This Rat Has New Running Shoes

So much for enjoying my peace, quiet and freedom. I managed to get myself a job!

I’m actually really excited and happy that I finally managed to finagle my way into doing something and what’s more, it’s a job I really wanted. I’ll be doing some writing for a local publication, and even though I know it’s going to be really busy from here on out, I’m mentally preparing myself for what I’m going to do.

Funnily enough, this was the one job I was convinced I wouldn’t get.

See, I read said publication before I headed down for the interview, and I had prepared bold statements about several contributors to the publication, one in particular – let’s call him X. So I was all prepared to wax lyrical about X’s writing and all the interesting things he did or did not say when I stepped into the discussion room to find X standing right in front of me.

I was so freaked out to meet him (because I couldn’t very well dissect his neurological functioning to his face) that everything just went straight out of my head and I didn’t have any idea what I was saying half the time. Though X asked a few tricky questions, he was actually really nice most of the time despite the fact that a smile seemed to lurk around the corners of his mouth when he was asking me questions that I fumbled to answer. When the interview ended, I just drifted out of the office feeling completely lost. I was so crushed that I called M up, close to tears, and was telling myself all sorts of conciliatory things like “You’ll look back at this in ten years and laugh” although I didn’t really think I would.

I had pretty much given up this job for dead and was actually applying for a relief teaching position –in my old secondary school of all places! –when I received the call that meant I was no longer one of the unwashed, ignoble masses (I know not all the unemployed are unwashed, I have the personal pleasure to be acquainted with some jobless people who smell very nice indeed).

I didn’t want to say too much about it to too many people until I signed the thing, but yesterday, I went down to my future place of work and gave them my John Hopkins, so now I can tell you! I’m employed!

And even if I’m really pleased about what I’m going to be doing, there’s no ignoring the fact that like Hoonye, M and many others before me, I’ve pretty much given up lazing around on the couch in the afternoon and taking naps at all odd hours of the day. There go the times when I would skip around after school and climb into bed in my underwear, thanking my lucky stars that I wasn’t chained to a desk at four in the afternoon.

Alas! Once, I lolled around in a café with a book and a steaming mug of chocolate and laughed inwardly at the faceless suits as they trudged by. Now, I’m going to be one of them!**

Enh, well, we've all got to start sometime.



** Not that I’ll actually wear a suit, I’m more of a throw on a random shirt and pants kind of a girl but my mother is insisting that I spiff up my wardrobe and haircut and all sorts of really hellish, makeup-and-grooming-related things I can’t bring myself to mention.