Watching a documentary on America's prisons I was told that prisoners come out with no real world job experience, no contacts and little hope.  Sounds a bit like my own current situation.  Now I'm not saying that I feel quite as hopeless as a former criminal, I mean I do have the advantage of not having a criminal conviction to deal with.  But as a lifelong believer in the importance of education, I am now questioning just how much it has helped me.  I want a job, I really want a job, but it terrifies me because I have no real world job experience.  I know education, I love education but to now use my education, to apply it to a job terrifies me.  No contacts, proof of this necessity is clear when I look at my graduating class.  The only fellow interior design graduate of my class that has had success in finding employment got it because she had contacts, now I'm not saying she got it only because of this, she certainly deserved a job but did the fact that she had the contacts to help her find the job benefit her?  Little hope... graduate with no real world job experience and no contacts and then add in to that mix a worldwide economic recession and see how much hope you can muster.  Is education a prison?  An institution you enter in to feeling comfortable and pretty certain of your future only to be sent out of it with feelings and worries similar to those of a prisoner.  Knowing that you need the experience to have any hope but knowing that so few people will give you that chance to gain experience without already having the crucial experience.

Yes, today is one of them days where I'm running low on optimism... but on the bright side from months of this merry-go-round of emotions, feelings and hope, days like this generally are followed by days of hope so not all bad.