This isn't what I signed up for.

Hi everyone,

I'm feeling a bit low today.

I'm pretty sure the negative feelings surfaced yesterday, as I was stuffing envelopes alone in a corner of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa (Maori name for New Zealand) head office. Or maybe after I rushed through it, so that I could go home, and was then instructed to refill the paper in all of the printers. Why exactly did I go to school for 20 years again? I'm a hard worker, and I've got solid computer skills...why can't I find a decent job? Is it the fact that I'm an American? Does one of my references secretly hate me? Do I have a typo on my CV? What am I doing wrong!?

After a horrible day, I woke up to another phone call from a temp agency. I really couldn't force myself to go. Temping, as I am finding out, is the worst part of starting any new job, but with none of the benefits. You are ignored, you are alone, you are doing the tasks that nobody else will, you don't know where you are going in the morning, you don't know how to dress...and then after a miserable day you leave, and do it somewhere else the next day. This is certainly not for me; it is turning me into a basket case.

I honestly don't know what I am going to do if I can't find a job soon. I can feel myself losing confidence with every rejection letter, to the point of feeling self-conscious in everything that I do. I hate the phone now...friends don't call me, as I don't have any friends. It will be a recruitment agent 90% of the time, and most of the time they are just "checking in." I'm getting very homesick and Brighton-sick, because I didn't trade in my lives in those places so that I could stuff envelopes in NZ. I keep waiting for my exciting time here to start, but instead things keep getting worse and worse. Three months of job searching, sixty jobs applied to, four agencies registered with, and I'm no closer to being settled.

And the one agent that I really wanted to hear from this week? The one that thought I was perfect for the Environment job? She has gone M.I.A. for most of this week. So I have zero news about that job, which I'm pretty sure I won't be getting.

Hopefully my next entry will be more positive.

Love, Amy