You know what's strange; at Success, I never had anxiety problems. Not before my initial interview, not when I started getting paid, not when I started full time. Even before I had any idea what the place was, I felt comfortable. That was really nice and worth a lot, it turns out. Because, while I didn't have an anxiety dream last night, it's mostly because I didn't get much sleep.

I hate not sleeping in general, and functioning on not enough sleep makes me feel pretty much ill.

I think I mentioned this to baelarion last night, but it's much easier to picture/remember being happy somewhere you've already been than to project that forward into a void you don't know. Hence reminiscing about what a great time college was, and even high school, despite my Teen Angst of Doom. Similarly, even though I know I whined about it on occasion and I wasn't always thrilled to be there, I'm having a harder time picturing myself at some kind of nebulous future job than I do idealizing the one I just lost, and it makes things all kind of annoying and stressful. (And I miss my coworkers. Sniff, sniff.)

I should really get a move on.

Meh.

(ETA: Completely unrelatedly, I redesigned--or at least, recolored--my LJ yesterday. I'm going through a fannish phase again. This is not exactly shocking.)

So when I got to work at 9 this morning, I had a job.

After the abrupt all-staff meeting around 4, I did not. Though to be fair, none of us did.

Magazine was sold. NY office is shut down. Last paycheck will be received Thursday.

Well, fuck.

For anyone who's curious what sorts of crap I do at work, but (understandably) doesn't want to pony up the money to pay for an issue (fair 'nuff), there's a full exclusive web article I wrote over here. Rockin'.

(Oh, yeah. I start full time a week from Monday. Eep.)

I've had a cold for, like, a month now. It got a lot worse in the las day or so; I miss breathing. Alas.

Some quick work things: I don't know when I'm starting full time yet -- certainly not until next week; possibly not until after. They're still figuring out what my actual job description and title will be, and the last person they hired from part up to full time says they didn't actually start her full time for almost a month after they offered her the job. It is not the most organized work place. Ah, well; I'm still getting paid hourly until then.

I got an advance copy of the next issue. My article is awesome looking, though when they cut to fit something ended up phrased really awkwardly. Grrrr.

Oh! Oh! And there's a copyediting basics seminar next week, which they're paying for me to attend. Yay! *so excited* *such a nerd*

I'm getting much, much better with my greatest weakness: the phone. Yes. I've had to conduct about six off-the-cuff phone interviews in the last two days, including one where I had no idea what I was talking about. Annnnnd I did it pretty well, if I do say so myself. I'm quite pleased with my progress, anyway. When I started,I was awful at fact checking because the thought of calling people petrified me and I'd basicaly have done anything to avoid it; today I was pretty cool with, "Meh, I'll just call and get it out of the way." Yay me.

In non-work news, it's really fucking cold out and I'm not pleased.

Well, my office feels a little bit more like it's mine now (even though we're apparently moving at the end of the month and I likely won't have my own office anymore, alas). I brought in one of my calendars, so now I have a large spread of Derek Jeter hanging up to my right.

Sigh.

I haven't been reading any baseball news or watching games since, well, you know. I have a hard time cheering for anyone in the AL who isn't the Yankees (and definitely can't root for Detroit, even though I enjoyed them through most of the season). I hate the Cards (sorry, Dad) and I just can't bring myself to root for the Mets. So it looks like I'll be watching the World Series, cheering for the stadium to catch on fire. You know how that goes, right?

(Yes, of course I'll watch it; it's the last baseball for months and months. Sob!)

...My boss totally just came in and mocked my calendar and the entire sport. I kicked him out.

Aaaand, I should get to work. But I hate fact checking. It's the most boring, tedious, awful thing I do here. Even when I wrote the copy I'm checking. (Perhaps especially then.)

A quick entry from work while I eat lunch. I don't know where I'll be tonight and tomorrow; I have stuff to get together and try and finish up before the trip (Thursday) so this will likely be my last update until the 19th or so. This trip will also mark the longest I've gone without internet access since, oh, 8th grade. But that's not the point.

Work is going well, but everyone here is stressing out as our print deadlines emerge. I'm pretty sure both of my pieces were cut; one will be held over until the next issue, the other was mysteriously disappeared. C'est la vie. I hate fact checking and I hate making phone calls, but am getting better at both. I just need a bigshot type CEO to call me back and I'll be finished with my last major project here (sniff!). I will be back after my vacation, but probably only briefly. Then back to looking for work. Oy.

Anyway. Yeah. There's no way I'll catch up on my flist after my trip, so you'll all have to actually email me if you want me to know about important events upon my return. Or call me while I'm gone, as most of the time we'll have reception, I'm sure.

So that's it from me for awhile.

I sent off my article (that's an exaggeration, it's 730 words and most of it is quotes) a couple hours ago and got these two emails in response:

"That's great thanks. i like it, but I can't speak for [editor in chief]. Gonna forward it on to her and see what she says. See you tomorrow."

Then,

"Seems you made a hit. Well done, and that's why you're our resident Og expert."

HA!

Please keep your fingers crossed. It looks like the project I've been doing for work for the last week, which was just researching and deciding what article to reprint, has been severely altered. In that instead of me finding old material and deciding what to reprint, I'm now researching the same guy I was before (whose material they wanted to use) but instead of reprinting an old article, I get to write an 800 word piece about it.

It's not quite definite; there's still a chance they'll change their minds or that I'll fuck it up and write something unusable. But I am so, so excited. Likewhoa.

"Hi, Becky, this is Rebecca from Success Magazine. We were very impressed with your interview, and would love to offer you our summer internship. Please give me a call back." !!!!!!!!

Both interviews went well; the first one especially, I think. (Though the second interviewer noted, "You do seem to be very organized," when I whipped out my folder with copies of the article I worked on at my journalism internship, my resume, and my references. Take that, every middle school teacher I ever had.)

I think, if I got to choose, I'd take the first one (a magazine internship) over the second one (a website), despite the fact that the second one is more hours and pays better. (It pays the same as Borders did, heh.) They're both limited in terms of how much actual writing and editing interns have the opportunity for, but the first one came across as... well, more professional. The staff of the second all seemed young and nice enough, and the disorganization wasn't really their fault, as they building is being remodeled and they've been shuffled around. But I feel like I'd much rather work on a magazine in general, and the skills I'd be building up when not writing and editing are more useful (primarily research, as opposed to HTML copy/pasting at second one). I'd also rather have clips from a magazine than a website.

Of course, that's assuming I have a choice. If I get offered one but not the other, I'd take it, either way. And if I get offered neither, I'll probably sulk for a few days and then get back to applying (sigh). But I do think I did much better in these interviews than in any I did a few months ago. I came away much more confidently, if nothing else.

Fingers crossed.

I knew it was going to be a good day. :D

When I got up (at the kitty's very outraged insistance, why wasn't I up and playing with her???) I had a voicemail from Success Magazine, offering me an interview for a summer internship. It would be about 20 hours a week and pay poorly, but it would be experience. Mostly they're looking for a researcher/fact checker (in other words, what I was doing at the Institute for Investigative Journalism last year) but there would be light writing and editing involved. I'd never heard of the magazine until I found their job listing, but hey. They list knowledge of Macintosh software as a job necessity, and that's cool.

When I called to set up the interview, the woman had stepped out for the weekend and the gentleman didn't have my information; we chatted a little and I told him my number one goal was to gain experience, which he said they can definitely provide. (It's a small staff, so everyone gets lots to do.) She'll give me a call over the weekend to set up an interview; if I get it, I'd probably be starting the end of next week or the beginning of the week after. Which is a positive thing to hear, right?

This is a much quicker response than I've ever gotten before. I sent the resume to them on Wednesdsay. Woo!