Hullo folkses. This is my new, spangly, all-singing,
all-dancing ‘I’m a working girl now’ blog. I am no longer counting down to
Finals but attempting to have a life after them. So far, I am having mixed
results.
I have hurtled back to the world of blog-dom because I find
myself, as I did all those months ago in February/March, lonely and with too
much vitriol to explain myself in 140 characters. And also lacking in things to
do at work. But don’t spread that last bit around.
Things that have happened between the demise of the last
blog and the starting of a new blog chapter:
I got my results – just missed that first. Curse that
fortune cookie and its overconfident predictions! As I have been told many a
time, though, it’s absolutely pointless to dwell on it. A degree from Oxford is
still a degree from Oxford. And this is all very true. I could complain for
months about it, how unfair it is, how it’s totally shafted my life plans, how
cruel life is that I can’t have one bit of paper that says I’m not as mediocre
as my brain tells me I am, etc etc. I could do all those things (I just did, a
bit). But I have to at least pretend to be over it in order to demonstrate to
people that I am a bigger person for being able to take the hit and roll with
it, rather than hide in a corner and cry.
Does that make sense?
I got a job. There, I hear you cry, so you haven’t got
anything to complain about. Well, on the one hand, that is very true. To walk
out of university with your life plans falling apart around your ears and land
on your feet like that is great. Living at home takes a lot of the expense and
grief out of living in a crappy rented place anywhere else, and is much higher
on the creature comforts factor. I benefit from having food bought for me, tea
made for me, washing done for me. I like having the cats around – well, most of
the time. Some of the time they are groooosssss. Anyway, the point is that I
shouldn’t have anything to complain about, but because I am me, I can always
find something.
Leila told me to man up and get over myself last night, in
typical Leila fashion. She’s absolutely right, of course. The best thing to do
is get my nose to the grindstone, work like a demon, earn as much money as
possible and then find something I’ll be really happy doing. Trouble is, I
don’t know what that is any more. Baking? Maybe. Academia? That’s what I want
now – what I’ve wanted for at least two years. Is that because it’s all I know,
because it’s safe, because it’s not the real world? I don’t really know any more.
Various people have told me I’d make a good academic, but then lots of people
told me I’d make a good teacher (or that I’d ace my exams) and that didn’t get
me anywhere. There’s a fine line between being defeatist and being a realist
and I worry that sometimes I blur the boundaries and don’t realise which side
I’m on. It’s realistic to say there are very few jobs in academia. It’s
defeatist to say I’ll never get a job. But am I realist or a defeatist if I
choose not to follow the academic path because of job scarcity? Does it even
matter if I’m doing what I love? You can’t eat books. Loving your job can
unfortunately help you only so far. I would be an academic for free if I didn’t
have to worry about money, without a second thought.
Other things that have happened. Dan and Kate’s wedding. It
was well cute. Odd to be in Exeter – it was a surreal event in an extremely
familiar location. Bit mindboggling, which may explain why I drank what would
probably be considered a leetle too much. I had a great time dancing with the
tiny kids though. Tom says I am broody. I don’t know that I consider the basis
on which he has formed his opinion valid. Besides, while I am desperate to be
assured of a future in which children are an option, I certainly don’t want an
actual baby just yet. There’s a significant difference. Anyway, D+K are back
from honeymoon now and Kate has changed her surname on Facebook, thus
formalising their union in a way marriage banns, a civil register etc never
could.
Also. The. Olympics.
I am so amazed and gratified and proud of the feel-good
factor they have generated and the way they have made Britain look and feel –
to itself and to the rest of the world. There have been so many absolutely top
moments. I’m so pleased to have been involved - even just as a spectator - and
to have been proven right in supporting the Games all along. I hope we can use
our memories of the last two weeks as a positive, motivating force rather than
as a pinnacle from which to descend into an all-consuming gloom. I want to be
part of the movement of change and show a commitment to the idea of legacy, so
I’ve tried getting in touch with a boxing club. There aren’t that many sports
available to a short, verging on chubby individual who is scared of falling off
things or going high in the air. But being punched in the face now and again?
Sounds like the perfect antidote to assuaging my Jewish guilt.
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