Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Realising reality...

I'm currently taking about 20 minutes out of intense revision mid-finals to write this as a method of catharsis.

So what's up? Well I came home to really concentrate on my revision, heck being at university is just a world of procrastination (and all those who have been there I'm sure you can agree!).  Home, on the other hand, is just a world full of solitary confinement - or is if you're me.  So, there I was, head in my hands going over why oxytocin might or might not be a facilitator for human mating, enhancement of social recognition or inhibition of fear to allow the opposite sex to mount you (pleasant), and why this pair bonding cannot propagate minus the inherent role of the dopaminergic reward system, when I noticed an email.  It was let another listless attempt of the Graduate Recruitment Bureau (GRB) trying to get me to apply for yet another job, another job away from this clapped out region.  And so I looked at the details.  "Good interaction skills? (tick), good interview skills? (tick), analytical thinking (well I did get an A in Critical Thinking AS-so, tick), confidence in stats? (errmmm...well not really-cross), experience in the medical/pharmecutical area (cross)...If you tick all the boxes please send your C.V. to....".  Foiled yet again by the dreaded 'experience'. Thank you again GRB for sending yet another useless advert my way.  But it got me thinking.  I've been part of this website thing for 2 months now and yet have I been advertised a job in the region I actually selected? No.  In fact if I hadn't carelessly ticked every box and ever profession I probably would have been thinking that the GRB hadn't got my email correct despite doing the obligatory 'confirm your email' nonsense.  So it dawns on me, the only real way I'm going to be able to get a good career is by moving.

And here's the complication.  My mother.

She walks by my door and so I shout that I've been looking up a job.  "Oooh" she says, "sounds good, where at?" Me: "London", Her "Oh no you can't go there, you have to stay here, look for jobs around here, it's no good moving, you can't afford it".  And there slams the biggest door in my life.  They always tell you in secondary school etc "Oh you can't drop this subject, you'll be shutting doors". Well, hello big door slam.  Cos in one sentence my mother had completely and firmly closed the case on me actually getting a job, with money, with prospects, with an independent life.  And so I sit here thinking: how people laugh that she has to do my washing when I'm at uni; I get angry that she still gives me 'pocket money' when I've been earning my own money for the last 3 years by going from job to job; that I still need to tell her where I'm going and ask her permission to leave; to come back for meals; to have to rely on her cos she hasn't bothered teaching me the appropriate life skills; that I can't do this cos 'ooohh that's a bad idea' or 'you don't want to do that'. And I just got sick.  I don't want to be told that I can't do this or I can't do that.  I'm actually an adult.  An adult that can drink alcohol, get married, get a tattoo, have a family (if I wished), drive a HGV, a fork lift truck. Anything I wanted I can actually do (weeelll I can't become Prime Minister, but then who would want to become the country's most hated person?).  So why am I still stuck here, living in a 20 minute radius?

Cos of my mother.  Just FML.