Schrodinger's Cat

paraskevidekatriaphobia

I finished my fortnight's work at the Kapiti Observer. $9.60 an hour's not a great way to get rich. When I finish my postgrad diploma it'd go up to something like $12. Journalists have a phrase "going to the darkside" which means moving to a career in PR, where there's actually some money to be made. I've gone about it in a roundabout way, if anything I probably started in PR working for DOC last year - I was on $16/hr then. Still, $328 a week is better than student allowance - now I can pay off my police fine (grumble grumble).

The lines between PR and journalism seem to be getting blurred anyway. I've been doing work experience at the Greater Wellington Regional Council on Thursdays, and wrote a press release for them about the new information panels at Queen Elizabeth Park which include a couple of stanzas by local poets. Then, at the Kapiti Observer I got the task of writing a news story based on my own press release - kind of an easy job.

The Kapiti Observer was a good workplace, but Fridays got a bit weird. The first week there was that fatal car crash to take pictures of (it turned out the driver who caused the accident was on her learner license), and this Friday - the 13th - I came down sick. It started off as hayfever on Thursday then turned into something flu-like on Friday. So after finishing work I got the train up to my parents' place in Masterton to get over it.

Masterton's strange, it feels isolated from the rest of the world. I suppose it's better than them living in Eketahuna. I find the constant presence of radio and/or tv here a bit annoying. And we've got aunts & uncles & cousins & new baby over for dinner. I'm having a very domesticated day. The good news is that my temperature went down overnight and while I'm still a bit clogged up I should be OK by Monday.

Just as well because I have an insane amount of work to do in the next fortnight for my course. I got three stories out of the eleven specialist stories and two research assignments done at the Kapiti Observer - so a reasonable start, but the workload is still kind of intimidating. And my shorthand still sucks. Best not to think about it and plunge in. That's what I get for focussing on my Creative NZ application rather than coursework throughout July.

It's just as well the end is in sight for the course, what I really want to do is go tramping and chill out on beaches and get back into creative writing. Nothing seems to come at the moment, maybe because I've temporarily reprogrammed my brain into coursework mode so can't be distracted by other stuff. I'm sure the above entry looks pretty banal. Such is life. I'm not in the position of making a living off artwork - in fact I run at a loss - so need some kind of career to subsidise it. Could be a struggle though if $9.60's as far as I can go...

There is, however, a good gig to look forward to on September 10th.

Self-portrait, August 11th 2004. Result of having a job with access to a digital camera. Taken at the Ames St reserve at Paekakariki after sunset, where I spent January/February cutting out boxthorn (a noxious weed). I went to see how the place looks now and found it had been colonised by boneseed (a different noxious weed).

http://fiffdimension.tripod.com

Postscript - Dinner conversation topics about which I knew absolutely nothing included the Olympics, wine, breast feeding, the medical profession, mortgage rates, and Fiji. Maybe I'm just out of touch? At least the meal was good.

Posted by fiffdimension at August 14, 2004 05:54 PM | TrackBack