It's a lovely sunny day outside. It's the kind of weather that makes me regress to a more conservative and happy state of mind. I feel restless, listless, as if I've not done anything today. Lets talk about the day, to see if I've actually gotten much done.
I woke up later than usual, but I managed to start a jog from about 9:30. I did 5k, and I worked a little on some calisthenics. After getting home, I had an extended breakfast and watched some tv. I then committed to one task that I've put off for some time: check prospects.ac.uk for graduate vacancies. I found 90. I probably set myself a task of investigating 20 of them. It took nearly 2 hours to go through all of them and to consider whether I could have applied to them. A fair few of them I set myself to apply for. I feel a little apprehensive about 'graduate' employers, they seem to ask for so much, and they never reply to little old me. Makes me feel like a limp cock when I don't hear back from them.
I was then performing a task that I call 'foldering', which is a process of putting my 'weekly' folder into my proper folder, these include items such as letters from the hospital; rejection letters for jobs; letters from job centre and other such miscellany. I have determined that I am overdue for a folder scan. That means that I need to scan all of my documents which probably go back to late 2008 when I started living in the Bristol flat, thinking that I would stay on in the university after my MA and do a PhD.
I wish I could tell myself of that time what the future held for me. What would I say? I'd say to myself: you don't get into the PhD, you waste 4 months of your life trying, then you waste another 4 months trying to apply for a PhD, and not properly applying to jobs; you waste time not doing anything while others your age are getting into jobs, or doing important things. After a year in that flat, I move out due to poverty and live with my parents, at that point you break up with your girlfriend, and then spend a year feeling a mix of misery and isolation. You then try with varying degrees of failure to get a job, or an internship. After the lack of success for 3-4 months of applying; the job centre puts you in a youth-training scheme with REED, which wastes 3 months of your time, but it also focuses your abilities, and you gain an ECDL qualification for which you still do not have the certificate.
Once you finish your time with REED, you keep applying, you get into an internship, and gain some confidence. Your life begins to have a semblance of structure to it. Eventually you get into the summer of 2010 and apply to jobs constantly or whenever you can, with varying degrees of procrastination (but not as bad procrastination as in the time you were in that Bristol flat). You get interviews, and then rejections. July and August pass you by, come September and you have 3-5 interviews; the best sign you have had so far in this journey which seems like an eternity. You think you might have some prospects but then finally, you get a job offer. It's not a great offer, and it's not really a 'job'. But it pays, and there is an employer, and a physical, and probably enough to qualify you out of JSA.
So that's the story of the last two years. It's the worst two years of my life. I just wonder how the story of my next two years will be? Will they be of great victory, success, mediocrity, happiness, change, suffering? Time will tell. For now. I shall look at the next few tasks of my schedule. This schedule seems to be the only thing I think about, or that organises me. I am otherwise listless.
I woke up later than usual, but I managed to start a jog from about 9:30. I did 5k, and I worked a little on some calisthenics. After getting home, I had an extended breakfast and watched some tv. I then committed to one task that I've put off for some time: check prospects.ac.uk for graduate vacancies. I found 90. I probably set myself a task of investigating 20 of them. It took nearly 2 hours to go through all of them and to consider whether I could have applied to them. A fair few of them I set myself to apply for. I feel a little apprehensive about 'graduate' employers, they seem to ask for so much, and they never reply to little old me. Makes me feel like a limp cock when I don't hear back from them.
I was then performing a task that I call 'foldering', which is a process of putting my 'weekly' folder into my proper folder, these include items such as letters from the hospital; rejection letters for jobs; letters from job centre and other such miscellany. I have determined that I am overdue for a folder scan. That means that I need to scan all of my documents which probably go back to late 2008 when I started living in the Bristol flat, thinking that I would stay on in the university after my MA and do a PhD.
I wish I could tell myself of that time what the future held for me. What would I say? I'd say to myself: you don't get into the PhD, you waste 4 months of your life trying, then you waste another 4 months trying to apply for a PhD, and not properly applying to jobs; you waste time not doing anything while others your age are getting into jobs, or doing important things. After a year in that flat, I move out due to poverty and live with my parents, at that point you break up with your girlfriend, and then spend a year feeling a mix of misery and isolation. You then try with varying degrees of failure to get a job, or an internship. After the lack of success for 3-4 months of applying; the job centre puts you in a youth-training scheme with REED, which wastes 3 months of your time, but it also focuses your abilities, and you gain an ECDL qualification for which you still do not have the certificate.
Once you finish your time with REED, you keep applying, you get into an internship, and gain some confidence. Your life begins to have a semblance of structure to it. Eventually you get into the summer of 2010 and apply to jobs constantly or whenever you can, with varying degrees of procrastination (but not as bad procrastination as in the time you were in that Bristol flat). You get interviews, and then rejections. July and August pass you by, come September and you have 3-5 interviews; the best sign you have had so far in this journey which seems like an eternity. You think you might have some prospects but then finally, you get a job offer. It's not a great offer, and it's not really a 'job'. But it pays, and there is an employer, and a physical, and probably enough to qualify you out of JSA.
So that's the story of the last two years. It's the worst two years of my life. I just wonder how the story of my next two years will be? Will they be of great victory, success, mediocrity, happiness, change, suffering? Time will tell. For now. I shall look at the next few tasks of my schedule. This schedule seems to be the only thing I think about, or that organises me. I am otherwise listless.
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