This is getting ridiculous. In May 2008 I finished university with a degree in English; I'm a sodding Bachelor of Arts with arsing honours, goddamnit. Of course, I made the spectacular mistake of taking the following Summer OFF after three years of hard slog, and by the time I got around to applying for jobs in August, we were already ankle-deep in the recession. It's now February 2010, and I remain jobless.
Call me naive, but when the lecturers boldly informed us that a degree (especially one in something as broad as English) takes you anywhere, opens doors, guarantees good work, I believed them. And I am SERIOUSLY cynical. That's not why I did the degree, I went to university because I wanted to improve my mind and because literature is a huge passion of mine. But I did think that, at the very least, having a degree would give me some kind of edge in the world of working.
Apparently not. In all the time that I've been painstakingly applying since uni, I've have a grand total of ZERO interviews, and barely any letters of acknowledgement. In fact I'm now at the stage where getting a rejection letter makes me HAPPY that somebody CARES.
Okay, so my CV isn't massively impressive. I've been working since I was 17, but not in your average line of work. Since then I've been writing for and occasionally running several music magazines and e-zines, working as a freelance journalist within quite a specific genre of the media, therefore I've never been PAID to work. Except for during the summer of 2002 when I cleaned boats at the local marina for £5 an hour on weekends.
In the last year I've done an internship at a local magazine and written for them too, but according to most companies, unpaid experience doesn't count for much. How little sense does that make? Surely doing all of this for FREE shows that I'm doing it out of a labour of love and therefore give a damn? This is why unpaid writers are ALWAYS better than the paid ones, they don't do it just for the job, they do it out of passion. A flick through Classic Rock magazine always disgusts me because I can do so much better than 99% of them.
There is, of course, my incredibly picky nature that will not allow me to do just ANY job. I've been looking at office work because it's shit I can DO; I've been an unofficial secretary and administrator for my parents' company for years, on top of other bits and pieces. But that shouldn't be so hard, should it? I can't even do retail because I have no experience, and that just depresses me. How can I get experience if nobody will give me a job? It is, as they say, a vicious cycle.
But I have this two year plan and I will be deeply pissed off if it doesn't happen.
1. Get a local job and save like a motherlover. Unless it's VERY local, travel costs will eat into that of course, and giving a bit of rent to my parents every month, but I should be able to scrape together a few grand as a good solid financial cushion.
2. Quit said job and move to Birmingham for better job, moving out to get my own flat in the process. GOD I want to live on my own... I know it'll be expensive, I know it'll be a struggle, but just to live alone for a LITTLE while would be bliss. I need that chance.
After this plan I intend to have a job I LIKE in the city, publishing or writing or something I'm really good and and enjoy. Maybe even have a boyfriend and a dog; stranger things have happened.
So, the economy had better get off its arse and give me a shot, because I'm getting SNIPPY now.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Friday, 12 February 2010
Brits '10
Oh, The Brits. Remember when we were proud of our music award ceremonies? It's becoming a brief glimmer in the distance, awash within a leaking sewer among the other media turds.
2010 is shaping up to be a particularly bleak year. Music is quite probably the most important thing in my life, and quite frankly the Brits make me ashamed to BE one. Why has nobody stopped to ponder the freak accident that has led JLS to be nominated for three nominations? My only condolance for them being nominated for Best Group is the the word 'group' and not 'band' is used.
The latter is thrown around the world of pop as if it has lost all meaning - well it HAS NOT. A BAND is a collective of peoples with musical ability, instrumental and vocal skills, and the cognitive strength to actually write the noise they're pumping out. The mainstream band ratio is a dispairingly minimal piece of the popular music pie.
Pixie Lott - now what on earth is the point? She's, what, twelve years old, peroxided to within an inch of her life, omni-semi-nude, and, honestly, I can only feel sorry for her really, because it's all been done a thousand times - mostly within the last five years. I have no desire to even attempt to count the swelling, crushing volume of tweenie female solo singers there has been popping in and out of the charts just for year-long (at most) limelight, during which they join in with the Buzzcocks panel to be the token giggling bimbo who doesn't realise she's the butt of the joke, and six months later as part of the identity parade.
The sad thing about most of them is that they think they're black. It's not the 50's, black people can and do sing, and are generally a hell of a lot better than the dribbling queue of blondes dressed like they're in Heartbeat and sounding as if they have sinus issues. I'm looking at you, Duffy.
Even Lily Allen is all over the nominations this year. When is everybody going to get as bored of her as I was on the first listen? At least she was reasonably original at the time, and her lyrics can occasionally be witty, but it's done now. She got a fresh lease of life just because she lost some weight and ditched the trainers/prom dress combo - so what? She's a gobby cow and I applaud that, but she's just not that great.
How needy do the misguided and desperate folks who create the nominations lists have to be to have Florence and The Machine in the Best Female Solo Artist section when FATM is a band? That's BAFFLING more than anything else. JLS alongside Muse, Eminem next to Springsteen - am I even more aged of mind that is oft speculated?
ROBBIE WILLIAMS receiving the Outstanding Contribution Award... Honestly, what is the world coming to?
Well, I have a few album recommendations of my own, for anybody whose hope in new music is waning - the good stuff's still there, you just have to sift through the scrattocks first:
Stone Gods - Silver Spoons and Broken Bones (2008)
Muse - Resistance (2009)
Parlor Mob - And You Were a Crow (2009)
Travis - Ode to J. Smith (2008)
Streebeck - Catch as Catch Can (2009)
Plugging fine music feels GOOD.
2010 is shaping up to be a particularly bleak year. Music is quite probably the most important thing in my life, and quite frankly the Brits make me ashamed to BE one. Why has nobody stopped to ponder the freak accident that has led JLS to be nominated for three nominations? My only condolance for them being nominated for Best Group is the the word 'group' and not 'band' is used.
The latter is thrown around the world of pop as if it has lost all meaning - well it HAS NOT. A BAND is a collective of peoples with musical ability, instrumental and vocal skills, and the cognitive strength to actually write the noise they're pumping out. The mainstream band ratio is a dispairingly minimal piece of the popular music pie.
Pixie Lott - now what on earth is the point? She's, what, twelve years old, peroxided to within an inch of her life, omni-semi-nude, and, honestly, I can only feel sorry for her really, because it's all been done a thousand times - mostly within the last five years. I have no desire to even attempt to count the swelling, crushing volume of tweenie female solo singers there has been popping in and out of the charts just for year-long (at most) limelight, during which they join in with the Buzzcocks panel to be the token giggling bimbo who doesn't realise she's the butt of the joke, and six months later as part of the identity parade.
The sad thing about most of them is that they think they're black. It's not the 50's, black people can and do sing, and are generally a hell of a lot better than the dribbling queue of blondes dressed like they're in Heartbeat and sounding as if they have sinus issues. I'm looking at you, Duffy.
Even Lily Allen is all over the nominations this year. When is everybody going to get as bored of her as I was on the first listen? At least she was reasonably original at the time, and her lyrics can occasionally be witty, but it's done now. She got a fresh lease of life just because she lost some weight and ditched the trainers/prom dress combo - so what? She's a gobby cow and I applaud that, but she's just not that great.
How needy do the misguided and desperate folks who create the nominations lists have to be to have Florence and The Machine in the Best Female Solo Artist section when FATM is a band? That's BAFFLING more than anything else. JLS alongside Muse, Eminem next to Springsteen - am I even more aged of mind that is oft speculated?
ROBBIE WILLIAMS receiving the Outstanding Contribution Award... Honestly, what is the world coming to?
Well, I have a few album recommendations of my own, for anybody whose hope in new music is waning - the good stuff's still there, you just have to sift through the scrattocks first:
Stone Gods - Silver Spoons and Broken Bones (2008)
Muse - Resistance (2009)
Parlor Mob - And You Were a Crow (2009)
Travis - Ode to J. Smith (2008)
Streebeck - Catch as Catch Can (2009)
Plugging fine music feels GOOD.
Introduction
iRant. A lot. To the extent that my friends and family are inches away from silencing me with a stale baguette in whatever manner they see fit, so following the blazing trail of all the worst kind of despicable, opinionated, abhorrant folk the public pretend to hate, I choose to express my assumptions, conclusions and occasionally consumptions on the internet. Shame on me.
It's not as if I expect anybody to READ the foul-smelling clots that spew forth from my repugnant mind, but it's human nature to want to vent, and being a cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity (i.e. a blogger) I shall do this publicly.
I suppose I should proffer a brief 'about me'. I'm a female in her early 20's with the cynicism of Oscar Wilde. Also the wit. And the love of homosexual men. And of food. Like Oscar, I'm also tall and brunette, though not nearly as graceful, stylish, or scandalous. But I do look better in corsetry.
What can be expected of my blog space is everything I have nowhere else to say, or have already said but not as eloquently as I wished at the time. It's all very well to carefully plan a speech about the evils of religion; it's when people start asking stumping questions that you can't think of an intelligent response until you're very drunk and half asleep at the weekend. Strange how that occurs.
Feel free to hate me, it's only the internet.
iRant.
It's not as if I expect anybody to READ the foul-smelling clots that spew forth from my repugnant mind, but it's human nature to want to vent, and being a cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity (i.e. a blogger) I shall do this publicly.
I suppose I should proffer a brief 'about me'. I'm a female in her early 20's with the cynicism of Oscar Wilde. Also the wit. And the love of homosexual men. And of food. Like Oscar, I'm also tall and brunette, though not nearly as graceful, stylish, or scandalous. But I do look better in corsetry.
What can be expected of my blog space is everything I have nowhere else to say, or have already said but not as eloquently as I wished at the time. It's all very well to carefully plan a speech about the evils of religion; it's when people start asking stumping questions that you can't think of an intelligent response until you're very drunk and half asleep at the weekend. Strange how that occurs.
Feel free to hate me, it's only the internet.
iRant.
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