand in, any CV or Cover Letter I send off, or even any job that I find.

In the past year I have applied for jobs that I am qualified for, that I have trained and studied for, and that I have a real interest in doing; but at the same time I have also applied for any job that I felt that I could do, cleaning positions, positions with local stores or coffee shops, I've even been looking at care positions in my area (you get a fair amount of money for doing what should come naturally to most people, looking after someone, being there for them, etc, etc).

In that entire time I have had two interviews, both of which have gone nowhere.

I was overly optimistic for the first few months out of University; happy for the break from essay writing and interview sourcing, but looking forward to finally getting my hands dirty with some real life journalism (even if it did mean just getting the real journalists some coffee or tea while I wrote the obituaries and fluff pieces).

I have considered becoming a teacher (either in English, Religious Studies, or Media Studies), thought about joining the MOD's media section, and seriously considered putting an application into the Armed Forces, I am this desperate for something to do.

My wife (Lindsey) found a blog that inspired me to write yet another entry, it's about the 5 stages of UNEMPLOYdenialMENT:

So forget grief a second. (And the running… my legs are on hiatus) Here I am, four months post last exam, every day I basically do the job of a broadcast journalist at a very nice, local radio station. But I’m not paid, I have no written agreements and I can’t afford to move out of my mum’s house. It’s a strange and unnatural state, this unemployment. And I’ve come to view my own experiences in five phases – not so much the stepping-stone progression stages like the Grief journey, more like a haphazard cycling of which lottery ball is going to spurt out of Lancelot today…

 The rest of the entry can be found HERE, it's worth checking out because it's amazing how true it is...especially that she's a writer/journalist like myself.

But this entry isn't the only thing she's inspired me to do, she's also inspired me to get a bit more active on the writing front and hopefully get in some other writers for this blog. I have a hopeful for America, but I'm equally interested in writers from elsewhere, as I know for a fact that I am not the only writer that is out of a job.

On top of this, I recently started writing a new short story which I hope to group together with a bunch more and start selling for the Amazon Kindle, nice and cheap and to earn me a bit of cash AND recognition (here's hoping it isn't shit).

So yeah, I'm stumbling around at the moment, occasionally falling into pits of happiness and inspiration, and I think my cycle of unemploy-denial-ment is coming back round to optimism...maybe.

Either way, finding a job may not be looking up...but I'm trying my best to find things to do in the mean time.

Have a good day.