Awkward Introductions

So I had a job interview yesterday, which involved some awkward introductions. They asked me to tell them 'about myself,' the precise topic of this blog post. I instantly retreat to my most professional sounding label, a university student studying creative writing in my third and final year of my undergraduate degree. Then - blank. What else about myself could these strangers possibly want to know?

That I own over fifty pairs of socks and sort them by colour scheme in gift boxes purchased for $2 at those Book Bargain sales things because my draws are too crowded with vintage and Japanese clothes to fit anything else? Probably not.

That I stay back at the library every working day of the week until 9pm to do work and then do absolutely nothing on the weekend but party hard and sleep (sometimes I don't do that) all in the name of 'life experience'? Definitely not.

So I continue to stretch out my university babbling as much as I can and annotate it with, "Oh and I love music of course." That probably would have been a good thing to mention at the beginning of our awkward introduction considering this a job interview to work for a music website.

They elaborate on the many potential responsibilities I'll have as an employee for them, which eventually brings us to the topic of social media and thus, the genesis of this blog.

A few weeks ago I had a lecture where our guest lecturer championed the Twitter account as a necessity for any budding writer, that is, if any of us wanted to work in the writing industry and successfully stalk our way into a job. I needed a Twitter account not to connect with any of my friends, but with a whole bunch of strangers and faceless companies. My tone may sound dubious and slightly scornful, but nevertheless, after the lecture finished I scrambled to the nearest computer to create a Twitter account. I have maybe two or three friends from the real world actually following me. The rest are strangers.

Which brings me back to this job interview with strangers and awkward introductions. They grilled me on social media, to which my meek response was, "Oh yeah, I have a Facebook account and I just got twitter."

"Do you tweet much?"

"..."

"What about Tumblr? Instagram?"

"Uh, I don't really take photos, so....I'm not really a photographer."

:S

That's basically how it went down. I'm pretty sure I won't get that job on the basis that I haven't got a plethora of social media personas, which is how I ended up here, on Blogger, with this extremely awkward and rambling introduction. But I hope maybe you'll give me more of a chance then my interviewers.

So this is me folding to the pressure to have something more meaningful to say about myself in a job interview. I don't really believe I will find my 'self' with the aid of social media to better construct my persona (and for the whole world to see) and by parading these ideals to a whole bunch of strangers on the internet. In fact, I don't really know what this is even for.

I like to believe I'm not as self indulgent as the majority of people active on social media and so I'm not the kind of girl who is going to take selfies of herself with a coy tagline. I don't take photos of my food, or anything really, as you know from this brief and awkward introduction. I am writer, but I don't really plan on putting my stories on this thing either because, well, I'm ambitious and want to make money off them. I guess when I feel like whining about something, babbling obsessively about something that excites me too much to merely talk about it with my mum, or giving flippant ideas a home before they become novels, well, I guess that's this will be for.

This is an experiment for me. I figure, if I can maintain a blog reasonably, well that means I am responsible enough to smuggle a pet into my apartment.

I can't promise I'll be a particularly good blogger. I'm great at starting things, but terrible at finishing at them. Most of my diaries have one entry in them and are then abandoned into the abyss of my bedroom. But like any stranger you meet on the internet, or even in real life I can promise I will pop into your life from time to time and say hi.