23rd May 2024
Keep on keeping on...
Gutting news
You know that really good job I got a callback for? I didn't get it. I got the news via email this morning and it absolutely shattered me.
This week has been the busiest week I've had in a long time. It's the final week of the uni semester, so all of my big assessments that I've been putting off are finally due. On top of that, I've had a trial for a job and two auditions this week as well. I've hardly been able to keep up. My callback was yesterday, I decided to have a rest today because I didn't really think I'd be able to keep working after being rejected. I'm already burnt out.
They go through this audition process annually, so I'm going to re-apply next year, because it sounds like an amazing job. The feedback they gave me said that they wanted to see me more confident and practiced at improv. I thought my improv was my biggest skill going in, so that was a big blow.
What's worse is I've got another audition in two days, so I've got so somehow keep my motivation and spirits up for that one too. That's the thing, I don't really have time to feel my feelings about this rejection, because I've got another audition in a few days that I've gotta try my best at. I can't get all doomer'd up now, because if I don't believe in myself at the audition, I won't get in. Simple as that.
My new job!
There is good news though: I got another job! It's another fast food job, but not like McDonald's. Instead, I'll be working in a kitchen making and packaging food to be delivered to restaurants, and occasionally taking in stock and washing dishes. It's gonna be an incredibly boring job, but it'll do for now. I've been rostered on next week for the longest working days I'll have had since my childhood on the station: Monday's got 5 hours, Wednesday's got 7, and Friday's got 7. That's 19 hours all up! That makes about $400, plus the $180ish I usually get from my weekends at McDonald's, I'm gonna be ROLLING in it one of these days! The most I've ever made in a week is $200, so this new job is looking to be a game changer. I'll finally be able to start saving up for my solo trip to England in October!
I'm really hoping that I'll be able to listen to podcasts or something while I'm working there...if I can work something out like that, then I might be able to survive this job. When I get understimulated it can be really mentally challenging to handle, so I'm a little worried that I'll break down from the monotony of the tasks there. My two-hour trial working there two days ago went by like a breeze, so I'm hoping I'll do well. On one hand, there's a small team and no urgency culture, so I'm optimistic I'll do well there. But the long hours, the general lack of coworker rapport that seemed apparent during my trial, and the monotony might bring it down.
I reckon I'll be able to handle it, but it could be a challenge.
I'm a pretty big JSchlatt fan, and he's often told the story of how he used to work as a stocker-upper in a deli freezer (I don't really know what a deli is, I'm pretty sure it's a type of grocery store? In Perth "deli" is mostly used for the section of a grocery store where meats and cheeses are sold, and I've only once seen it used to refer to a standalone business), and how he would pass the time by listening to those old Machinema Inbox videos. I honestly love the idea of being on a chicken wrap assembly line, listening to the complete works of The Technical Difficulties, or everything Izzzyzzz has ever made, or [help I'm running out of bingeable hyperfixations].
Rhea's Language Academy
My latest video on Rhea's Language Academy has been doing really well! Unfortunately over the last few months I've been in a bit of a slump with the Academy. I filmed a sequel to that video, but in that video I'm wearing a dress, and all of the attention my last video got made me a little worried that if I released a video where I'm wearing a dress, I'll get a lot of the wrong kind of attention. You see, my last video got reccomended to a completely different audience than usual. My usual content gets reccomended to linguistics nerds anywhere in the world, and so the proportions of viewers from different countries tend to be fairly spread-out. Not so with my latest video! Since it's about Australian accents, it's been mostly reccomended to Australians of all kinds, with a tiny layer of linguistics nerds on the top. That means that I've been getting (proportionally) a much higher amount of braindead comments, which range all the way from people trying to bully me for wearing fishnets to people trying to assert that rhoticity is actually an introduced feature of English which originates from the vikings. It's a sad fact: the general Australian public is, on average, several times dumber than the online linguistics community. So now I've got to try reel it back in: I've gotta release some videos that will appeal more to linguistics nerds, and try get my channel's reccomendations back on track. Unfortunately, the next videos I've got planned (a video about American influence on Australian accents, and a reshoot of the aforementioned sequel video) are both going to appeal mainly to Australians, so that might make the problem worse. Ah well, at least I'll be getting some views! There's definitely a silver lining: the amount of money YouTubers get per view from advertisers change depending on the types of people who watch their videos. It makes sense, then, that when the people watching my videos suddenly switched from linguistics nerds to Australians in general, the amount of money I was earning skyrocketed out of nowhere. I'm pretty sure this is because the general Australian public is much more likely to buy products that advertisers show them than linguistics nerds, who tend to more often be very online people who are sceptical of advertisements.
I'm gonna start getting more active on the channel again. I've got a few videos in the assembly line right now, so I'm gonna start pumping them out over the next few weeks.
On average, these journal entries take me about an hour to write, because I get distracted so easily.
Oh, by the way? I've earnt over $200 from YouTube now (including the money I lost from my last AdSense fuckup), but there's STILL AdSense issues with my account stopping me from getting what I've made. I'm literally chatting with google support right now to sort out the weird internal issues with my account to try and finally get my money.
Alright, I've got nothing more to say. Bye now!