If I only knew...(it wouldn't make a difference)

Here are some things that no-one told me when I left university (but probably should have done).
 

"You will be applying for jobs for at least the next six months. 95% of these will never get back to you. You will be checking your emails every half an hour for at least a month after the deadline to see if they do before you finally accept this.

4.5% of these will straight up reject you. You will think this feels better than not knowing, but it won't.

0.45 of these will offer you a glimpse of hope - maybe by asking for more information or getting you to complete a test. This will be a ray of sunshine and you will think that finally, FINALLY, something is happening. Then you will never hear from them again.

0.05% of these will invite you to an interview. You will prepare for this every moment of every day until it starts. You will practice answers. You will think about how you are going to sit and where you are going to look. People are going to give you advice that you are unsure of. You will consider every possible thing they could ask you, and any follow up questions they could get from your answers. And when you get there they will ask you something completely different, something that you hadn't planned for and have no idea how to answer and you will try to give the best possible response you can and they will think you haven't prepared. And after a couple of days of solidly reviewing that 20 minute session in your head they will reject you. And you will be back to square one.

You will have to write a CV. You will not know how to write a CV. You will have to change this CV every time you apply for a different type of job. You will have to write cover letters. You will never know what the best thing to put in these is.

Most of the next few months will be spent in uncertainty. You will never know exactly which jobs to apply for. You will never know if you actually are qualified or experienced enough to do them. You will never know if they're not hiring you because you're not able to do the job or if you're just not showing the right things in your applications. You will never know exactly what each one is looking for.

You will try desparately to do something new, something different, just to put on your CV. You will never know if this helps.

You will have considered the fact that unemployment is going through the roof. That there are fewer and fewer jobs available and that you are looking at things in a highly competitive area. It will still surprise you how difficult it is to find anything.

You will not know if you are applying for the right things. Somewhere along the line you will realise that you have no idea exactly what it is you want to do. You will apply for some strange jobs that you hope you never hear back from. Sometimes you will just want anything even vaguely related to what you like doing. Sometimes you will be picky and only look at jobs you are sure will be good, even though you will be massively inexperienced/underqualified to do them.

You will be tired. All the time. You will be tired of living at home. You will be tired of never doing anything. You will be tired of applications. You will be tired of jobsites. You will be tired of CVs. You will be tired of answering stupid questions without knowing what the answer is.

It will be monstrously depressing and unbearably boring, without stop, for months.
And you will not know if you are ever going to get anywhere.

You will, however, know one thing.

You won't want to go back to university."

New Years Resolutions 2011 (Or: Holy Shit it's 2011 Already!)

Holy shit it's 2011 already. I'm sure if someone asked me when I was a kid what I'd be doing by this point my answer would have been something like "living on the moon" or "being a super-rich crimefighter with his own robot best friend" or "dead".

But like everyone who isn't getting Natalie Portman pregnant I feel I have let down my inner child. Well I will stand for that no more. 2011 is the year I will clean my act up. This year I vow to do the following:

• Get an actual job - This is priority number 1. I will keep applying and keep practicing interview skills so I don't come off like a gibbering retard until I finally start a job that I am actually willing to get up in the morning and do.
• Find an awesome place to live - Everyone has to move out of their parents house sometime, and I've already done it twice. Once I get a job I can find somewhere awesome in that area and then hopefully third time will be the charm.
• Actually learn to play one of the two guitars I now own - Yeah...this doesn't require any further explanation. I'm just lazy.
• Write something proper that can actually be published in some form - I have the ideas, I have the skill, I have the motivation and I enjoy doing it. Why the hell have I not done anything significant with this yet? 
• Write more Shame About the Video posts - OK, I think my Christmas excuse is used up now. Time to actually start writing some things, and actually trying to keep this running regular posts. Then it can gain readers and can branch out and grow. 
• Grow all my hair back
• Get over my unhealthy obsession with Natalie Portman - She has a person inside her now. Black Swan is the final hurrah. Then it's time to accept that it's never going to happen and move on. 
• Start a band - After four unsuccessful years I have a good feeling that 2011 will see my musical debut.
• Buy the "Friends" boxset - It's time.
• Get over my unhealthy obsession with Friends - It's time.
• Continue my totally healthy obsession with Mad Men
• Blog more about Mad Men
• Make people watch Mad Men
• Reinvent myself as a cross between Don Draper and Hank Moody - Only with less sex because otherwise Emily will hurt me...
• Go and live in a foreign country again - That was fun and I think people are getting tired of me always bringing up Hong Kong in casual conversation 
• Continue wild experimentation with facial hair/not being bothered to shave
• Reinvent myself again as a cross between Chuck Klosterman and Chris Nolan - Because your influences should probably be real people...
• Make/Find enough money to not have to stare at the prices of a bottle of whisky in the shop looking for the cheapest one. - Because if you're just going to pick out Jack Daniels anyway, at least stop feeling bad about it.
• Delete Facebook - Yeah right...
• Blog about more interesting stuff and less self-involved whining.

Looks like I have a busy, busy year ahead of me.

Oh, one more:

• Stop trying to do things three weeks too late.

Shit.

5 minute poem #1 - Anticipation

We are tiny,
We are nothing,
They wait for us.

We are clueless,
We are hungry,
We wait for them to show us.

We are lonely,
We are angry,
We wait for them to care.

We are confused,
We are stupid,
We wait for nothing.

We are lost,
We are helpless,
We wait for anything.

We are trapped,
We are tired,
We wait for something new.

We are still,
We are quiet,
We wait for something more.

We are old,
We are nothing,
We wait for life to start.

Sometimes I realise that I really am very lazy.

I can't do this:



Or this:




























Or this:





























Or this:




Or this:




Or this:

But I will never have a good reason why.