Slacking

So I've been slacking on my blogging. It's been a couple of weeks I think. But do you know why that is? I think I actually have a life...

I got the job where I had the trial and I was due to start today. Why am I not there? I hear you ask. Well yesterday I had another interview and I've got a trial shift this weekend, much much nicer place, nicer people... So can we all cross our fingers that I'm going to get it please! Because if I don't... Well then I'm back to square one with this whole job hunting thing. It's waitressing this time and they said the tips are good. Just a shame I don't have massive boobs because I'm sure that would help me rake in the dollar. So I'm taking a bit of a risk but if it doesn't work out, I'm going to take it as a sign that I really need to get myself a grown up job. What is a grown up job? I have no idea.

In between the whole getting jobs in bars situation, I had a bit of a mini melt down. I was out walking the dog with my mum and I had this sudden do I really want to go into PR moment. Since finishing uni that's what I've focused on, looking for jobs in that sector, looking for experience etc, but I haven't actually stopped to think if it's really what I want to do. It's just typical me, get an idea in my head, run head first into it and then realise I've made a mistake. Just like my trips abroad. Paris seemed like THE BEST IDEA EVER... until I got there. I don't want to work hard to get into a job and then realise it's not what I want to do... But until I've tried it I don't know if it's what I want to do. Ahhhh grown up life is haaard. I wish I'd done a degree that took me straight into a job, like nursing. I bet there aren't many nursing students who get to the end of their 3 years and realise they have no idea what they want to do. And even then, they can get into a nursing job while they figure it out which means money, experience, the ability to move out...

Living at home is really starting the grate on me. So many questions. I've been asked so many times what I want to do with my life. I don't know, okay?! The sympathetic "is everything ok?" question while I sniffle into a tissue has been replaced with "do you think you'll be able to live on a bar job wage, when are you going to get some work experience, do you not want to get a proper job?" while I stomp up the stairs like an angry 2 year old. It's not all bad. It could be worse. I have friends who live in the middle of nowhere and literally can't go anywhere and friends who's parents still dictate if they can go out or not so compared to them I'm pretty lucky. Plus I get like the "presidential suite" up in the attic, hidden away from everyone. Just need a sofa and I'm sorted. Which is annoying, because when we moved house my mum asked if I wanted the spare sofa and I said no... regrets.

I went up to my uni city last weekend to stay with my friend for a few days. She's all grown up with a "proper" job, living with her boyfriend in an amazing house that he owns and he's so lovely. WHY IS THAT NOT ME?! Aside from the jealousy I had a really good weekend. Another girl stayed too and we basically ate and drank our way through the weekend. Pizza, fish and chips and a carvery. Not so good for my waistline. I've put on weight. I'm too scared to weigh myself because I think I might cry, but I can't stop eating. I had a giant Chinese all to myself last night like a little piggy. Then drank mulled wine. Someone come and control me! Hopefully when I'm working full time I'll not have so much spare time to fill with eating and standing up/walking around all day might help me shed a bit. I really want to join a gym, but until I have a car I know I won't go because that would involve a 25 minute walk each way and I'm too lazy for that as well as an hour in the gym. I'm attempting to control my eating. My tummy is telling me to feed it, but after last nights Chinese I think it needs to wait until lunch time. Only an hour until I can acceptably go and make a sandwich.

I was talking to one of the girls I met in Paris and apparently my replacement went from loving the family, children and flat (crazy) to hating it hahaha. YES. It makes me feel better. Not because she isn't enjoying it, but because I know I was right to leave. How different things could have been if they weren't a family of nutters...

So that's an update from me. I still have no idea what to do with my life, but I'm a step closer to a job that fingers crossed won't make me want to punch the customers and I'm no longer on the edge of life. My bubble of graduate sadness still exists, but it's easier to get myself out of it now. How philosophical does that sound.

After saying I shouldn't eat, I really really really want some Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Should I do it?

Onwards and Upwards

So since Thursday, lots has changed. Mostly my mood. I seem to have shed my bubble of graduate sadness and now I'm feeling so much more positive.

Saturday I woke up in an awful mood, it was raining and I had a job trial. I got ready and trudged off in the rain to "work". I got there and hated it. I was just thinking this is so not me. At all. But I got on with it and met some of the staff who seemed nice. Including an old face from the past, I don't think they recognised me but it reminded me of being an 18 year old and all the stupid things I used to do back then. Bad times. Despite spending 2 hours serving old drunk men and chavs, I left thinking it wasn't all bad.

Saturday night I went to a party with both of my brothers. I wasn't so bothered about going, but they both told me I had to and that big bro's friends didn't believe I existed because they had never met me.. So off I went. I was that awkward person who hardly knew anyone. My way to solve that? Drink a bottle of wine in an hour. Drunkenly loosened up and started chatting to people. I spoke to this guy who mentioned he ran a charity, when I said I was interested in doing something communications/PR related he jumped on it and asked if I'd go in and do some voluntary work with him. He even said I could give myself any title I want to put on my CV... perfect! I had a really good night. Despite the over protective brothers warning me off every guy I spoke to. I ended the night drinking rum, vodka and coke with some guy I'd never met before and passed out in the living room about 7am. Probably the worst way to move on from someone, but having a flirt and stuff with a new guy definitely set me on the road to not caring about the last guy. After 2 hours sleep I tip toed out of the house and wandered home. Definitely didn't want my brothers friends seeing me at 9am leaving a room I'd shared with another friend and get the wrong idea... So far, nothing has been mentioned so all is good!

After a quick nap I went to see my friend and we chatted, bitched and moaned our way through a hangover lunch and I left feeling pretty happy but also like a zombie. I do not cope well without enough sleep.

Monday I got a call from the job trial, offering me work. Finally I have a job, even if it's not really where I want to be. It could be worse and at least it means I'm going to have some money coming in and something to do with all my free time! I really need to call the charity guy as well, but I have this slight secret fear of talking on the phone. Also a fear of commitment, scared of getting involved in something and being a bit stuck. Stupid, I know, I need the experience but it scares me. I'll call him tomorrow... which may have been what I said yesterday too...

So, in general, life is good. FINALLY. I know it was never really bad and that a bar job is hardly making life perfect but you know when you just wake up in a much better frame of mind? That was me yesterday. I actually sang along to some songs, cooked dinner for the family, walked the dog, all things I would have found really hard last week.

I have a few things coming up to look forward to, birthdays, nights out, that kind of thing. I think I'm also about to do something naughty and take out a new phone contract. Is £31 a month excessive? I don't know. I pay £21 now but I want an iPhone sooo...

Onwards and upwards.

Up and down, up and down

I think I have some kind of split personality disorder. Literally, one minute I'm happy, jumping around, excited about life and the next I feel like the worlds ending, sitting silently while everyone else chats away and focus on all the bad points of life right now.

Tuesday for example... I woke up in the worst mood. Grumpy and miserable. Then I went to town for a job interview (finally!) which went really well, got stopped by a man in the street who told me he thought I was beautiful and then made plans with my friend from up North to come down for the night and I got home and was super happy. By bedtime I was sad. I did a stupid thing and looked through old messages from the guy I mentioned before. (Seriously, how can someone go from being that nice, to not caring? What is wrong with men?) My mood plummeted and I was back in my bubble of sadness.

Yesterday was as bad, up and down, up and down. I had a nap in the afternoon and woke up feeling really panicky and sad. Rubbish. Sigh. Things will get better, right?

I went out last night to a one off night with a famous DJ. It was good, but I was too drunk. I spent my evening over compensating for my miserableness and updating my Facebook and Twitter about my amazing night with my best friends everrr. I am that loser who does that. I also left a comment for the guy which has now lost me my upper hand/I'm angry with you status. Perfect. My friend from up North was here, we had fun, normally our nights end in disaster, she ends up with some slimy guy and I'm left like the loner in the corner, silently fuming. She's got a not-quite-a-boyfriend-but-we're-exclusive situation at the moment so luckily she wasn't on a man hunt. The music was good and there were lots of people, but I was in that drunk state where you don't really take any notice of whats going on. As we were leaving, this guy held the taxi door open and literally wouldn't leave her alone. Piss off. I know she's pretty but please, us single, lonely cat ladies need attention sometimes too. He said I was pretty but that I had an attitude when I told him to go. GO AWAY I WANT TO GO HOME AND EAT TOMATO SOUP.

I've spent the day waiting to hear back about my interview. It's only for a bar job but still, I want money. Plus my mum said if I get the job I can go car shopping this weekend. Cannot wait to get back on the road. I haven't heard from them yet. It's 4.22pm. It's not looking good for today. The interview went so well though. I did lie a bit. Of course I see this as a long term job, I want to work my way up to managing a bar one day. I really don't.

I'm sitting in bed. Hungover, hungry and grumpy. When is life supposed to get better? My brother took me out again today. It's like little pity trips. Last week it was for a hot chocolate, today to the pub for coke to help my hangover. It really is sweet of him, but I feel a bit pathetic that my younger brother is having to do that for me.

One of the girls I met in Paris messaged me to tell me they'd met my replacement. Apparently the family have been really nice and hardly expect anything of the girl. I bet she's going to have an amazing time and love it. She's basically living the life I should have been. I keep thinking back to my excitement before I went and even the excitement when I decided to come home. Things seemed so promising. But life is never what you think it's going to be.

I bet people reading this are thinking sort yourself out, your life's not that bad. Which is true. And trust me, I'd rather not be so grumpy about things but what can I do? I try. I go out all smiles and happy but really I'm just thinking blahhhh.

The big 23 is edging closer. I did not think I'd be unemployed, single, grumpy, living at home and applying for jobs at Tesco at 23. My life plan is so off track at the moment. I want to be married by 27, 4 years to go. And judging by my track record it's not going to go smoothly.

Tall, dark, handsome husband, where are you?

Another day, another rejection

Another day, another rejection.

This time it was from Sainsburys. Seriously, what more do I need to do to get a job? I've worked pretty much since I was 16, bar work, shop work, waitressing... I have good GCSE's, A Levels and a degree, I'm relatively normal but still, nothing. The annoying thing is that the rejections come after those stupid personality tests they ask you to do. A load of rubbish.

I've spent a hungover Sunday afternoon applying for jobs. If I don't hear back from something soon I'm going to go crazy. Just give me a job!

I'm supposed to be in Paris right now, living it up, learning French, meeting new people and falling in love with Jean-Pierre. Not sitting in bed, applying for waitressing jobs and looking at pictures on Facebook of the people I met in Paris, doing all the things I should be doing. Sigh. Everything happens for a reason, right?

On a slightly brighter note, I actually went out and socialised yesterday. I managed to climb out of my little bubble of graduate sadness to go for lunch at a friends and then out for a night out with my fellow single friends. I stumbled in at 5am and sat in bed eating noodles thinking that life isn't always all bad. I just think it's about time a bit of good luck was sent my way. Good luck in the form of my dream job or an attractive, tall, dark haired man that wants to fall in love with me would be nice. But beggars can't be choosers so I'd settle for a bar job. Something to fill my time with would be so welcomed right now. I spend my days walking the dog, job hunting and napping with the cat. Hardly the fun filled rock and roll life I thought I'd be living at 22.

I'm 23 next month. When did I get so old? So soon I'll be 23, unemployed, single, miserable. Exactly what I hoped for. I was thinking about my "perfect" life, if things were how I want them to be I'd be working in a job that is actually what I want to do, have a good social life, a little car, be sharing a flat with a friend and have a boyfriend that isn't an absolute idiot, with things heading in the direction of something serious. Not too much to ask is it? It's not like I'm saying I want to be a millionaire living in America or something. They're all pretty achievable things, no? The sad thing is that I just don't see it happening any time soon. I think I'm destined to be living in my graduate sadness bubble for a while.

But you know what? Life could be so much worse. I know I'm being miserable and self pitying when in reality, things aren't that bad. I feel like I need this time though and hopefully I'll appreciate things so much more when (if...) things finally fall into place.

Sally Smith

In case you're wondering (if anyone actually reads this...) my name definitely isn't Sally Smith. I signed up with my real name, realised I wanted to be anonymous and Google didn't deem "Grumpy Graduate" to be a proper name so I went for Sally Smith. Nice and simple.

The Grumpy Graduate

I bet there's already loads of these blogs out there, hundreds of grumpy 20-somethings complaining about life after uni. But I need something to entertain me, ok? I'm bored. Bored of the job hunt and to be honest, a bit bored of life.

You spend all that time, counting down to the day of your last ever exam and then BANG. You're out into the real world. It's like uni builds you up so much for the real world but then after your last assignment or exam is over, you're thrown out into the world and expected to know what to do. So you might spend a few weeks celebrating and relaxing, but pretty quickly that little feeling creeps up on you. So slowly you probably don't even notice it. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Unless you're one of those super lucky people who knows exactly what they want to do and how to get there, you're going to have this thought at some point.

I spent 3 years at uni, had the time of my life (hello cliche) and met the best people. But pretty much right from the beginning I knew that what I was studying wasn't what I wanted to do. But I carried on, battled through exams, assignments and the dreaded dissertation. I did well, came out with a 2:1 and made the parents proud. But all the way through this was a little nagging thought. What am I going to do after uni? I did the typical "me" thing to do and decided to run away from life. I found myself a job as an au pair and got on a plane a week after uni ended. I spent 2 months drinking, dancing, eating and enjoying life in Spain, mixed in with a bit of babysitting and pretending to be interested in the children. I came home with the next stage planned out, a job in Barcelona working in a school. As usual, things didn't go to plan and I changed my mind and within a week my new plan was to au pair in Paris for 10 months. So I packed my bags, jumped on the Eurostar and headed off for my new Parisian life. Within minutes of arriving I knew I'd made a mistake. I didn't want to be in a country where I couldn't speak a word of the language, in a flat the size of a cupboard and looking after children that couldn't understand me. To top it off the mum of the family was crazy. Like split personality shouting at me one minute, telling me how pretty I was the next minute kind of crazy. I lasted a week before I packed my bags (fitting 2 suitcases worth of stuff into one because the family had taken my other) and did a runner. That night I ended up in a hostel panicking about what I'd done, how I'd ended up in the middle of Paris on my own and not a clue what to do next. Luckily, the very friendly hostel barman sat me down with a drink at 6pm to cheer me up. I was still there at 3am, very drunk and very happy. Until the next morning when I woke up feeling like my head might explode, with an hour before my train left Gare du Nord. I literally jumped out of bed, got changed in the middle of a dorm with 13 other people in it and legged it to the station. Sweaty, hungover and tired, the life panic set in again. I made it to the train and 6 hours later I was home. Having to explain to everyone why I was home after one week when I should have been gone for nearly a year was depressing. The same pitying looks and the "but you could have lived in Paris!" comments started to grate away at my already fragile state.

But you know what, all through my time in Paris I'd had a lovely man friend to talk to, to cheer me up and promise me exciting things once I was home. So as much as it was depressing to be home, there was a bit of a silver lining. We dated and things went well. Too well I thought. Until the messages stopped and my "lovely" friend had moved on to the next person. Great. So I was home, my Paris plans had fallen apart, no job, no money, no exciting guy to keep me occupied. Perfect. Pretty much the straw that broke the camels back. The combination of the bad luck, disappointment, lack of money and no direction in life made me take to my bed and spend days in a miserable bubble of graduate sadness.

That pretty much brings me up to today. Sitting in bed with just the cat for company. My mum practically congratulated me for leaving the house on Monday. And even then it was only to take the dog round the park. This is not how graduate life was supposed to be. It was supposed to be exciting, full of promises, new things and new people. I spent my evening applying for jobs. Sainsburys, Wetherspoons and O2 were on my list today, not really where I thought I'd be heading. I got an email rejection from Boots today as well. How hard can it be to get a job there?

I look at the people that have come out of uni and know what they want to do, have walked straight into jobs or gone off travelling and I just think why can't that be me? I have no idea what to do next. I got an interview for another job in Barcelona, but I know that's just me running away from life again. I need to get on with things at home, I just don't quite know what yet. I went to a wedding at the weekend and of course, the top of everyone's list to ask me was "so what are you doing now you've finished uni?" I told them I was just enjoying some freedom and had some things lined up. Inside I cried and thought I literally have no idea.

We were having dinner this evening and I mentioned I needed to buy a new diary, my last one was an academic one that ran out last month, but then I had this awful thought. I have nothing to put in it. How depressing is that.

But hey, things could be worse. And as much as so far this blog makes me sound dull, depressed and like a no hoper, I like to think I'm not all bad. I was filling out an application form this evening and it asked "what is the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you?" and I sat and had a little laugh to myself (hello crazy) about some of them. I went for getting locked in a car park underneath a hotel and being rescued by security. Missed out the fact I was so drunk I was sick in the lift on the way down and was drunkenly looking around for somewhere to sleep though. Not sure that would have given the best first impression.

You know what I think? I think we need to set up "graduate support groups" where we can all sit together, chant that things will get better and then go out, get horribly drunk and pretend to be students again. But for now I'll stick to my lonely grumpy blogging.

Buenos Noches x