On Being Unemployed

An elephant that appeared next to our van!

The past six months have been absolutely jam packed with craziness - I went to South Africa in September to do chemistry and science workshops with school kids in Durban and Mafeking, and then I returned to Swansea and (finally) finished my thesis! I defended it at the end of November, submitted the final version in December and came back to Canada just in time for Christmas (literally - I arrived at 1:00 AM on Christmas Eve!). I also fit in Canadian/International Thanksgiving (4 years running now!), a trip up to Scotland to see some friends, and a trip to the Yorkshire Dales before coming home again. Since coming home I've been in full on 'family catch up' mode, with trips to Victoria, Saskatoon, Red Deer and Connecticut all crammed into a few weeks so that I could see everyone I've missed so much while I've been living in Wales. 

So while the last few months have been absolutely manic, they've also been amazing and lovely and satisfying, and I'm grateful for (almost) every moment.

I came home at Christmas to stay with my parents while looking for work, and if I'm completely honest, this was not a position I ever wanted to be in. Don't get me wrong - I love my parents, very much, but I stopped coming home for more than a 2 to 3 week visit after my second year of university, and I never really planned on having that change. I like my independence too much. But now I've been here for two months, the travelling family commitments have finished, and I'm left sitting at my desk and realising just how very unemployed I am.  

I thought I would enjoy this freedom - after...13 years of being a university student, surely I would enjoy this commitment-free time? No deadlines, no constant guilty feelings over work I could (should) be doing, no meetings...I expected it to be like a little holiday, catching up with friends and family and while I looked for jobs and maybe made got a job at Starbucks or something, to keep me financially afloat in the interim.

False. The thing is, most people are employed, which means they don't have the day to catch up and have coffee all the time. Obviously. And it's not easy to get a job at Starbucks if you're going to be travelling constantly - it makes the quickie job a wee bit pointless. And the job hunt, which I (very) naively thought would maybe take a month or two, has become probably one of the most discouraging, depressing times of my life.

Mini canyon near Rorke's Drift

I am generally a happy person; I don't get stressed, and I try to be cheerful and think positively about life. I've also been extremely lucky in that I haven't really had any major life setbacks or hardships to fight through to get me down. I have a great family, great friends, a fantastic boyfriend... I've worked hard to get to where I am, but I'm finding that it's just not enough - employers want experience as well as education, and I just don't have that. And the overwhelming guilt of research and homework has now been replaced by the desperation to find a job - any job - just so I don't end up with a massive gap on my CV. I cried when I got my first rejection letter, and even as it happened I realised how ridiculous I was being. Who gets a job in a week?! A month? There's bound to be rejection, and lots of it, and I was being ridiculous to think otherwise. 

Isle of Arran, Scotland

The worst part is feeling like a failure. Now I've failed things before - many times, actually - and I'm a firm believer that failure is necessary and makes us stronger. But this time it's just getting to me. I feel like everyone who knows me must be thinking that there's something wrong with me to not have found a job yet, and it drives me insane, even though everyone has been beyond understanding and encouraging about it all. I feel like I'm freeloading, leeching off my parents by still being here and not working. I want so much to find something, to prove that I can do something worthwhile, that all this effort and schooling wasn't pointless! But really I just feel lost, adrift in this massive world of opportunity without any sense of purpose, and no end in sight.

Limestone Pavements, Malham, Yorkshire

So this week I've changed things up in an effort to get out of this wallowing pity party I've been throwing myself. I started the week with a smoothie cleanse, recommended to me by a friend, and I lost 6 lbs! I signed up at the YMCA for the trial sessions and I've been running, just so I can make sure I'm being active in some way, every day. And I've decided to schedule my job searching - give myself time frames and mini-goals to make it all seem more achievable and less daunting and discouraging. This way, I am still looking for jobs, but I've also scheduled time to work on some papers, and on a distance course for proofreading and copy editing, which will hopefully keep my brain active. And I'm praying. Lots and lots, if I'm honest, that the right job comes along and that I don't miss it, and for patience, because I have never been the most patient of people when it comes to future plans, and I hate feeling like my future is just a giant question mark.

Brimham Rocks, Yorkshire

I'm not sure how that's going to work out yet, but I will say that so far I'm feeling happier than I have been since getting home, so hopefully that will continue, and hopefully a job will come up soon!

X

PS - you may have noticed that the blog has reverted back to 'eager feet' - after a brief identity crisis, I realised that eager feet is actually a far more fitting title, given my life and what I like to post here. So it's back to stay, along with some photos from my travels over the past few years. The only one that didn't fit in was this one, from my trip to Victoria. The west coast of Canada makes my heart happy - this photo was taken on a particularly happy day this month :)

En route to Qualicum Beach, British Columbia