…No more! I got the job! And I start on Wednesday… as in tomorrow… as in ohmyfreakin’bejeezus I’ve been un(der)employed for 10 months and all of a sudden I have to get myself out of bed at 6am in the morning and travel for an hour to my 8:30 – 5:30 job in which I’ll be inundated with all kinds of unknown bits and bobs (and by the way the manager I’ll be working under is away for my first 2 weeks of work and wants to hand over her projects to me) and after 5:30 I’ll travel the hour home where I’ll have some dinner and probably a hour or two to myself before I have to get things sorted for the next day at work then go to bed… It’s a long shot from my previous job where I lived 5 minutes walk from work and at least had some idea what I was doing… I’m sure that bit will come in time.

Now Kiwi is busy house/flat/apartment hunting for us as I type. We’re moving in with Cat Woman and Wetsuit Man; Cat Woman has a cat (surprise, surprise) and we have three guinea pigs, so the ‘NO PETS’ clause which 99% of landlords use when advertising their properties is slightly slimming down our choice of places to live. But I’m sure it’ll help us in the long run – if we had lots of options then we’d take ages to narrow it down to a final choice… probably. Whatever, I’m not getting involved in the actual hunt for a home. All I want is a room for a bedroom, a room for an office and some space I can run the pigs around in. I’ll leave it to the others to find a place; I’ve got too much freaking out to do about my new job to be wasting my energy on houses…

I could have started today, but I wanted a day for myself to take it in. Sounds extremo but when you’re out of ‘real’ employment for so long it leaves you wondering if you’ll just give in to it, sign on the dole and spend your days watching Trisha and Jeremy Kyle (believe it or not, they screen both on New Zealand television…) When you finally do get a job you feel unworthy – I’m terrified I won’t have a clue what I’m doing and I’ll crash and burn – during the past 10 months of not getting to interview stage, I’d lost my sense of confidence in myself to do a job of this type, and I thought my experience and skills weren’t as good as I thought they were. But now this job offer has sparked off a sense of pride in myself and the feeling that I can do it.

I imagined that I wouldn’t find a job in New Zealand for a long time which would actually be a career step-up. I thought I’d have to start at the bottom again and find a new niche – maybe work as an assistant/junior position. But in yet another streak of luck in my life (I can’t find it now, but I once wrote a post about how in my life I’ve always got what I wanted/needed), this position is a new rung on my current career ladder, and a higher one at that. It’s too good to be true – do you remember me mentioning they have a TEA MENU and how much I LOVE tea? The job may well have been waiting just for me…

Ooh, Kiwi just told me we’re going house-viewing in 1 hour! Sounds fun. I’m not even showered and dressed yet though so I should really get going…

Did I mention I HAVE A JOB!!! THE JOB!!!