Being Unemployed is a Full Time Job.
I auditioned to work for Kaplan, and got the job. I had an interview coming up for a medical school. I had proposititions to drum for multiple bands. So far the New York City job experiment was going well. But when I really broke it down, it was a facade. Fine from the outside but shoddy, poorly insulated with sloping floors on the inside, much like my apartment.
Kaplan trains their teachers in five low-paid four-hour sessions, coming once every week or two. Beyond that, it is essentially a 20-hour interview. No wonder I have indigestion. Though getting into a medical school would be great, and in fact is all I really want in life right now, it does nothing to solve my current paying-the-rent problem. And drumming offers — well, on my Craigslist posting, I neglected to say that I don’t have a drumset, just sticks. And heart.
Sticks and heart, it’s just how I’m pasting together a life. So, more needs to happen, because $28 per week don’t pay the rent, and grandma needs a new pair of pants. Beyond that, I wake up each day, may some coffee and bang out cover letter after cover letter. I have a folder for each kind of job containing a customizable template. Teaching, researching, writing, labbing, really, anything, plus there is a misc. folder for the misfits.
I feel like the 1950s private eye, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, sweaty, irritable and hot on the case. Except that the private dick has a job, detecting, while I voluntarily shake out job opportunities. And download music at the same time.
October 13th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
You should have tried posting your drummer notice in the “casual encounters” section of craigslist. I hear those guys are pretty open to anything.