The Pains of Unemployment and Three-Dimensional Street Fighting
By Hailinel 19 Comments
It has been a very long five months.
The answer was, of course, look for another job. Unfortunately, the end of December is one of the worst times of the year to be job hunting. New job postings tend to be scarce and there's no way to determine if people you send your resume are actually reading it or out on vacation. Happy Holidays? Yeah, not really.
The hunt for a new job is a job in and of itself. Scouring job listings for new openings, writing up cover letters and e-mailing resumes is just the start. Then comes the phone screening interviews, where you have no visual contact with the person asking the questions. If that person also happens to have the apparent emotional range of a robot, it becomes impossible to gauge how well the interview is going. Then, if you're lucky, you get called in for an on-site interview. Out of five months of searching, I was invited in to a total of three such interviews with different companies, and each had their own process of conducting said interviews.
And between all of these steps, there's the constant anxiety. The anxiety of waiting for someone, anyone to respond to your application. The anxiety of waiting for post-interview news of any sort, good or bad. The abject disappointment that comes with learning that you didn't get a job despite feeling you did your very best at every stage of the interview. It's hard to simply sit down and relax, because what is there to relax about? I've got a mortgage to pay off and unemployment checks that have just barely allowed me to break even.
But not anymore. Starting a week from today, I'll be starting a new job in a position very similar to my old one with comparable pay and benefits that should allow me to continue where I was abruptly forced to leave off five months ago. I actually signed the offer sheet last Monday, and the week since it was finalized has been absolute bliss. The need to search for a new job is no longer a burden, and I can get ready to walk into the office on my first day with a refreshed body and mind. I feel fantastic, and I hope that everyone that's in the same boat that I occupied until only recently is able to find new opportunities of their own very soon.
But what of my games?
That being said, having a new job lined up has allowed me to feel more compelled to open my wallet. I recently picked up Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, which frankly surprised me because I played the PS3 version for all of maybe five hours when it was brand new, if that. Weirdly enough, I've actually had more fun with the 3DS version than the console version, though I've mostly stuck to the offline modes at this point with a very slim online record. The game looks gorgeous as a 3DS launch title and actually, for the first time in I don't know how long, I'm actually enjoying a Street Fighter game again. On a handheld, no less. Fancy that.
Granted, I'm not a skilled player. I don't have arcade reflexes and so far have limited myself to the easiest difficulty setting, wracking up points to unlock figures. I'll probably hit the wall at some point not long after I've exhausted the single-player content and dive further into online; the component that really crushed my interest in original and Super on the PS3 under a barrage of Ken players and frequent rage quitting. Until that times comes, though, I'll still be burning my way through single-player and formulating a StreetPass team in the event that I come across anyone ready to do battle.
Also, PAX!
