Reflections of the Unemployed Week 8-9

Obviously I'm busy these days, I've discovered "Blogging", about other things besides myself; Serious matters of Swine Flu and other issues in the news. I think I've applied for every possible job that I'm qualified for and then some. The ads are becoming sparse and I applied for one last week and one this week. In an article in "Carrealism" our skills are "outdated, our experience doesn’t apply and we don’t fit the company culture…welcome to the current state-of-affairs in job search". On the flip side of the coin, "employers standards are too high".

In light of the current state of affairs, rather than becoming discouraged, I've thought of it as a time of discovery. I accompanied my Son to his appointment at our local community college to assist him with filling out Scholarship paperwork and testing. I joined him in taking the "CDM" or Career Decision Making survey. As a Poet, I know I'm not going to make a living but I realized there are other careers out there that I could be considering, one of them being Journalism, or Photo Journalism. As long as I'm being creative, I'm content. Unfortunately, there isn't much demand for writers when I search the local job databases but I have confidence that with the internet available, the possibilities are there.

Neil has been wonderfully supportive in my current endeavors and I am considering going back to school. Not only is there Scholarship funds out there for my son, thanks to President Obama, but he is also eligible for extra funds because I haven't completed a college degree program. The concept behind that is for children to be the first of families to obtain a college education. In addition to the new funds that are being offered for students and funds already available for single moms but add a new catagory to that; Parents that have been displaced from their jobs. So in light of that news, college is more attainable and a very distinct possiblity for me.

The last two weeks of unemployment I have been stretching my wings and expanding my writing to include more than just Poetry and what began as something resembling "public journalism". I've been receiving a lot of traffic on this blog and it is exciting, however I've not had much feedback. I encourage those who are reading my blogs to comment, even constructive criticism is welcome.

Peace
Liz

Web sites of interest for this blog:

College Zone
http://il.gov/learning/
CAREEREALISM