Reality check

I am now in Manila, staying in a fun, but maybe not the cleanest, hostel. I haven't managed to see much of Manila yet, but it actually isn't as bad as I heard (except for the 1.5 h through immigration at the airport). I stay in the Malate area, and there are loads of restaurants and bars here, and a massive shopping centre that I really wish had a map as it feels like the size of a small country...

However, my mind has really not been in Manila but in London. When I had the accident in Semporna and broke my toe and went to Tawau, I had lots of extra time without anything really to do. So I ended up for quite some time in an IT cafe. I had promised myself to not look for any jobs while away, but as the time goes and it's now only a month left, it's hard to avoid thinking about that I actually am unemployed. To constantly hear and read in the news about the financial crisis, and hear stories about people being made redundant at home, don't exactly make it easier to avoid thinking of the future.

Anyhow, I was sitting bored in Tawau and decided to make a job search. And I actually found a few positions I could apply for, and then I saw the an advertisement at GE Healthcare, and seriously, it's my dream job! In fact, I have seen this job advertised before, in October last year, but then decided that I regretfully couldn't apply for it then, as I was going to be away for 4 months. Anyhow, I decided to apply for the job, and spent a day writing my cv and a cover letter. I so wish my laptop hadn't been stolen, because then I could have just asked my flatmates to e-mail me my cv that I had on my computer. Instead I had to do it from scratch, using the not very good Open office free software, on a dodgy IT connection, surrounded by noisy Malay computer game geeks.... Not exactly ideal. I did a few last changes in Kuala Lumpur and then tried to upload my application. And all the spacing and tabs went funny and everything looked horrible. After several hours, and a lot of cursing over Open office, I managed to fix most of it. Still, it was with some dread that I finally sent it off, thinking that maybe I shouldn't have written in my cover letter that I'm meticulous and then include a cv with not exactly meticulous layout....

Two days later, during my first night in Manila, I got a phone call from GE HR, and I'm going to have a phone interview with them on Wednesday!!!! I spent yesterday trying to make a plan for where to go, and where I would be on Wednesday. Obviously I have to be somewhere that I can talk uninterrupted and not be disturbed by noise or bad connection. I've decided to head to Boracay, a tourist resort by the beach, where I'm been told they have lots of places for international phone calls, hopefully with isolated phone booths... I also found a book on interview questions, and hope that Hannis and Elin might be able to give me some tips on phone interviews as they both work with HR. The plan is to spend Monday and Tuesday on the beach in Boracay preparing for the phone interview.

Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well on Wednesday!!!