Youth unemployment

I wrote an essay on youth unemployment (for one of my degree modules) the other day and it was quite depressing. I'm currently nearing the end of my degree, I've got a few more weeks left of lectures and seminars and then that's it, exams, graduation and I'm done. I'm at the third best university in the country, am on track for a 2:1, and yet I'm pretty sure when I'm finished here my employment prospects won't be much better than most.*

However, I'm doing so much work at the moment, it's very stressful and I feel like I never really escape working. Obviously sometimes I may go out, maybe watch a bit of TV and just slob out for a while; but there's a horrible guilty feeling I get when I don't spend my time working. It's made worse by the constant news stories on youth unemployment, they just totally demotivate me. (I feel like I should cut bit chunks of my essay for you all to read, but that would be quite odd, (and I probably wouldn't appreciate any criticism on an essay I've already handed in). )

The constant news stories and blogs on youth unemployment are slowly getting to me, I'm really worried about what I'm going to do when I'm finished with all this studying lark. It's getting to that point of the year where everyone is doing the "what are you doing when you finish?" chat, and everyone sounds so miserable, most people I've spoken to are hoping they can find a job at home, whilst fully acknowledging that they'll probably end up working for minimum wage and living with their parents to try and save up. It's a reality that a large majority of us are only now really coming to terms with.

I'm not at all 'bashing' jobs that pay the National Minimum Wage here, I'm just highlighting that we all went away to uni so we didn't have to end up on the NMW. Going to uni and getting into thousands of pounds of debt, only to get your degree and still live with your rents whilst you pull pints (if you're lucky) is not what any of us expected. I just feel a bit cheated, that's all. My school, sixth form and parents constantly pushed this idea that if I got a degree then it'd be so much easier for me to get a well-paid job, and here I am, 2011, worrying I won't even be able to get a job that pays the NMW, it's just ridiculous, demotivating and depressing.


* I'm aware of the presumptuousness of it all, but I do think it's quite necessary.

Defending things.

I get very tired of defending things, I can see why people tend to sit on the fence rather a lot. There's no defending any particular point of view, there's no arguing, you can see both sides, it's all plain and lovely on the elevation that is 'the fence'.

I however, am not a fence-sitter*, pretty much never do I place my arse on the Lib Dem fence. Annoyingly, actually making up your mind about something comes with issues, as once you pick your side you have to stay there (could make another 'lol the Lib Dems' comment, but two in one paragraph is just distasteful to be honest). This 'side' that you pick will then be a source of great annoyance, as everyone ever will blame you for things because you're a representative of that 'side'. Pah.

Occasionally you'll be the only person of this 'side' in a group of people, and suddenly everyone is Mr/Ms. Inquisitive. Urgh.

I always seem to get "So you're a [insert group-type here], right? What do you think of [insert random thing that said group has done that was 'bad' or something the 'crazies' of that group think]?" ALL THE TIME. It's like people think I'm a walking manifesto of what a specific group of people think. People also seem to assume that I'm just going to blindly support something that one person in a group has said, it's ridiculous. I'm only one person, not the collective thought of a huge, diverse group of people.

After a while you get sick of hearing the similar list of arguments (e.g. 'You're a feminist so you hate men (/must be a lesbian), right?', 'You're a Labour Party supporter, but what about the Iraq War/immigrants/the recession/tuition fees and higher ed etc?'). Genuinely drives me potty. I'm relatively calm with people in debates, which is working well for the groups I've attached myself to (be grateful, feminists. I defend feminism a lot).

I have no problem with people asking me questions, that's not what I'm complaining about here. I'm complaining about people making me a spokesperson for that group of people. People shouldn't be so gullible to believe that just because you subscribe to a particular group, you automatically subscribe to all the views of said group.

And if anyone comes back to me with 'well if you don't support [insert a singular thing the group has done], then why do you support them?' Please go away, that's an awful response to this whole post and you have no real approach to life.

*I will mention, the only time I am a fence-sitter is during discussions on religion. This is because I'm an agnostic, the ultimate fence-sitter.

Labour vs Conservative

I finally, FINALLY, told my Dad that I am a Labour supporter. This is really deserving of a whole blog post by the way. The reason this is a big deal is because my Dad is Tory voter (along with the rest of my Dad's side of the family). I KNOW, RIGHT?

I've been slightly scared of telling him for a while (and not because he'll cast me out of the family and make me walk into the Irish Sea, he's not mental.) My reasoning is, once you side yourself with a group, you then become the "go to person" for the opinion of said group... and basically, I really don't want that effort when I'm at home. Really, I don't. I know I'm an argumentative shit, but I don't want a debate when I'm in my jammies lounging around watching the news.

Part of me thinks he may have already known, maybe...probably not. I still have his "why you always going on about that equality?" line in my head. Absolute classic.

However, I'm pretty sure I dodged a bullet by combining the "I'm a Labour supporter" speech with the "I have an internship" speech. Smart move.


This will basically be my life at home from now on.