Well shit



Apparently I am quite the waste of space.

Knowing I have two years left before my opportunity for applying for my permanent residency comes up, I had the fanciful idea that once I obtained it, I would get a job that didn’t entail teaching. This sounded great - until I remembered that I’m not qualified for anything (save teaching, and that’s only to learners of it as a foreign language) and I lack all those things like experience in any other field.


So it should have come as no surprise to learn, after three hours trawling the web for courses ranging from simple certificates to actual degrees, that I don’t qualify to get onto anything resembling a proper course. Living in a country where the Open Uni considers ‘English Writing for Public Relations Professionals’ an actual component of a degree, I am forced to look at online courses where you have to pretend to be interested in society, economics or numbers in organised uses. Meh.

Trouble is, I don’t even know what job I’d be fit for if I did get my permanent residency, and were therefore able to take any job I bloody well wanted. What is there for people like me? I’ve done customer service and I’d rather chew my own foot off than do it again. I’ve done training, and teaching, and I’d rather shoot someone than have to feign patience whilst showing/telling them for the umpteenth time how to perform a simple task. In fact, I’d love a job where people lock me in a room with nothing but an iPod, my MacBook Air and unlimited tea (and maybe cucumber or cheese toasties) so I could write without interruption.


Some days I think I could be in the army. I could shoot people. And the best bit is that they’d be shooting back at me, which would give me a brilliant excuse to shoot at them. And I'm not even joking. In fact, the more I think about it, the more a stint serving Queen and country might suit me. I wouldn’t even be doing it for the money, such as it is.

It’s one of those days when you realise that, even though you seem quite capable on a personal level - you can normally blag your way through domestic repairs or work kerfuffles, fix other people’s computers, guide them through tutorials, know just the bit of random information they need, or just generally be an amazing human being - you’re also one of the useless ones. Not happy anywhere, not interested in anything, not comfortable with people in proximity.

The only good course I found that was vaguely interesting was Science Fiction Studies - but that’s a Masters degree (and on-campus), and as such, about as attainable as Christian Bale from where I am. It would also be totally useless in getting a job - except for the fact that it is a Masters (bitches), and in the case of me getting a job relating to sci-fi, of course.

*sigh*

Guess I'll just keep on keeping on, then. Thanks, Noel.