I hate my job . . . my MA gives me hope . . . I hope . . . I hope . . . I hope . . .

So,

you might be thinking:

"Oh for God's sake, stop whining, grow a pair and get out there and do something"

And I should, I really should. Yet I feel totally incapacitated. I don't trust my own abilities and never feel good enough any more for any job interview. (Did you know that in over 165 job applications in my life I have only ever been successful in 2 - and one of them is the one I have now?). I'm struck by the varied careers and job switches that my classmates have had and I can't comprehend how its done.

I can't get excited about new technology like I used to - because I now know that it won't ever change the world or anything at all. It won't even get used except to give people another way to access the X-Factor.

One thing I do know is that once I get my MA (and no matter what, I WILL get my MA) I never want to work in FE again. I might consider HE but never at the bottom rung of the ladder.

I'm thinking of setting up in business for myself actually. Then I'd have no-one to blame but me if it all goes belly up.

(the title of the blog BTW borrows from a bizarre one hit wonder by Karel Fialka called "Hey Matthew")

"I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another 'Fuck you' on the wall. I tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or something. It wouldn't come off. It's hopeless, anyway. If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the 'Fuck you' signs in the world. It's impossible."

"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetary, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say 'Holden Caulfield' on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say 'Fuck you.' I'm positive, in fact."

'Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. and I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. I know it; I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.'

-Holden Caulfield