Well it doesn't take long for self-pity to set in. For me it took just over a week. Prior to that, if you count the broadcasting efforts of my subconscious and body. It seems that every day I hear of another teacher getting a job. I took down my happy convocation photo from my Facebook profile less than two days after the event so I don't have to think every day about whatever unattractive qualities I hold that deem me an unsuitable educator or think about why I don't receive any phonecalls for subbing even if I'm requested. Because as you can see I think about these things enough.

What's funny is that on Thursday, the day before my convocation, I didn't want a call to sub because I felt sick to my stomach. Daniel told me later that he thought I was sick because I was anxious about convocation and not having a job, or any prospects, at all. I reassured him that it was just a bug. But after a night of drinking and resolutions of just waitressing again this summer seeming as nothing else has panned out I can feel that pang in my stomach again today. Headache setting in. And this time I'm not going to deny it.

So I'll straighten the apartment, go for a bikeride, maybe go to the library, maybe try to find a job, you know, one that I can actually count on for money, since it's all about who you know, and I know a guy who works at some place who I'm pretty sure would hire me, maybe even on the spot, since the other guy I know doesn't think that other part-time solution will work out.

It's easier to think about how education is worth it (regardless of the [potential] job at the end) before you're the reason for mortgage pre-approvals to take three weeks instead of a few days and then for it to come back 50,000 shorter than you'd expected when your spouse has worked hard for the past six years to save up for it.

It will work out.

Don't worry.

God has something planned out for you.

I've heard all of these things from whatever family and friends I've managed to complain to. God better have something figured out, especially as I happen to make large life choices with a largely "toss of the coin" mentality, trusting that some larger force gives weight to heads or tails. Anyway, those expressions are always useless. Of course something will work out, sometime. That's just inevitable, not some blind and divine act of faith.

Anyway I'm not actually as depressed as this post makes it seem. We're wired to think that everything is always about me. Individual success, individual loss, individual struggle, individual pity. Like we think that that artist wrote that song about me. Instead I'd like to bleed my collective human self-pity with everyone else's, pooling whatever menial distresses we're encountering in some kind of bubbling STD-filled pot.

Well tell me what you want, I'm all ears.
I'll give you all I got, blood, sweat and tears.
Yeah tell me what you need and I'll do my job
And meet you in the middle like it's going out of style.

Chuck Ragan "Meet You in the Middle"