I'm sad

[James Martin]

I also finished this week. God knows how I've done but hey.

Seems scary but is still to really sink in. Probably will on Tuesday when I go for a job interview.

[Nick Harvey]

It's so bloomin' long ago that I can't really remember any sensible advice to cheer you lot up.

However, you DO survive in the end. You get a job, you get a home of your own, you get a partner or three, you get older, you get grumpier and you end up still alive and like me.

Oh, perhaps that isn't really any help.

I'll just go away and shut up!

[DAS]

Do what I did...

But you're a loner and insecure!

Continuing with education is something that has cropped up in my mind but ultimately, why should I want to go into a seventeenth year of education? It isn't that I am fed up with it, but there is only so much you can have! And I think perhaps it IS the time to move on. In terms of "uni life", I would always be comparing it back to how it was and, in the process, not enjoying it as much. If I could keep everything as it was, it would be fine - but I can't, quite simply.

And at the end of the day, who dictates your life schedule? If I really want to go back into university, I can do so in the future. There was a guy I knew in my first year who was over 50, gave up his office job in the north and went to uni for a couple of years just to get away from the mundane life he was living. The only negative point, of course, is that a 50 year old living in halls gets a few odd looks.

I have no doubt that it will all work out - or, perhaps better phrased, I have every faith that it will all work out - but the sudden disappearance of virtually everything around you and what you know is frightening to say the least. And it's all sooooooo sad! As I say, it's the fact I have a blank calendar looking at me and no "buffer". The way my mind works is that I need some sort of tangible "end" to work towards or different stages to go through, and right now there aren't any... I literally have nothing planned for the month of June, one thing coming up in July and one thing coming up in August. The fact I have no idea what I'm doing for the rest of my life is made more scary by the fact I have no idea what I'm doing this time next week.

But I'm coping. Honest.

[tvmercia]

i was exactly the same this time last year - very settled in the routine of dossing then doing assignments, then dossing. but it all built up to a big crescendo with the dissertation followed by masses of drinking then everything stopped dead. everyone moved back home amidst all the promises that we'd all stay in touch...

a year later and i only keep good contact with 2 people from uni! everyone else has moved off to broadcasters around the country or traveling.

i was lucky i guess that i started working for my current employer half way through my 2nd year, so i didn't have to worry about the job situation. also i have managed to keep university levels of socialising up - going out 2 or 3 times a week which is great. although i fear that will end soon when i move project.

but anyway, i think what you're experiencing now is an exciting new beginning more than the end of an era.