Finding Direction

   There's been quite a lot going on in the world of me in the last month or so. Firstly I made a firm decision that I need to choose a more definite career path. Secondly I decided that path is going to be veterinary nursing. It seems like a good choice for me because it combines aspects of animal care with more medical aspects. So it will be more suited to my sciencey nature and challenge my brain more than other animal care jobs. The downside to this is that I will have to study again and re-train. Although actually, I quite like learning.
   The next thing that happened was my discovery of a job with a chain of vet practices as a patient care assistant (aka travelling dogsbody). One of the conditions of taking the job was agreeing to undertake vet nurse training- bonus! A chance to get paid (albeit a feeble salary) while studying. I re-vamped and emailed my Cv straight away. To my great suprise, I had a reply the next day saying it had been forwarded to the area manager and the day after I had a phone call. I arranged an interview the next week (they wanted me to come in the next day, but I needed to get time off work).
   The interview went really well. I wasn't nervous at all and I actually rather enjoyed the friendly chat. I had another phone call as soon as I'd got home to arrange a trial session for the end of that week. It all seemed to be going rather quickly and in an uncharacteristic move, I actually let myself get quite excited about a possible change. 
   The trial was pretty much as I expected, maybe a little disappointing. I was told to be following and observing the head nurse and was doing quite well at the observing part- tucking myself out of everyone's way.Then the head nurse got called in to do a consultation and I was just left waiting. Nobody was particularly friendly and there were no offers of tasks or anything interesting to do, so I waited. Eventually, just as I'd read the last remaining notice on the wall, someone came and gave me a job of washing things. This was as exciting as it got, apart from cleaning a couple of cages. Anyway, at the end of the long 3 hours the head nurse was really positive and said that she'd pass on that I'd done my trial, that it went really well and she hoped they'd see me soon. I went home tired but upbeat to enjoy the weekend. 
   During my lunchbreak on the following Tuesday I was checking my emails and I noticed I had one from the vet manager. I wasn't going to read it because I wasn't sure I would be able to contain myself for the rest of my shift if I knew I could leave. Then I decided the nagging curiosity would be much worse. So I read the email. I was totally confused when I found myself reading a generic rejection- "thankyou for applying...bla bla bla...we won't be taking it any further at this point in time etc." Baffling considering how quick they were to respond, how positive they were and that I got as far as having a trial that went "really well". The last 2 hours of the shift were spent resisting the alternating urges to cry and hit things. Not fun.
   So basically in the space of 3 weeks I managed to choose a career, find a way in, try it out, confirm it was a good choice for me, talk myself into making the change and then been completely rejected with no idea why (I'm still waiting for a reply to my feedback request). I can only assume they didn't want me based on something to do with meeting me and my performance on the trail session because I can't see why they would take the application that far if I didn't have all the credentials. This makes the rejection feel all the more personal.
I'm not going to let it put me off though. The next step (once the festive season has passed) is going to be to throw my Cv around all the local registered training practices to try and find somewhere willing to take me on as a trainee. If that doesn't work (and I suspect it won't) then I will have to attempt to do some work experience and apply to college myself. The colleges provide placements while on the course but they will be unpaid, making this will be the most expensive way to train.
   Anyway, that's my new plan. Unless I have a radical change of heart or something really drastic happens, I'll hopefully be on the way to starting a proper career by this time next year. Until then I'm preapring myself mentally for another 2 years or so stuck at home. I'm also going to try and stockpile as much cash as I can to prepare for the leaner times ahead.