It's been a little quiet here on my end. Mainly because the last few weeks have consisted of the same activities - working and loafing. The job at GAME is going fine, although it's fair to say that I've pretty much gained everything I can from the job already (not exactly a surprise). The staff there are a good bunch though, which helps to burn the shifts quite nicely. It's hardly a surprise that they're all massively into their gaming and they've been persuading me to get an Xbox LIVE Gold account, which I would give serious consideration to if I wasn't completely broke and wanted to give away any more of my free time to doing, effectively, naff all. Just getting the subscription and games to play with them would probably set me back over £60, and that's including the 25% staff discount I'd get for buying in my own store. Not pretty, not pretty at all.
They're my main issues, really - money and time. Currently the job is only providing me with a maximum of 12 hours work a week (aside from a blip of 36 hours a fortnight ago) at a pay rate of just under £6, which is just not enough to get me in a comfortable financial position at all, especially considering I hope to be renting sometime next year. It's pitiable. The job is temporary too (with a small chance of going permanent after the Christmas season), which provides me with no security - I have no idea how long I'll be sending off CVs and application forms after Christmas for new jobs. If you throw Christmas shopping into the mix, odds are I'll just be breaking even when I finish at GAME, which means that I'll be right back to square one in January, digging into my overdraft whilst I do another scramble for work. It's no wonder that people are driven into claiming benefits, the extreme cost of living is outpacing me fast. I don't understand how people can even run cars these days without selling their organs.
A job with hours these scarce leaves me with too much free time. In that way, I'm not very self-motivated. I try to keep a daily routine during days off work, such as buying papers, doing jobs around the house, but often this falls apart by my being unable to get out of bed early in the day. I do a few jobs to supplement my income and stave off boredom too, such as gardening work and shifting horse muck at my girlfriend's yard, but aside from that, I get a feeling that my free time is never put to the best use, and it's usually 9pm before I can even blink, with nothing to show for it.
I should be writing more to boost my skills, both with this blog and with short-stories and articles for my friend Dan's collaborative blog, SmallTimeBooks, of which I have currently submitted nothing. I should be looking into re-training - as a teacher, journalist or a skilled tradesman. I could even be getting back into my drawing. Instead, I just tend to get overwhelmed by the wealth of time and simply wallow in it, letting it swallow me whole. Every hour that ticks by without result means an opportunity lost.
A lot of the problem lies with indecision. I've never been one of those people who has a chosen calling in life, a vocation that they have striven for ever since they could walk and talk. I know friends of mine from school who wanted to become doctors, vets, dancers and performers at a young age - and have. I think having that sort of dedication at a young age is a good thing, one I wished I possessed. When young you have the chance to hone yourself into your chosen profession and really stand out when you leave full-time education. Back then, I was all over the place. The only time I ever really came close to being one of those 'dedicated' people was my brief flirtation with entomology (the study of invertebrates) which I would've pursued further if it wasn't for the dearth of courses in the UK and my terrible grasp of chemistry at A-level. I'm still fascinated by entomology today, but to pursue that route would mean too much re-training (effectively scrapping all that I've picked up in the past seven years) and more debt that I could sorely do without.
Even today I still don't have a real direction or focus. Maybe teaching? Friends of mine encourage me to try teaching, seeing as there is a real need for male primary teachers in the UK, but I've never been that attracted to teaching and it feels to me like an easy way out of really thinking my options through. You know the saying first penned by George Bernard Shaw, 'Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.' Well it never feels more relevant to me than now. Maybe journalism? This prospect seems more appealing to me than teaching, but it comes with it's own problems. I know I can write, but I don't know a great deal about the journalism industry and I feel that I may not grow to like it as I begin to understand how it truly functions.
Whatever my decision, I owe it to myself to pursue one of these directions and make it my sole dedication for the future. I have to work with what I've got, and I need to convince myself that I actually have more than most, despite my barrage of self-deprecating drivel.
In other news, my discontent with websites that I used to frequent, such as Facebook, has driven me to join two new camps which need no introduction: Twitter and Spotify. Twitter never used to make any sense to me, but nowadays it feels more relevant than FacebookFacebook seems to have trampled it to death, I believe, so I'm testing Twitter out before I jump ship, probably keeping Facebook to contact a few old friends from around the world. Spotify I've added as a compliment to last.fm, a social music website which I've been a member of for 5 years now. Spotify is a neat little application for music lovers, give it a try if you haven't already. And last.fm, too. They're free, and they don't gobble up all of your personal data like Facebook, so it can't hurt, right?
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