07/11/2013

Gather round spam commenters, and the few select individuals who actually come here to read my ramblings and who aren’t just relentlessly trying to encourage me to buy a Zune, I have a story. When I was four I began the long, seemingly endless time-suck that is education. It didn’t start out too well. I don’t remember much about my first primary school, I only have two memories as evidence that I actually attended. Firstly, being covered in tinsel (that autocorrected to ‘tonsils’ and now I have a horrific image in my head) and drawing a picture of a dinosaur on a bus in purple crayon. Secondly, being chased by two older boys through the playground, glancing back to see if they were still after me, facing forward and running face-first into a brick wall. Which is why I don’t mind having slightly unruly eyebrows because they cover the scar up. Plus massive eyebrows are a method of peacocking, right?

After my nan threatened to sue the school - she’s like that - I was moved to a Church of England school. There was a lot of praying, a lot of hymns and a lot of going to church. There was also sticking candles in oranges covered in dolly mixtures, but I can’t remember what that was about. Chris-someone. Chris Pringles? I don’t know, nor I assume, do you. Anyway, the highlights of the six or seven years I spent there were probably: becoming a House Captain for the summer term (which was the longest and hence best term, duh) and being one of only two students in my English class to get a Level 5. I should mention my friend Rosy was the other one otherwise I think she’ll stab me with a pencil. Those grades may also be why we are now unemployed ~*~writers~*~.

I then moved up to high school where I was placed in a class that was either/both the bottom class of the first tier or the top class of the second tier. Either way, I had escaped being in a class where I would probably be set on fire by my peers because I looked at them funny, so it was okay. Although, my class was a bit of a mixture of people; there were those of us who were ‘nerds’ and those who were not. Those who were not smoked out of the class window at the age of eleven and locked teachers in closets when they went in there to cry. I was not one of those kids. I did knock a window out of the wall of a classroom one time though. Year Seven, 2003; the year of Sibby’s rebellion.

We moved to the upper building for years nine through to eleven. Those are the years that are surprisingly even more patchy in my memory. Although, I do vividly remember some of the antics and they often cause me to grimace. I was a nerdy, chubby, ginger, chronic emo kid who was completely unsure of how to function in any situation or on any level. Times was ‘ard. Except in the eyeliner or anything-with-skulls-on-it business. Emo: socially harmful, economically wonderful.

By the time I left school, I had somehow passed all my GCSEs and I couldn’t be bothered to do anything other than use them to get into the Sixth Form that was also at the school. So, I spent two extra years at high school studying English Language, History and RE & Philosophy. Smart move. I also did Psychology but failed the first year as it required getting a bus to another location and I wasn’t into that. This time is a blur of essays about Aristotle and Nietzsche, of auxiliary verbs and Noam Chomsky (which I repeatedly pronounced “Chomp-ski” but no one ever corrected me) and of developing an even closer relationship with vodka.

I got three A-Levels in the end, they aren’t great but they got me into Leeds Met to do a degree in English and History. Which I did not do because it sounded incredibly boring. I went to the Hull School of Art & Design to do a Foundation Degree in Digital Media Journalism instead. I think I could have slid that picture of a dinosaur on a bus I drew when I was four across the desk to the guy instead of my qualifications and gotten in since I think only about ten people applied. At some point, I’m not sure when, the Foundation Degree in Digital Media Journalism turned into a (BA)Hons in Interactive Media. And now I have one of those.

That brings us to today. I left education five months ago and guess what I’ve been doing with all those qualifications since? Nuffin.

Ever since I let the structure fall away everything has collapsed because well, that’s what happens. You see, the entire point of this long-winded ‘Sibby’s Educational-History’ lesson is that I have been in education since I was four. Since 1996. Seventeen years ago. And now I am not. So I’ve been having a teeny-tiny existential crisis.

I started off well; I applied for jobs and I was resilient when I received no replies to those jobs. Any of those jobs. Except for one unpaid internship in London in Social Media Marketting that I couldn’t afford to go to. I went on JSA (read: relinquished all dignity) but got my Freelance Short Post Writer work, so it still wasn’t all that bad. As time went on basically everything in my life started to fall apart, and the more self-depricating, self-loathing part of my psyche started to claw it’s way out and weave it’s way through the crevices of my brain. A slightly softer version of my mind for the last four months would be something like this:

Why did I follow this stupid writer dream? I suck. I don’t even write that much. I might as well have been born a fish. I write just about as much as a fish. A fish could write better than I can. I’ve barely even started this life thing and I already want to give up; I should just spend the rest of my time staring into the dark abyss, stopping only to occasionally try to gnaw my hands off out of spite.

Long story short, I eventually went to the doctors and got help. Again. I began to think that this may be a turning point, I will see sense and understand. This borderline europhoric feeling, particularly in contrast with how I had felt before, lasted for all of about three seconds. I let myself wander into the section of my mind marked “Reality: The Future and Responsibilities”. I should not have gone there: It’s the worst place ever.

So far, my life plan - which I wrote on the back of a Subway sandwich wrapper five months ago - is as follows:

• Get a job.

• Try not to die.

It’s not going well. Where do these people who have their lives together get their motivation and direction from? I have literally no idea what I want to do. I just flail about like an idiot, drowning in a puddle, without ever putting any real effort in.

Do any of you fancy moving to Amsterdam with a depressed-writer cliche? Because I am completely up for that. I’ll work in a cafe and sell articles and you can [insert what you want to do here]. I’m annoying as Hell and I will always ask you to bring home cookie dough, but it could work out? Heeeeelp meeeee.