The Other Numbers

Yes! It’s true. Since arriving back in Halifax on September 30, 2010, I have applied to 154 jobs. If you average it out, this means I have consistently applied for around 5 jobs every 4 days. That’s not accurate, since at one point I applied to 17 jobs in 3 days, but you get the idea. It’s an elephant’s shit-load of job applications.

Now, I realize that this isn’t a great “accomplishment.” You send out that many applications, get 9 interviews, and 1 job offer (Christmas Tree Salesperson), you get a little discouraged. But at the same time, when you hear back so little and you send out so many... you have to take the little victories, even if that victory is an arbitrary number of applications sent out. So that’s why it’s important to celebrate: 100 job applications, 150 applications, and 200 will come soon enough.

However these numbers are getting so high they’ve stopped being impressive (Wow! That’s a lot of applications) and starting to be... well... sad. Very sad. And to compensate, I’ve made a list of some new numbers; some of the other numbers in my life that are actually impressive... ish.

Here goes! In my life, I have...

• Lived in 3 dorm rooms and 5 apartments; resided in 3 provinces (Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Ontraio)
• Loved 2 girls (and did my best)
• Held 7 jobs including a hospital foundation, navy department, university and tree lot
• Earned a Bachelors and a Masters; wrote a 60 page major research paper
• Planned a valentine gala, fundraisers, staff appreciation events, and
• Interviewed 70 times for a variety of jobs during the co-op process; add an additional 15 since graduating
• Saw 3 of my favourite celebrities live (Kevin Smith, Jon Stewart, and the Goo Goo Dolls)
• Raised 3 rats from birth until death
• Conducted dozens of sex histories
• Saw Europe twice; visited 10 countries (Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg, Monaco, Holland, Vatican City, and Belgium)
• Became a columnist; wrote 20 columns and counting
• Had 3 children (just kidding)
• Wrote a novel, an autobiography, 5 plays (Days in Argyle, Dying Words, On Our Way to Bethlehem, Sweet Surrender, and Writer’s Block), 3 screenplays (Dare Devils, Merry Christmas Joe, and Young Men & The Sea), a radio-play (Guilty), and a musical (Isn’t Life Ironic) before I was 18
• Wrote another screenplay (Contradiction) and a dark fairy tale (Stranger Things Have Happened: A Dark Tale of Love, Lust, and Leprechauns) since then
• Produced 3 newsletters; Focused Press (six issues), The Unofficial Unorthodoxed Newsletter of Our School (12 issues), and The Cobequid Check-up (one issue)
• Filmed and edited a 90 minute documentary (The Acadian Club) after conducting over 80 interviews
• Invented 3 games (Truth or Scare, Plungo, The Ultimate Drinking Game)
• Taught Sunday school for 3 years; created a curriculum with 19 lesson plans
• Listened to 154 Smodcast episodes and countless other podcasts
• Climbed 1 mountain (St. Jerome, Spain)
• And of course (because it’s important to own these things), 154 job applications in the past 4 months