I am pretty scared about what happens after graduation.

And excited too. I go from one to the other. Right now it seems scary. I’ve just realized that it means I will be once more cast into the existential void of infinite possibilities. There will be no external structure keeping me held together and forcing me to focus and work and show the fuck up where I am supposed to show up.

It will all be on me. That’s why I am not going to give myself a single day of rest before starting my job search. In fact, I might not even wait till graduation to start.

If I give myself time off, I will dissolve into depression again. Not the harsh kind that makes me suicidal, just the soft grey kind where I let the days go by as I indulge and distract myself and everything seems okay as long as I don’t think about it too much.

In other words, I would go right back to how I was before Kwantlen.

And that cannot be allowed to happen. So I would have to instantly develop a daily discipline focused on something strictly quantitative, with no room for interpretation.

Like my 1000 words a day.

So it would have to be X number of jobs applied for, or the like.

I am rather worried about job interviews, though. Seeing as there is a strong possibility that all the jobs I am applying for will be in either Los Angeles or Toronto, I am really hoping that in-person interviews will not be a huge thing, at least at first.

Because how the heck would I get to them? I can’t exactly afford plane tickets. And getting there via Greyhound is time-intensive and not free.

The problem with going Greyhound is that whatever you save on the ticket by not taking the plane, you end up spending on accommodations.

Either that, or you sleep on the street somewhere, and I am way too old for that kind of adventure. Or I suppose you could try to find one of those youth hostels. Those aren’t free either but they are, I assume, way cheaper than a hotel or motel.

Or, I suppose, I could Airbnb my way there. That might be even cheaper, and I would get to meet new people and practice using my innate charm on them in preparation for using it at the interview.

Does that seem inhuman or cold? I hope not. I can’t always tell.

No matter how I economize, though, it will costs me more than zero dollars, and that’s money I will need to get somewhere. I don’t want to have to borrow still more money from Joe,. so I hope there might be some form of government funding available for that sort of thing. After all, the government has a vested interest in turning me into a taxpayer instead of a tax burden.

Then again, they have a rather spotty record when it comes to realizing that.

Got an email from the student loan people that basically said “We know you will be graduating soon, so here is how to start paying us back. ”

Hold on there, folks. I will be happy to make student loan payments once I am employed. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay?

Of course, my dream scenario would be one where I really am as amazingly talented as I sometimes think I am, and the studios will engage in a fierce bidding war to see who gets to hire me, and be falling all over themselves to pay my way, first class, to come visit their studios and be entertained by them in order to convince me to work for THEM.

Extremely unlikely, I know, but it’s a nice fantasy.

I think the prospect of employment will be the impetus I need to buckle down and make my work the best it can possibly be. I am supposed to be doing that in school, but at school I can coast and get by fine,.

But when I am competing with all the other graduates of programs like mine plus the randos from the street who think they can make it, I have got to put my very best face out there in order to stand a chance of winning the race.

I mix metaphors like Sherman-Williams mixes paint.

I have pondered what approach I should use in interviews. I am thinking that it should be me turning on the charm, but not all the way up. I can be quite overwhelming if I go with my instincts and push out all the personality power I possess.

I mean, it might work. I might charm the heck out of them and make sure that they remember me when hiring time comes, and that they are left with the impression that I am a super awesome guy to be around and it would be kickass to have me around.

But ti might fail and fail big time. Instead of being charmed, they are made intensely uncomfortable by my high volume personality, and they are left thinking that the last thing they would want is for that obnoxious, pushy guy to be around them all the time.

So I dunno. I will probably at least try the full on personality mode one time to see how it happens. It might work out fine. But I know that, unchecked, I can be pretty obnoxious, so I will have to make sure I don’t get too carried away and end up scaring people.

I am probably best off with a mix of high personality and my usual shyness and reserve. That can be a winning combo when done right.

Of course, I might get work here in the GVRD. If not in TV, then in writing for video games. There are a ton of top level video game studios in town, and I might just be able to get work writing for one of them.

It’s not what I want to be writing. I want to write TV. But it would pay the bills while I looked for something in my field.

Who knows, I might even like it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.