January 14, 2003 - 9:24 a.m.

i spent all of yesterday morning working on job applications. i had already sent three or four when it came time to leave for my doctor appointment in the afternoon (my ears have been bothering me, you see).

i considered this a break. simon thought i was finished for the day and decided to commence his giant computer project, a.k.a. The Partitioning Of The Hard Drive.

sometime around march, when i arrived in australia, simon decided to upgrade to Windows XP. it's the latest professional version, for those out of the loop, and you can do all sorts of crazy things like make separate client accounts with passwords. when we were living with his parents, for example, he didn't trust them enough not to screw his files up (even accidentally), so he gave them limited accounts. each time i log on, i need to give a password. remember, this is the home computer we're talking about, folks.

simon decided XP was superior in just about every way, until he tried to play games. every time he tried to load up certain games, the computer would crash. so he decided to partition the hard drive into two parts: one would run Windows XP and the other would run Windows 98, solely for the purpose of playing games.

i suppose i don't need to tell you that this took all day to set up. during which time i needed to work on more job applications, like this one:

PHOTOGRAPHER

GFP Studios is a National Photographic Company and we need a team member to start immediately in our Balwyn studio. Our mission to our customers is to capture their babies/children as a lasting portait. The key to this career is a great passion for photography, people and attention to detail. If this is for you, please send your resume marked attention STATE Manager by mail to GFP STUDIOS... Phone enquiries will not be accepted

i'll readily admit that kid/baby portraits wouldn't be my first choice, but i was hoping that the studio would be fairly liberal and allow room for more natural photos than what i'm used to seeing. (i suppose, too, that it would be better than taking passport photos and asian glamour shots, like the last "photographer" job i sussed out.) i wouldn't even mind working in a kmart-type photo studio, as long as i didn't have to do anything too wacky.

i decided that i would send in a resume and cover letter, and that i would also include copies of some of my photographs of babies and children. i knew that if they saw my website that they might think i was the wrong person for the job.

i spent all afternoon scouring the office for photos, working out the best choices and trying to figure out how best to print a digital file. still no computer. at around 5 pm, i took the tram down to world wide wash, an internet cafe / real cafe / laundrette. their printer was no better than ours, so the picture i wanted turned out pretty crap. they only had a standard photocopier, as well, so the other two photos looked very substandard. i grabbed the latest Y O U bag from polyester records and rode back home.

i begged simon to drive me to officeworks (essentially the australian version of office depot). he was very busy doing his computer stuff, so it took at least an hour to get him out of his chair. finally, we went. there were a few others ahead of me, so we had to leave the photos there and come back later.

the copies looked much better, but - because of this and because they had been enlarged - spotting was much more evident. i had spent an hour searching for my retouching pens earlier in the day, to no avail. so i went home and used a pencil to try and get the same effect. i was desperate.

after all the hoopla, i was ready for bed. that's when simon told me i could access the internet if i wanted to. i had been unable to find "GFP Studios" in any of the phone books, white or yellow, and i was a bit suspicious. so i got on the computer and did a search by the address listed. that's when i found this.

my heart sank about as far as it could go. i called simon in and asked, "do i have permission not to apply for this job?" i'd rather die before posing babies with props like that. yes, anne geddes makes me sick, but at least she's somewhat imaginative. ugh. i'm one step closer to being a receptionist again.