Diary Of A Design Graduates Dreams

When I was young I just wanted to be a grown up, I wanted to grow up fast.  And looking back, I did.  I can now see why adults tell children, teenagers especially, not to grow up too fast because I may be only 22 but I'm already wishing I could turn back time and be at school again.  Although, I would like to turn back time on my own terms, because I'd rather be back at school as the person I am today.  I didn't really like school that much.  Well I did, I was a total geek, I loved school for the learning.  But for the social aspect, although I wasn't the biggest loser, I had some amazing friends, but I certainly wasn't one of the popular ones.  So if I was to turn back time I certainly wouldn't want to be the Victoria of yesteryear, the girl who lived in trackies, had bad hair and at the age of 14 got bullied for having a fat arse.  Now, I did not have a fat arse, my arse has not miraculously shrunk... it certainly isn't fat now, or so my boyfriend tells me... but boys are mean.  Very mean.  Its the downside of being young, small things hurt and once something is said everyone seems to jump on the bandwagon.  I remember when I was 11, they had been making me spin the skipping rope all break and wouldn't let me have a turn so I threw it down and walked away crying, I went home and cried to my mum so she went in to school and the next day everything was fine.  So I suppose that is a plus side of youth, things pass by quite quickly. I wasn't the girl with the fat arse for long.  But the mean things children say can really hurt at the time, and as I'm now 22 it would seem these things have a lasting effect.  Now having reminisced about these stories why do I want to be young again?!  Youth is full of innocence and hope about the future.  Just to be 15 again, dreaming of being a successful career woman with the perfect husband living the perfect life.  It sounds better than acutally living the life as an unemployed graduate cast out in to the job market in a recession where more people are losing jobs than finding them.  And although I have been lucky enough to find a perfect boyfriend he lives 100 miles away.
But would I be this same person?  The hard-working girl who got herself good GCSEs and A Levels from a school that hundreds of children can only dream of going to, then got herself a good degree and amazing life-long friends if I hadn't had the 'perfect and popular' childhood.  Back then I used to wish for my future, now I look back and wish I could be young again.  Am I just too hard to please?  Why is the present never good enough for me? Will I ever just be happy just where I am, doing what I'm doing, and who I'm doing it with?  I like to think so...  And hey, where are the popular ones now?  I know that a lot of the junior school ones ended up teenage mums.  And the high school ones, the boy that said I had a fat arse piled on the pounds when he discovered drink and drugs, and the rest of them, well popularity doesn't really exist so much in the real world, so they are just like me!

Feeling down in the dumps?  Go see an elderly person... random one if you wish, the old folks love a bit of company but I personally opted for my great grandmother.  In and out of hospital like a yoyo, lonely and widowed for 16 years, and worst of all the poor lady is in a right state about her hair.  She has enough tablets in her house to open up her own pharmacy, and even after a week in intensive care one of her first worries was what had happened to her hair.  Helped put things in to perspective.  

Ok, so luck may not be on my side at the moment but I have nice hair, and when I don't, generally it just needs a wash.  And on top of that I am rather priviliged.  I have a good family.  I've had a good education which hopefully someday will come in useful, even if it does mean I have to pop out kids like a chav and homeschool them.   And the icing on my cake, I have a wonderful boyfriend who is a hottie.   Not that I remember any of this when I’m feeling depressed, theres times when you can see nothing but the bad but a good cry and remembering these things surely should be enough to cheer up for a bit at least, and be grateful for what I do have, not just what don’t have.  Who knows if I will be able to do this, I doubt I will bit its at least worth a try.

And if all else fails, I'll at least do my best to keep my hair washed... even on down days.

I think it is now the 3rd, or possibly 4th year in a row that my mother, a pension advisor and certainly not a doctor, has diagnosed me with s.a.d (seasonal affective disorder)... She really is convinced.  But what am I to do with this diagnosis? Dread the coming of winter each year? Invest in an insanely expensive lamp to give me happy rays?  Go to the doctor and tell him that my mother has diagnosed me so all I need now is his signature for happy pills?  Or maybe just continue to ignore her... it is after all that time of the month.  I mean, I already have a stupid allergy to dust and other airborne allergens, I don't want to add winter depression to my list of retarded non-serious problems.  Not that, for those of you suffering these things, I am saying they are trivial problems... get me when I'm suffering them most and I will certainly say that they are up there with heart conditions and diabetes but lets be honest, they aren't are they, they are just a bit of a nuisance!
And surely pre-menstrual hormones, loneliness and joblessness are enough to get me down?  I don't need s.a.d to get me down, I'm well within my rights to be 'sad' without a silly named disorder.  Aren't I?
I was truly amazed though at mother's psychic powers, her mothers intuition.  She rarely texts me other than when she is drunk or I have left town and she is doing her motherly thing of checking I arrived safe and havn't died in a freak unreported train crash.  But the amazing lady seems to have some amazing skill for knowing just when her 'baby' is feeling down.  Today I got one of her psychic 'are you ok' texts... they come out of nowhere and always on days when I've generally been crying a lot.  I don't know how she does it, the first time I thought was maybe a coincidence but she seems to do it every time... like an identical twin that feels heart pains when the other has a heart attack my mother can always sense when her baby is in need.  Bit creepy but always nice to get her psychic texts after a bad day.  Mothers are amazing!!!  So amazing in fact that I plan to spend the day up at her house 2moro to keep my spirits up, even though I'll probably be going mad after an hour of her and my little brother, both amazing more in small doses...

20th November already?! How? Time is going so fast, it scares me!  I had a phone call about a job today, which of course I try not to get overexcited about because that always seems to jinx things for me but its hard not to when these things happen so rarely.  Its nothing special.  There hasn't been some amazing life changing miracle, Liebeskind hasn't got his hands on my work and demanded that I work with him, I can only but dream of such things.  But its a job, which at the moment is enough to raise a smile.  Lovely Sue from the Job Centre, the first person there who seems to have cared about me so far, phoned me to let me know of a temporary admin job that has come up.  She said she had thought of me.  I was touched.  But here is where my story goes back to its origins of how fast time is going... the job is until March, by which time I would have been out of university for almost a year and still no closer to my dream job.  This isn't going to stop me from applying, this isn't a time to be picky about jobs but the prospect of still being nowhere near the career ladder, still not even close enough to see it, terrifies me and once again makes me wonder to myself... did I choose the right degree?

On a brighter note, its still over a month until christmas and I nearly have all my christmas presents sorted (with the exception of my boyfriend, not the easiest man to buy for).  And after having reformatted my pc yesterday I have organised my iTunes and the christmas tunes are back in there and ready for the festive season

Well... my deadline for finding a job and getting out of my family home has passed.  I have been 22 for a week now, feels like a few days but having spent the weekend with my boyfriend time flew by so its now a week later.  And never failing to make an appearance, my hormones have arrived.  I've been starting to notice a pattern in my blogging, generally the pattern follows that of my own female cycle... for a couple of weeks a month I'm content, certainly not happy, but content with my life as it is... but then a surge of oestrogen changes my outlook. 

So... today I was supposed to have an interview.  Nothing special, just a local telesales job, but then last night I had a phonecall from the lovely Richard, first agency worker who actually seems to care about getting me a job, and he said it was bad news... My brother was the one who told me about the job having started last Monday so I was pretty optimistic because my brother is just as unlucky with jobs as I am.  But apparently this company don't employ people from the same family.  I got a bit teary, so I don't have ambitions of becoming a telesales executive for life, doesn't mean yet more rejection doesn't hurt.  I eventually decided that its there loss, if they want local gobby idiots rather than a university educated girl just because she has a brother there then its there loss, and they don't sound like particularly nice people to work for anyway.  Unrelated to my disappointment, my brother also resigned that day; potentially opening the door for me again but being the sister of the boy that quit after 7 days probably wouldn't look too great.

Now 22 years and 1 week old I still feel no closer to being grown up than I did before... when will my chance come?  Its hard to stay positive and motivated when nothing positive seems to come but even though this economic downturn is probably not helping my jobsearch, it does help make me feel better... I'm not the only one, as far as I know only 3 people from my course have a job and one of my best friends may be forced to move back home to El Salvador if nothing comes up for her soon.  I suppose things can only get better... I just wish these better things would hurry up!  For now all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and do all I can do to improve my skills in my own time...

And take lots of evening primrose oil to keep the oestrogen under control of course!