Weeks are sneaking by.
I decided to spend each week focusing on a different skill or subject that I’m teaching myself about. Last week was Adobe Illustrator. I can draw well, but I never learnt how to draw complex pictures on a graphics programme. Working on it. There are a lot of tutorials available on the web. I’d intended to join an evening class, for the change of scene and the social factor, yet I put that plan on hold in case I needed to move away for the JobIdidn’tgetlastweek. Now I’m a bit unenthusiastic because I’m worried about money again.
This week it may be maths, or Photoshop. Or biochemistry. I need to study all that again for next year. Although the information doesn’t come to mind very fast, I know it’s in my head. Refreshing it shouldn’t be too hard.
By Friday I felt upbeat again, and the weekend was fine. Weekends are always fine- they’re legitimate times for relaxing and enjoying whatever.
I was reading How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. Great book by the way. Certain chapters regarding having kids or not having kids stayed on my mind, mostly because I also have been spending time browsing postgraduate messageboards and reading articles about women in science. Well, I should point out that the major reason I didn’t go into research or lab science after my biology degree was the sheer amount of bad reputation that science has as a career. I knew I had to really, *really* want to do it. I listened to all my university tutors and lecturers who said you have to LOVE your PhD subject and you have to LOVE science in all its horrible, unworking glory. I listened and I thought I’d try striking out elsewhere. Funny how now I still know all that, but it has ceased to deter me. Plenty of other things in life have already deterred me back to science!
Anyway, yeah, babies. Caitlin describes how they basically appear when you’re at the peak of your creativity and confidence and power. Well no, I’m not planning on having any for years. But oddly it made me think of how much time I’ve kind of wasted being unemployed, because I reckon these ARE my peak years. Months and months of lost savings, lost time. I mean these probably are my energetic, creative years. Kind of a shame to let that go to waste in the mire of job applications? I mean my brain is in good shape and I genuinely have a lot of physical energy. What a waste…
Look at it this way. Job applications take a lot of time and they take a lot of mental effort and a lot of energy. You might say that in the last… hmm… five months I could’ve studied for an AS level or could’ve been volunteering 9-5 or could’ve been writing a novel, while doing applications. Seriously, it just isn’t possible for me. The uncertainty, the browsing, the CV writing, the tailoring of the covering letter, the feelings of uncertainty and panic and poverty, the days spent in despair, the days spent taking a break, the days spent travelling to interview, trying to change your game plan, trying to think ahead… it just doesn’t seem possible to be unemployed AND productive. Not for me. It’s like trying to make journeys in the pitch black.
Anyway, back to writing a covering letter. For the record, I’m not opposed to volunteering and I have done it. Working for free (for a company that legally should pay you…) is another matter. I think today’s in danger of being a blue day. I was on the verge of shedding a grudging gloomy tear of despair before I came online to blow off some steam. Away I go.