Finished And Unemployed

Sometimes I panic that I've been out of school for almost three months and I haven't found a job yet. It's not the idea of not being gainfully employed that bothers me, but rather that, when I do land a job, I won't know how to do it because I would have forgotten everything I've learned in my five years at Montana Tech. Sheer paranoia has already got me thinking about the C++ in Linux (or Unix) argv, argc thing. If someone would be so kind as to remind me which is which, I would be most obliged.

My dad tells me not to worry, because "the company" will train me how to do my job. This does little to help me sleep at night.

I picked up a copy of Michael Crichton's Travels today. He said something how going someplace completely remote helps him find himself. He also said something about how an author needs to write down experiences to make them one's own and eventually using those writings to spawn more writing. It was all very interesting to me. I haven't read any of Crichton's work after Airframe because I thought it was stupid that the pilot let his kid fly the plane, which caused the "accident" (sorry if I spoiled it for you, but I thought I would save you the trouble of reading the book to get to the anticlimatic ending).

The idea of writing for a living really attracts me. Lots of people like my writing, including my Intermediate Writing professor (who also happened to be the head of the liberal studies department) and my favorite literature professor (who is really, really hard to please). I suppose my problem is that I don't exactly have the best background for an author. But then again, Crichton was a surgeon, so he didn't either, and look at him.

If I was to write for a living, there are lots of things I'd like to write about. War corresponding would be an interesting (if potentially dangerous) occupation. I'd like to write a novel. Maybe it's my new-found love of Raymond Chandler's work that inspires me to write a mystery. I like writing about a lot of things, which is why I think this blog is a good outlet for me. I know I'm not necessarily very creative, and that I do tend to ramble on about anything and everything, but I get something out of it anyway.

So, what does an unemployed software engineer do when she's not travelling (which these days is almost never)? She reads. A lot. And occassionally applies for a job.