Sat here, watching Spaced, it's hit me. I go hand my dissertation to the university tomorrow. Once that's done, my year's over. I've *finished*. Give or take exams, of course, but the dissertation's finished. All that I've worked on for so long is done, gone, over with. Nothing more to do. No more stress from it, no more tinkering with code at odd hours, no more trying to avoid doing the documentation... no more.
And, fuck. It's a weird feeling. It coincides with the end of lectures, of course. So effectively my time learning formally is over. Unless I decided to go for a masters, but I've got one problem there: I couldn't afford it if I tried. Maybe in a couple of years, when I know what I'm doing with my life, but right now there's too many variables. Fuck, I'd go back do a PGCE, start teaching computing or mathematics at a college or a sixth form or something but I can't even afford that. So obviously, it's out into the wide world.
Which is a bit crap, really. I'm built to learn. I'm built to find out new things, to process new information and to come to new conclusions, to have new ideas. I've not found a job I could go for which rewards that outside of education.
But even so, that's still speculation. Right now there's just this weird sense of trepidation and hollowness and confusion about the future being now. It's going to be different, but what the hell. The future is going to be good.
It has to be, it's the future.
I have a sudden wish to do some meta/posthuman stuff with the protagonist as a student. I have a feeling that's too much just some wish to write myself as I wish I was, and that's nothing short of masturbation so I ain't going to. Normally, I only write about myself in the way that I'm writing about feelings and sensations that I know.
And, fuck. It's a weird feeling. It coincides with the end of lectures, of course. So effectively my time learning formally is over. Unless I decided to go for a masters, but I've got one problem there: I couldn't afford it if I tried. Maybe in a couple of years, when I know what I'm doing with my life, but right now there's too many variables. Fuck, I'd go back do a PGCE, start teaching computing or mathematics at a college or a sixth form or something but I can't even afford that. So obviously, it's out into the wide world.
Which is a bit crap, really. I'm built to learn. I'm built to find out new things, to process new information and to come to new conclusions, to have new ideas. I've not found a job I could go for which rewards that outside of education.
But even so, that's still speculation. Right now there's just this weird sense of trepidation and hollowness and confusion about the future being now. It's going to be different, but what the hell. The future is going to be good.
It has to be, it's the future.
I have a sudden wish to do some meta/posthuman stuff with the protagonist as a student. I have a feeling that's too much just some wish to write myself as I wish I was, and that's nothing short of masturbation so I ain't going to. Normally, I only write about myself in the way that I'm writing about feelings and sensations that I know.
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digitalraven- Digital Raven
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Having already worked for a year in the type of job I'm going to end up getting, I can happily call bullshit here. 60 hour working weeks are not uncommon for a sysadmin. Nor is being the only one with a fucking brain in the entire company. Nor is being blamed by your boss for doing precisely what he told you. None of these are uncommon. That is why people in the Monastery are so violent. Believe me, I have experience already and the working world can fucking blow me.
If I find it I'll send the outline to you if you wish.
No, thanks. I have my own trans/m,etanhuman world, it just wasn't fitting to the kind of thing I wanted to write yesterday. Today is a whole other matter.
Please, save your advice for someone it may apply to. They might appreciate it.
Gary, where have you worked, and can I get a job there too? I think all this writing business has gotten to your head.
If my rants about work have taught you anything, it should be that, even in my fine country of slackers, work is still a soul sucking experience. I'm not entirely sure how it is in England, but at least with the American economy, many fields (including mine) are saturated and you have to work even harder to keep a job there. It's the main reason that despite hating work for a government contractor, I still stay, because it's incredibly stable.
~EEE~
Someone didn't go to Uni by the looks of things.
Stew, ignore all that. Nothing beats Uni. Nothing. It gets harder, and more boring, because you'll likely be doing the same thing every single day, and not many folks get jobs they really like at 22. You'll be more drained emotionally, because things might get stagnant and repetitive. Jobs are not always easy, they are frequently samey, dull and so lame as to make you wonder what the point of it all is.
On the latest Census, there's a reason almost a million young men of our age range just *weren't* in the country. It's getting more and more popular to finish Uni and work abroad, because the English work ethic involves 110% effort at soul-crushing jobs, the longest shift hours in the Western world, the most overtime, and some of the highest rates of job dissatisfaction and depression.
Oh, and now you have to pay back that £12,000 you owe the government.
Yay.
Things pick up after the hazy trepidation if you get a good social life and a jobe you like/don't hate, which covers the rent and food. But your time of coasting is now officially over, dude. If it doesn't get much harder after Uni, it does at least get appreciably more difficult.
But, it's not the end of everything. Increased money does mean you can pay for a social life, even if it's a bit hard to keep one working heavy hours, and well, that's where the good parts are. I pretty much live the life of the disoriented, slightly burned out software engineer that you see portrayed in Dilbert comics and movies like Office Space when I'm at work, but I try to make up for it afterwards. It's not as fun an existence as college was (which, ironically, I wasn't happy with at the time, not knowing any better), but I do my best.
~EEE~
We have something similar over here, called The Office. The reason these things are so easy to relate to is that 95% of th epeople in the countries we live in have these same kinda jobs. That's what's depressing.
I want to write a novel. I want to see the girl I love more than the tired hours a day between finishing a 9-5 job and going to sleep to do it again the next day. Hence, my plans and life involve struggling financially at part-time jobs to make time for my art and my love.
I'm fine with that, don't get me wrong, but I'm well aware that in the scheme of things, it's regarded as irresponsible and certainly not the norm.
*sigh* Now if I only knew what to really do about it and still be able to eat. . .
~EEE~
>>On the latest Census, there's a reason almost a million young men of our age range just *weren't* in the country<<
Oddly enough, speaking of work. . . my company actually implemented the systems which tallied all this, after having done it here in the U.S. Now, we're doing it for Canada. Granted, I'm seeing none of this, but it amused me to think about.
~EEE~
You thought there was a chance I'd take that drivel seriously? please... And I know what I'm working for: Precisely enough to live whilst I do a masters, then possibly work towards a doctorate. My brain is wired for academia.
Just a thought, ignore if irrelevant.