Reflective Blog Two

When it came to my second interview I thought really hard about how to link it to my first story (about the nurses conditions in Australia at the moment). I initially wanted to get someone from Fair Work Australia but seemed to be going around in circles in terms of getting someone who was actually willing to be interviewed by a student. I have a feeling perhaps they couldn't talk about it. I'm not really sure.

So I decided to move on from that idea. The due date for the assignment was getting closer and I didn't really want to be doing everything last minute and not feeling like I did as well as I could have because I was rushed. So as I was sitting in the school library pretending to study when I started to think about my cousin who came from the Philippines and just started working as a nurse in Australia. I thought to myself, 'why are so many people coming to Australia to do nursing here when, based off all the nurses I know, it seemed to be an overworked and under appreciated work force here.' So I contacted a family friend of mine who is a pharmacist at the Canberra Hospital and she found a couple of overseas nurses to be interviewed that said yes initially but in the end declined to be interviewed.

I think one of the issues of why they didn't want to talk to me is because they did have to go back back to their home overseas and didn't really want to stir anything up. I completely understand if this were the case and I certainly didn't want to cause any problems with them or their careers back home.

I eventually found RN nurse Rosemary Aniversario who immigrated from the Philippines and interviewed her. She was really lovely and had a easy go personality which made it easy to interview and took away any nerves I initially had. She even laughed it off when I, of course, had technical difficulties where the microphone didn't seem to work (only to find out later that I hadn't turned it on! How embarrassing!).

I definitely made an effort to really listen to what she was saying and to ask follow up questions and got some really good answers. But I didn't quite use her to her full potential as a source. She had also worked in Saudi Arabia and looking back I wished I had asked her about her experience there and what it was like compared to Australia.

She did shrink away from the microphone a bit while I was interviewing her, so I tried to back off a bit and chat and giggle with her to make her feel a bit more comfortable. This did help a bit and she said a lot less 'ums and uhs' as the interview progressed and she gained more confidence.

I feel like I have improved a lot since my first interview, definitely in terms of interviewing itself. I gained a lot more confidence in asking follow up questions but I definitely think I can improve on what follow up questions I can ask and perhaps thinking outside the box when it comes to my questions. I enjoyed myself a lot when it came to this interview and the editing. It definitely made me feel like a real journalist.