the dog days are here and here to stay (?)

brace yourself for the friday afternoon rant on all of my bad life choices and my current state of utter patheticness which goes as follows:


this has been such a shitty day week (month, maybe, even?) for me. you know when you got the poops... in your soul? (i shamelessly stole this line from natalie.) when you get up then 16 hours later go to bed with the same nauseating feeling, the enormous rocks in your stomach and the weight of the world on your soul. when you feel there's pitch dark in the tunnel, let alone having a tiny, little, twinkling light at the end of it. when you feel you're really at the end of your tether. you feel completely disappointed in yourself and the whole round world, and broken into a million little pieces.

this week it really hit me how all those cynical jokes about the worthless ba/humanities-graduates and their degrees were true. how i have wasted an entire four years (and quite some money) on something that was completely and utterly pointless and thus qualified me for nothing. but the thing that really pisses me off is that then why did they make us jump through all those bloody hoops, pass all the many exams, and live up to the ever so high expectations? why were we obliged to read all those books, write all those bloody term papers and essays, and cram our heads with facts, definitions, theories, and details, endless, endless, pointless details i could never ever make a good use of? why oh why? and how could i be so naive not to think through what prospects i would have with this kind of degree? why didn't anybody stop me? why didn't i stop myself? why did i follow my heart?  i always try to learn from my mistakes and never regret anything, because really, what is the point? but boy, am i regretting being a humanities major. i would be so much better off as some sort of an it specialist or whatever kind of engineer, especially here, in this region.  not to mention, i could have traveled the world and earned a shitload of money by now as a welder. i would be so much better off as one simple skilled worker, preferable male, and not female. after all, this is, still, a man's world.

 (but the teeny-tiny comforting thing is that even if i had continued my studies and earned an american studies ma, i would be just as worthless and unqualified for any kind of relatively normal job.)

because what have i become upon four years of attending lectures and seminars and jumping through hoops? i am a relatively well-read and opinionated, unqualified thing that pretty much has no slot on the job market. this week i learnt that in this neck of the woods i am not even qualified to work in a bloody language school since i don't have a pedagogy degree and thus not a qualified teacher. they practically laughed me in the face when saw the kind of degree i have. you, working here? you think so? you have no idea about methods and transcriptions, you fool! why don't you try and find some other kind of job, eh?

but to be completely honest, i have also realized that i don't want to work in a language school any more. sitting there, in the job interview, my boss-to-be interrogating me and trying to scare me off with their oh-so-high expectations, all i could think of was that me, working here? i don't even want to be here. i don't want to work here, teach here, prove that i am capable of reciting grammar rules and scribbling transcriptions on black boards. i want to do something creative. something that i would enjoy. something that would cheer me up, make me excited, make me want to go back the next day, and not just survive the hours.

still,  there goes my ever so fragile confidence, down, down, down the drain. this week i have started to question not only all the decisions i have made lately, but pretty much my entire existence. leaving budapest? quitting my writing gig before they fired me? what was i thinking, finding a job in this neck of the woods? leaving behind all that (little) i have managed to build and achieve in the past year or so? leave all of my friends, my entire social life, and all the pretty lights of budapest behind? how could i? why did i  make decisions out of fear, out of fear of the uncertain?  i could have half a dozen other jobs by now in budapest! (oh, really? could i?) i wouldn't be missing all of my (few) friends and feeling so alienated and miserable right now. and what is the point of life, anyway? am i doomed to suffer and struggle like this for the rest of my life? but why? what did i do to deserve this? i don't want this! i don't need this! i want out!

but then i always realize that i had to get out of there. i needed to get out of the grinding. if i ever wanted to change my life, move forward, i really had to make this decision, leave it all behind, and make a u-turn. i needed change, a new perspective, and some time to think and figure myself out. i also missed my family and the life  - even if it's a rather tiny one - i have here. but starting over? building it all up again from scratch? i never really thought it would be so painfully hard. i never really thought that  i would seriously have to lower my expectations when it comes to finding any kind of job here.  well, i guess, in the meantime i will learn some serious humbleness. and survive all the shitty jobs that are to come, until i can save enough to start over again with all the shitty jobs in either great britain or norway. still, it's hard to accept that my twenties (aren't those supposed to be the best years of my life?) are doomed with a shitload of shitty jobs and struggle, and all those bloody rocks in my stomach and the weight on my chest.

nevertheless, at the end of the day, i have to live with my decisions and all of the consequences they entail. even if i made them in the past, years ago, and regretted them. after all, i was the one making them. and the truest of all truths, and the bottom line, is that i just could not image myself as an it or engineering major. because i always come back to that firm belief of mine that i was meant to read and write for good and for the rest of my life. and suffer in the meantime, to have experience to write about. and to take all the many painful detours and sideways to get where i'm supposed to get. after all, we, women writers, enjoy a bit of suffering every now and then, don't we, just so we have something to rant and whine about, eh?

yet, it's such a shame that the profession of writing never hardly ever makes paying the bills possible, let alone establishing a proper existence. even for those really lucky and really talented, writing only allows to get by, to survive month by month. so really, i was doomed the moment i chose writing. or rather, writing chose me, the bastard.