I've been struck with these crippling bouts of writers' block whenever I sit down in front of a computer to update my resume. I'm suffering from this issue where I am under-qualified for good jobs and over-qualified for bad jobs. I just don't know how to find a happy medium and sell myself! I'm coming to terms with not finding anything in my field (for now). Anyway, even though my near-constant state of panic has immobilized me for the past week or so, I did manage apply to two government jobs this morning. Ha! One which I am under-qualified for and one which I am over-qualified for. Go figure.
I'm hoping to apply to a couple more government jobs by the end of today, as well as hit up one of the environmental companies which I had overlooked in my last round of resume-flooding. Next week, on my first weekday of unemployment, I plan to also register with a temp agency. Maybe they can figure out where I belong better than I can. Blerg.
In Master's application news, I have pretty much completed my "motivation letter". I'm just waiting on some critique from a PhD student at the University of Helsinki (re: my motivation letter sucks or it doesn't suck), a letter of recommendation from a past teacher, and a "testimonial" from my current supervisor. Hopefully I will have amassed all of these documents in their complete and final form by Friday so I can entrust them to the capable (?) hands of Canada Post.
Oh here's something that may or may not be weird. Recently, on a job site, I had some time to contemplate my rapidly declining life whilst standing in a big field of dead grass and rotting trees. Everything was tan and grey. Not particularly pretty, but somehow very calm and peaceful. The air was quite cool, but not too cold, so I just laid down in the grass for a bit and made a mental note of that quiet moment. Soooooooo, for the past few weeks, when I am at my lowest, I have been trying to mentally bring back that 'happy place', where none of my woes mattered and time stood still for like... 5 minutes. It does have a bit of a calming effect on me. Here are some Blackberry pics I took, in case I forget and need a visual aid:
So how soon until I go full-on crazy?
3 comments:
So sparse and barren, but still beautiful. Great pics.
I hear you about the over- & under-qualified bit... When you've been out of the game for a bit and really want to work, shit seems hard. Take it one sentence at a time for the CV/resume, and one job posting at a time for the application. Now I need to take some of my own advice on that. ;)
BTW, are you sending your documents by regular mail? I hope not. Even if you're broke, please send them via Express Post or a courier company or something and request a signature.
Oh, no worries, I'm one of those dorks who loves snail mail. I love to send parcels and letters to far away friends, so I could probably recite to you (and bore you in the process) the delivery charges and time estimates on all the Canada Post mailing options.
You can bet I won't cheap out on my application, and I will be tracking that baby morning, noon and night.
I am concerned, however, about my transcripts arriving in Helsinki since they must be sent directly from my two post-secondary institutions. I have forwarded explicit instructions and deadlines (and borderline death threats) with my requests, but I can never fully trust office administrative staff to handle my affairs in the manner I believe is correct (control freak!).
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