Things I miss

... about working in Higher Education

I recently started a new job (yes somebody finally employed me) as a Content Editor for a company that represents small businesses so now I'm working in B2B communications - that's business to business, for anyone who doesn't understand silly marketing jargon. Thus ending my two-ish years of working for universities (more B2C, if you didn't know).

I have to admit, it's a little different to what I'm used to and as much as I am looking forward to perhaps doing some meaningful, measurable work, I began to realise that for all my moaning about bad organisation, over-management, and never really being able to get anything done... there is a quite a lot I took for granted about working in HE. Such as:

Massive training budgets - Want to go on a £400 one day Flash course? Not a problem. Want to spend two days listening to someone tell you how to write? Not a problem. £900 to send you on a Dreamweaver course when you already know how to use it? Indeed. £150 train ticket to London? Of course! Now I know where my fees went...

Equally big confectionary budgets - In universities every meeting seems to have a biscuit, offices have cake, training courses have numerous tea breaks (what you'd expect for your money!) and complimentary mints. Some meetings I would go to for the biscuit choice alone.

Deadlines that aren't really deadlines - And looking particularly impressive when you get something done, shock horror, before deadline because "don't you know this is a university... we never do things on time".

Meetings about meetings - The main culprit for nothing ever getting done, but a good way to while away a Friday afternoon.

Dress-down every day - I spent two years working in university marketing departments without ever hearing the phrase 'dress code' or the request to stop wearing jeans/take my piercings out/stop dying my hair bright red.

Getting mistaken for a student - Going straight from graduation to a job is an unsettling experience enough, so being mistaken for a student (and benifiting from their numerous discounts) was a nice way of easing myself in to the world of work.

The libraries - Free access to thousands of books... I generally have to pay for them now, or make do with council library offerings.

Full internet access - with Facebook and everything. Not that I'd ever abuse my privileges, of course...

Flexi-time - come in when you want, leave when you want, just make the hours up somewhere in the week and everyone's happy!

Mind The Gap

My life is in a state of limbo at the moment. I no longer live in Edinburgh, I'm back in South Manchester waiting until I can move into my new house in Cheshire. Being from Stockport I have always been able to claim, postally at least, that I was in Cheshire. However Stockport isn't really Cheshire... it's 'Greater Manchester', that hazy grey area that borders numerous counties but lays unclaimed by pretty much everybody. From the 3rd of next month I shall most definitely be in Cheshire.

I have been spending my half-unemployed days (I have freelance work which doesn't really feel like work as I can stay at home in my pyjamas and do it) re-learning how to knit, filling out a million plus one job applications, contemplating a career change so many times I think I ended up back at journalism, and reading a ton of books I got out on my rediscovered Stockport Libraries card.

The summer reading list looks a little like this:

If This is a Man/The Truce - Primo Levi
The 39 Steps - John Buchan
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Dream Angus - Alexander McCall Smith
The Tent - Margaret Atwood
Moderato Incantabile - Marguerite Duras
Weight - Jeanette Winterson
The Life of Hunger - Amelie Nothomb
The Third Man/The Fallen Idol - Graham Greene
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
The Moon Opera - Bi Feiyu
Bitch Lit - Maya Chowdry (ed.)
Eating Myself - Candida Crewe
Man Walks into a Room - Nicole Krauss
When I Was Five I Killed Myself - Howard Buten
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

I have a pile of about the same number to go.

Because everything is so up in the air , I'm of no fixed abode and half my life is in storage it is hard to know what I'm doing. It's hard to pick one thing that I want to do and run with it. Though one good thing about being back here is the sense of being 'home'. Even if it has involved a nostalgia trip of horrible school days and cringeing at things I wrote when I was thirteen.

Edinburgh was beautiful but perhaps a little too beautiful. Having only lived in industrial northern towns I was a little untouched by the apparent 'culture' of the place. It was like some unattainable level that I couldn't reach, I never truly felt as though I 'fitted in', and the fact that I wasn't enjoying such a beautiful city ("how can you not love it?" people would cry) made me feel worse further still.

So I'm pretty sure that moving was a wise choice, but what now..?! That is the exciting bit I guess. I have a list of projects as long as my arm to get started on. Now if someone would just like to give me a job to fund them, that would be great...

Greetings from (Gloomy) Edinburgh

DSCF1088, originally uploaded by heavypetal.

It's sunny here sometimes, I swear!

Well this is very convenient, posting photos from flickr to blogger. Whatever will they think of next? (I feel like some mistrusting technophobic middle aged person, I feel like my mother!)

My flickr account (heavypetal, find me... I have no friends and I'm not entirely sure how you go about acquiring them), much like this blog in fact, has been long established but seldom used. Until now, hurrah, when I have actually got round to uploading some photos. It would seem I only really take pictures of three or four types of things anyway. These are (in no particular order): graves, cats, trees, castles.

I'm not quite sure what the fascination is with any, they just always seem to find their way in front of my lense.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

This is a test

Testing testing, one, two, three...

I have somehow managed to make my blog look (sort of) like my website.

First Post

Imaginative title, eh?

Well this is a blog I've created to go with my website www.seventeenandinsane.com

About me: I am a 23 year old Edinburgh-based freelance writer and web designer. I moved up here from Sheffield in August 2007. Yes I'm one of those people lured up by the festival and then it slowly dawned on me that 'bugger, I can't actually find a job'. Still, not one to be deterred I have decided that if no one is willing to give me an opportunity I will make one myself. I'm very enterpirising like that. Maybe it's coming from the home of industrial revolution that is Manchester, it's in my blood to be a work-horse.

I guess that this is a way for me to track my progression really and share (or receive, please) any tips on being a jobbing writer/designer and setting up a small (very small, tiny) business. It's also somewhere for me to write, mess around with ideas and post inspiration.

I can't promise it will be very interesting to start with but keep watching, it should get better.