Pattern against user

‘i need you now, do you think you can cope’ Matchbox 20 – Mad Season

I took a bit of a long shot yesterday. About a week ago the manager at Newcastle emailed me a list of jobs with the Newcastle papers. There was one, business writer, that looked a good possibility. It was a bit of a long shot, as they advertised for a qualified journalist who has experience of writing for a quality daily or weekly paper. But I figured that they could only laugh at my application and I would be no worse off. I spoke to HR yesterday & discovered that they had already started interviews, which I figured reduced my chances even more, but I still sent my cv off. And what do you know? I have an interview next week. I honestly thought that I would be laughed at – a non-qualified, unpublished writer who has been researching for the last year in a field that is completely unrelated to the job. But apparently my 12 months at Money Marketing (newspaper for financial advisors) and 7 months in my previous job as web editor for a financial site carry some sort of weight. Even though I have the interview I still doubt I’ll be successful – mainly because I am unqualified & they have interviewed a few others who clearly are. But still I shall cross fingers and hope. In a wonderful, perfect scenario, getting the job would probably mean I would end up on the course I wanted to do, in order to be qualified, but would also mean postponing our trip to South Africa, as the exams of the course clash with the beginning of the holiday. This is of course just possibilities at the moment.

I completed the application forms for the marketing and hospital jobs. The hospital job actually seems really interesting, but the pay would probably be less than I’m on now, to start with at least. After seeing the news for the last couple of days, part of me is kind of reluctant to remain in the media industry as a whole load of major companies have announced hiring freezes or redundancies – the latest being SMG who own Virgin Radio. It seems the whole industry is facing some sort of down shift and staying now probably wouldn’t guarantee anything at a later date.

Didn’t do anything yesterday. Watched the cricket with Duncan and played about on the computer really. I quite like these days off now, although how bored I’ll be after a few hours on my own today I don’t know. When we moved in I always wondered what would happen to all that ‘alone time’ I used to have. Would I miss it? The thing is, I don’t and so when I do get some time to myself I am invariably at a loss as to what to do. Which is sad in some way I’m quite sure!

Until there is a next time…

xx