– “What are you going to do now?” “I was planning on going upstairs”-
At present. Dissolving into a quiet, at times, self induced mania- frump- darkness. Let’s unpack this loaded, erring on the side of hyperbole, grand old statement.
It’s that time.
The time to start thinking about looking for a job. Fine. The time to start looking for a job. The time to start thinking about applying for a job. Geez. The time to apply for a job. The time to get a job right now-, thank you very much because, the parents have sunk so much money into this little investment- to prove to them and myself but mostly them, ehh, mostly to myself, that I can do this- to bridge that void, that great big gaping chasm, where needles and drugs and worse, pity swirl in a mass of black disappointment and failure, cackling at the bottom.
The pre- void darkness cacoon has been pleasant, I even chose to weave extra layers, defensive layers. I came to the end of my bachelors and promptly rolled on to a Masters (capital letter M?). Thou shalt know a bachelor is so passé, everyone’s doing them these days. Far too eligible.
Numbered cacoon days.
The months are numbered in my cacoon. 8 months to be precise. I’m sitting in class but that’s it. I am physically here, but emotionally, mentally, dramatically, have transcended and am here with you. Raving. Instead of learning, because that’s not going to help me in my job acquisition, I’m ploughing through google using buzzwords to find my kill, but my kill is fast, and being hunted by thousands of other near mania hunters.
The militia.
We are a militia, mercenaries . The great horde of brilliant young minds that need wealthy benefactors, the biggest of big cheeses. Swarming to where the honey is sweetest, where the gold shines to blind, where the cream floats to the top, reeking of decadence. Oh Business with your beautiful website [“See Gerald, sinking all that capital into web development instead of your stupid R&D project was worthwhile, look at all the graduates clamouring, look, it’s pool of perfect pernickety panic”].
My skills are multitasking, team work and analysis.
Let’s take our shaky skills and brimming optimism, channeling, modifying, so that we may ‘add value’ and earn gold. We’ll deconstruct the market with all our models, ideologies. Employers you must strike now, harness the ignorance, before we realise that faith, family, sleep and just humanity might just satisfy and that all that gold is just swallowed by the family’s golden retriever.
‘Marketing’, ‘internship’, ‘journalism’. They are typed out with frantic peppered insistency. Ratt-a-tatt-clickity-clack, bullets that may have my bread and butter, my high and mighty shelter, my health and well-being in their meandering trajectories. I go forth in lilting bursts, an enthusiastic one day, despondent the next, donkey, clambering towards the day at the races, for I so desperately want to win some carrots so I can grow big and strong and vindicate all the pats over the years- all the “such a promising race ahead of you”. To edify the beating heart and charismatic charms.
Whether you’re a mercenary or a big cheese. What times we live in.
– It must now be go forth and gold-
a.
but for this brief reprieve, 