Female graduate seeks job...

I've read a couple of articles today in the Independent Newspaper and The Guardian about graduate job prospects.

Now, I graduated in 2012 with a good 2:1 in English which, let's face it, is a good 'all rounder' degree which would be beneficial for most graduate jobs out there...unless it's something particularly specialised like, for example, accounting (my maths is really bad) or medicine (all my medical training comes from watching Holby City).

The articles discuss several things: (1) Graduate employment prospects are flourishing; (2) the average starting salary is £29,000, and (3) of the 10,000 graduates who secured employment (which did not require a degree), 20,000 graduates were still unemployed.

Let's start with the average starting salary.  I can first-hand vouch that the starting salaries advertised for the graduate jobs in my surrounding area in the North West are NOT £29,000.  Great, if you live in London or not far from London, but I can confirm that that starting salary does not travel past the Watford Gap to graduate jobs in my neck of the woods.  You're looking at between £17,000 to £19,000 for a graduate job up here.  So, unless you're prepared to relocate then great, fantastic, go for it!  But, if like myself, you already have a mortgage or it's not possible relocate for whatever reason then you're a bit stuck.

Secondly, graduate prospects are flourishing.  Yes, they probably are, but there are so many of us going after these precious graduate jobs that competition is so fierce that employers are becoming even more selective about who they choose to interview, with an average of 46 applications per graduate job.  Part of the issue I have is that I was (and still am) a mature student.  I'm 38 and unlike many of my peers I've already had a career, as a legal secretary.  I don't mean that in a dismissive or derogatory sense but a large percentage of graduates are 21 or 22 fresh faced blank canvasses ready to be moulded into what employers are looking for.  I am an old pro at the working for a living caper and I'm probably be seen as over qualified and therefore too expensive to employ.  I'm not saying this is the case for every mature graduate out there, this is only the experience I've had.  I know, the 'transferable skills' I've accumulated over the years would benefit many of the jobs I apply for but sadly, these employers are not willing to find out.  It might also be that they just don't like what I write on my application forms, there is that.

Finally, graduate unemployment.  This is still a major problem, but not just for graduates, for everyone.  Whilst the demand for graduate jobs is on the increase it can quite easily be applied to the job market in general. For the jobs which are available, so many people are applying for them that it doesn't matter whether you have a degree or not, you're up against stiff competition from every single person who applies for that job.

We are still in a time of severe austerity...though, I had to laugh when George Osborne said in his Spending Review last week, that the rich people in this country have been hardest hit. Really George, are you sure about that??

As I said earlier, I'm still a mature student I went straight into a Masters degree after I finished my undergraduate degree, and I graduate (hopefully, you never know, my dissertation could end up being a complete car crash) in December.  I'm also applying to study for a Phd starting this September (fingers crossed).  All this studying though needs paying for.  Sadly I don't have the looks or the body to take my clothes off for money (though a good friend of mine did once tell me I was a niche market, so I might have to reconsider that option), so I need to find gainful employment to be able to pay for my education.  I'm happy to return to being a legal secretary to pay for it all, but because I refuse to omit part of my education from my C.V. so as not to appear over qualified, I'll just have to keep going until I'm the only person suitable for the job.

Let them eat cake...

With the advent of summer looming in the distance...very far in the distance, EHarmony are now advertising their services with smiley women who have shiny hair and perfect teeth, chatting away about how EHarmony is their spiritual twin. It just knows the perfect match for them and emails over the details of each potential partner picked to perfection, 'Who would want to be alone during the summer eh., not much fun walking along the beach looking at a beautiful sunset on your own is it?' is what they're saying if you read between the lines.

A friend asked me the other night if I'd tried EHarmony (I am currently single and have been for a while)...
Me: 'I can't afford to date.  If EHarmony were a supermarket it would be Waitrose, all ambient lighting and bespoke bread buns. I am like Lidl, stack it high and sell it cheap with unflattering strip lighting.'

But wait, maybe Samantha Brick has a point, if I were thinner I would be more successful at dating and have all the bespoke bread buns I could fit into my basket. No.  If I were to believe Samantha Brick's claims that being fat is actually a failure of life then I'd never leave the house.

I am fat. You can call it curvy, voluptuous, womanly or whatever, the truth of it is, I am overweight. I have a plentiful rump which is all bought and paid for courtesy of Cadbury's and I have a stomach which has never been flat nor never will be flat...apart from when I lie on my back and then my boobs drop under my armpits and I look like a partly deflated blow up doll with cellulite, only without the permanently shocked face.

I digress.

I read with interest Samantha Bricks' article in the Daily Mail the other day when she was waxing lyrical about how she sticks to 1000 calories a day and woe betide her if her husband sees the waistband of her skinny fit jeans digging in and the beginnings of a muffin top, all because she ate too many spuds with her Sunday dinner.  I'm sorry, but isn't that a) a bit sad; b) just wrong; and, c) sending women and the feminist movement hurtling back decades? Maybe it's because I'm a feminist that I find this abhorrent rubbish. I like being a woman and having the choice and freedom to eat what I like, when I like. When I say I'm a feminist it doesn't mean I'm going to chain myself to the front of the town hall or stand in front of the PCSO's bike (in the absence of a kings horse) for my right to eat slabs of battenberg. No, I am a feminist because I believe in women and the right for women to have the freedom of choice on how to live their lives and not have it dictated to them by a french man with a fear of muffin tops.

I don't class myself as a failure because I'm overweight, anything but. I am a success at what I do (and not just eating before you say anything!). I use my brain and in my book that makes me a damn sight more successful than whether I can squeeze myself into a 'bodycon' dress without looking like an over stuffed condom.

So I say, if you want to eat a box of chocolates watching Britain's Got Talent on a Saturday night after a hard week being you, then bloody do it.  That makes you a success story right there, not a failure.  Honestly, Samantha you're missing out here.

And as for dating, well what can I say. I may not be the EHarmony equivalent of a celebrity chef ready meal, I like to think I'm more successful as a Lidl tin of budget beans.  Men, please form an orderly queue.

Social media trollop seeks old fashioned romance. Apply within...

Hiya,

It's been a while dearest friend(s) since I last blogged. I know, all three of you will have missed me, I can tell.

I'd like to say that since July 2012 I have lived a life of excessive excitement. I would like to say that...but it hasn't.  It has, however, been six months of finding my groove in life and enjoying it.

Is it me or has Valentines Day come around far to quickly this year? It's the day after Ash Wednesday, so if you're giving chocolate up for lent (like me, amongst many other things) then you're screwed if you get given chocolates for Valentines Day...which I won't be, being a spinster of this parish.  You never know though Michael Fassbender may come to his senses and turn up on my doorstep me clad in my chic casual day wear of pyjamas and birds nest hair (I know, I really am selling myself here) and present me with flowers, chocolates and sweep me out of my slippers into a beautiful embrace. I'm prepared to break any self imposed chocolate ban if it means I can share my ferrero rocher with him....that is NOT at euphemism, filth!

But I was thinking today, whatever happened to proper old fashioned romance? I love social media. I am a self-confessed fully fledged social media trollop. I love Twitter, I really do. I have Facebook. I've got a profile on LinkedIn (it needs filling out a bit), I've pinned on Pinterest and I blog. I appreciate there's more social media out there than I can wave my smartphone at but I can't do it all.  Some of it I just can't be bothered with but I adore it nonetheless.  So, it saddens me and leaves me heavy of heart that social media is taking the place of proper face to face romance.

I regularly see posts on FB, Twitter and the like with couples declaring their love to each other. You live in the same house and sleep in the same bed, surely that would be the ideal time to mention it.  Or just as you've come in from taking out the bins - you're feeling a bit smushy with love so you say it as you're wiping a bit of mashed potato off your jeans, from when you emptied the bin. 

Call me old fashioned...or radical, but why do you have to share your declarations of love with a bunch of people who about 97% of which wouldn't recognise you if you tripped over them at a bus stop.  Say it to the person it's meant for not the 346 people it's not.

Now, you probably think I have the emotional capacity of a damp house brick and the soul of a dead wasp, but rest assured I adore romance. For someone to stand in front of me and tell me they love me (or even just like me, more than just a friend) makes me melt. It hasn't happened recently I admit and for those who read my twitter, will know I have STILL not given shop boy my number and therefore, am unable to execute said utterings of love and devotion until I do so and we have been on at least one date. A brief flirt over the lottery terminal on a Saturday night is not tantamount to hedonistic romance.  I appreciate, I need to get a grip and get this situation sorted.

But in the meantime, let's try and bring back old fashioned romance.

A lovely friend of mine was reading a book of anonymous love letters last week and we both ooh'd and ahh'd at how romantic it was. YES, write a love letter.  Did Jane Austen use emoticons? No, no she didn't.

I know you're all probably telling me to wind my neck in and how you share your love is your business.  It is, I am just merely voicing my lonely spinster (get out the violins) opinion.

So, Michael Fassbender, if you read this before the 14th Feb a box of ferrero rocher and some red roses would do very nicely and I'll make sure I'm dressed with my hair done.

A Day to Remember....

I graduated today.  Yup, I am now officially a BA (Hons) in English Literature with Creative Writing type person.  I am qualified to read books and write sentences. Excellent!!

I'm not going to bore you with the day to day details about the last three years, but I will say I have spent them with a group of people who I can honestly say have made my whole university experience the most special and fantastic three years I could've wished for.  I have learnt so much from every single one of them...some of the things I've learnt would honestly make your hair curl and if the topics ever turned up in a pub quiz you can be a sure as eggs is eggs I'd be able to answer them....?!

I don't normally go in for huge declarations of sentimentality and smush but today I'm feeling emotional so I'm bucking my own trend.  I am proud that I've made my parents even more proud of me than they are already, because I've followed my dream and succeeded (with a lot of blood, sweat, tears, stress, hysteria, post-it flags, highlighters, tea and chocolate along the way).

Those who know me know that my love of an 80's mix tape quite literally is what gets my excitement level past shoes on the 'many things I like in life' scale and that's what this whole experience can be compared to, a mix tape.  I've read books that would never have given my bookshelf dust space before 2009, but I can now add to my top 10 best reads list are; The History Boys, Mrs Dalloway, Harriet Frean and Generation X to name but many. Ok, so it would be longer than a top 10 list but you get my drift.

I would like to make a special mention though to Lisa.  We met on our first day stood in the queue next to each other for enrollment and we were sat next to each other in graduation today, it's like the bread at either end of our degree sandwich - shit analogy I know, sorry.

So here it is, my choice of two songs which I think sums up everything.  I'm going to shut up now and just let the music speak for itself...turn it up loud, I insist ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z77hrg7pFN0

Burning bra's = fire hazard....

There was a bit of a twitter hoo-haa Thursday morning as the infamous foot-in-mouth journalist, Liz Jones was on This Morning discussing women, children, maternity leave et al and can us women have it all?

Anyway, having missed the original screening of this stunning insight from the self-confessed sperm smuggler, I watched the interview on iplayer and while I was stuffing my face with thickly buttered bread and jam - see Liz, we can have that love! - I pondered, can we have it all...life wise, not bread wise (I did have all the bread).

Well, yes we can.

Ok, I am the first one to hold my hands up and say I'm not a burn your bra feminist.  For a start off, my bra's are of such ample cuppage that if they were set alight they'd keep your average boy scout jamboree supplied with bonfire fodder for at least three rousing chorus's of Kum By Ya, BUT that is not to say I'm not an advocate of equal rights and shooting holes through that glass ceiling.

Women are designed so that they can have babies if they choose too, that's the way nature intended it, so why on earth is there such a backlash when women who work, decide to have babies?  I don't get it, I just don't.

Ms Jones said that she would be more likely to employ someone who was of more mature years rather than someone who was in her late 20's/early 30's and had a womb screaming to be let in on the action.  Well, I hate to break this to you Liz but as a 37 year old woman who, as of yet, doesn't have children, but who still has several more years left in her for having a baby, you're talking bollocks.  I am perfectly employable just like my younger counterparts who, like myself, have our reproductive capabilities still intact, so I don't appreciate being discriminated against for my gender let alone my ovaries.

I've worked for many years in a corporate environment where the battle for the top dog between men and women was more fierce than a bloody roman battle.  I've worked with many successful, powerful and influential women who are fantastic at their job and, wait for it....have kids!  All they did was adapt their life accordingly.  Just because you're doing the school run doesn't mean you can't negotiate a multi-million pound merger deal, does it Liz, come on admit it....

The question I now ask of you Liz is, what are you going to do when you eventually decide to start having babies? Will you be so vehement in your convictions that having twelve months maternity leave to bond with your child, is frankly an abomination and you'll be clocking into the office each week via skype (or in person) for meetings?  Or will you embrace the napisan with as much enthusiasm as you've employed when dragging the 'sisterhood' back twenty years and kicking sand in Emmeline Pankhurst's face, so it'll be a case of, office, what office? 

Liz, Liz, Liz, yes we're in the middle of a double-dip (in my case chocolate dipped) recession where finding and keeping a job is as rare as rocking horse shit at the moment but its just as hard work for both women AND men to find employment.  That obstacle should not take away a woman's right of choice about having a baby and we will not be scare mongered into thinking if we do, then we've bog all chance of finding and keeping a job.

Women can have a family and a career, ok, so it requires a bit of juggling but we can do it. We live in a progressive society not the dark ages though I am pretty sure women of the dark ages had kids and still went out to work.  I'm proud of the fact that as a woman I have these choices and I for one will be ready to accommodate play dates and work diary dates when the time is right.

Blimey Liz, next you'll be telling us we shouldn't have the vote.......

Burning Bridges.....

Well, what can I say, today has been a mixed bag all in all.  As one era comes to an end, a new one is going to start when I wake up tomorrow. 

I finished my degree today, last day of the past three years.  It's a bit surreal to be honest and I feel at a bit of a loss as to what to do with myself....other than clean my shit tip of a flat and let the cats know they do still have an owner who feeds them.  It's been a tough week or so to be honest with deadlines, lessons learned, stresses and running out of milk so I couldn't make any cuppa's for a few hours - we're talking major major issues here!  

As some of you may know, I use music to pretty much gauge my mood/be a soundtrack for my day - it can range from rock and roll all the way through to dodgy 80's mix tapes.  Just like my writing, it's a cathartic process and one which has served me well for the past 30 or so years, so hopefully will serve me for the next bunch of years to come along.  Today though, I think this song pretty much sums up stuff...

I adore this song and I think it is one of the most beautiful songs ever written.  In fact the whole album is one of the most seminal albums of our time and contains the most awe inspiring musical poetry which I never get tired of listening too.

So there you have it, quite literally one door has closed and another is about to open up after I've caught up with the latest episode of Gossip Girl and had eight hours sleep.

I shall leave you all in peace to enjoy yourselves in which ever way you deem appropriate.

P.S. I stupidly set fire to the velvet rope this week and I'm really sorry. 

A Sign of the Times....

As a conscientious observer to society's goings on within certain strands of life, I can honestly say, I have never been so shocked, as to be in work today and hear a six year old girl worry about the calorie content in a bag of chocolate whisper bites.  She was six, SIX and worried about calories.  I'm sorry, but WHY is a six year old worrying about calories?

This comes in the same week as it being reported that women are now going on a diet where they're drip fed a limited amount of calories per day for 10 days, in order to lose weight.  

Now, I am no racing snake when it comes to my own body and anyone who knows me will know that I love chocolate - I have a well proportioned arse to prove it.  But what sticks in my clack, is that women now feel that the only way for them to shed the pounds quickly is to have a drip tube inserted in your nose and carry around a bag full of liquid.  What the christ is this world coming too?

I am not denying we have a serious problem with obesity in this country but really, has it come to the point where we have to be drip fed in order to shed the pounds and squeeze into a wedding dress, and have six year old's counting calories!! Really, is this what society has come to?? I am saddened and dismayed.

Whatever happened to the idea of the body beautiful and appreciating what we've been blessed with whether it wobbles, wrinkles or works its way south.

And please don't even get me started on the Samantha Brick debacle of a few weeks ago.

I would like to say to any women who read this blog post, please for gods sake don't go to extreme measures in order to shed weight.  Do it sensibly and healthily.  You are gorgeous and should be proud of the fact that you are unique and are loved for who you are, not what your clothes size is.  Whilst I am hardly in a position to preach to anyone about losing weight or eating a healthy diet I certainly will not be reaching for a feeding tube at any point in order to decrease the size of my plentiful rump.

And as for the six year old worrying about the calorie content of food, why the bloody hell is your mother allowing you to concern yourself of such things...eat the chocolate (in moderation) and enjoy it.