I’ve always wanted to be a pirate. In my highly romanticised version of pirating, there is rum and tropical islands and Jack Sparrow-type mentors. Adventures on the high seas kind of awesomeness. Actual pirating, I suspect, is harsher, dirtier, more painful and more difficult than anyone, least of all Disney, can possibly imagine. At least, as I discovered a few weeks ago, if I were a pirate, sailing around with a bounty that I had procured through less than legal means, and I did get pulled over by, say, the Spanish Inquisition, I wouldn’t necessarily handle that very well. Instead of loading the cannons, jumping into swash-buckling action, protecting my parrot/monkey/iguana I would stand on the side of the road, shivering, allowing the Spanish to make fun of my skinny jeans, while they searched my ship. Meanwhile, the bounty would have been skillfully hidden in below decks, where not even the most pernicious Spaniard could get his hands on it.
I apologise for the extended metaphor. It’s an occupational hazard when you’re an English student.
But nevermind, we live in a romantic age: I can be a pirate in my head if I want to.
Back in a (sober) reality, we’ve been interviewing people for new positions here at Perdeby over the last week. I both hate and love interviews. It’s exciting to meet someone who will make a great addition to the team, but discouraging to sit through ten interviews in a row which are dead ends. I can usually tell within a minute whether the person sitting across the table will get the job or not. It’s a kind of secondary sense I’ve developed over the years. This was, after all, my sixth set of interviews. Our final decisions have been made and you’ll be seeing some new names in the paper. If you didn’t make it onto the team, please try again (and read my Top Ten for some tips on what not to do). We have a large number of applications every year and sometimes luck just isn’t on your side. You might be a great writer that we just didn’t have space for this year. Hell, I only got hired on my second attempt. And look at me now. I’m tired, stressed, irritable and an emerging alcoholic (which is like an emerging economy, except drunker): I must be successful.
We have a great edition for you this week. There is all the theatre of student politics, haunting my newsroom once again, on the front page. Oh, the spectacle and the drama. We were also at RAMfest this weekend (rocking out to some awesome tunes, not worshipping the devil, as some Bloemfonteinians would have you believe) and you can see our interviews with all the bands inside. We won’t be back until 26 March. We’re taking a week off to go on our annual training (read: drinking) camp, where we train (read: make drunk) all the newbies. Until then, I hope life is treating you all spectacularly.
It’s a pirate’s life for me
Beyers
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