Burnt Out

I am writing today, June 5, to alert everyone to the fact that I am still unemployed.  Yup.  I gave up a sure thing because I had a few more interviews, all that led nowhere.  So needless to say, I'm more than slightly discouraged and have now started indiscriminately applying for everything (well, that's not true; my focus is still on managerial positions, I think I have just widened my scope by a gazillion).  I think perhaps the most tenuous part of this period of unemployment is that I'm bored out of my skull.  I have only a few friends in Winnipeg and so a good chunk of my time is spent alone.  I try and be proactive about it, but really it's a drag.

Then there happens to be the whole "life goal" thing, which I'm starting to feel is a messed up concept all together.  Really, do you know who you'll be in 10 years? You have it all figured out?  I'm proof that people change, life changes, interests change.  We grow and we move on.  That's life.  But this doesn't satisfy the curiosity of many of my friends/family who wonder what my next move will be.  I spent an hour talking my mom out of the crazy notion I should go into social work.  I've spent more time than I care to admit on career exploration; looking at programs, reading about people's lives in specific occupations.  I don't find that it helps.  At this juncture in my life, I hate everything.

As much as this sounds like something a 16 year old would say, there is some truth and some reasoning to why I feel this way.  I spent the last 2 years of my life in a program that I didn't feel was a good fit for me from day 1.  I tried to make it work, but the truth of the matter is that it wasn't for me.  It didn't fit my personality, my natural talents... any part of it.  Yet, (somehow) I finished and look at me now. I'm completely burnt out from finding something that I may in fact want to do.  I didn't feel this way as my BA came to a close.  Recently, I think I've begun to figure out why.

For those who don't know, my Bachelor's degree is in history and anthropology and I primarily studied Canada and all of its splendours.  I enjoyed my degree probably more than most people; I found my classes to be incredibly interesting, I met so many great people and had a lot of fun.  Aside from meeting great people (and having a bit of fun), my McGill experience wasn't anything close to this.  I felt like I wasn't learning anything, simply jumping through a set of predetermined hoops and after paying a lot of money, they give you this worthless piece of paper that says,  "There you go. You have a Masters degree" .  Quite frankly, I felt like it was a complete waste of my time.  What it did, however, was confirm what I didn't want to do with my life in a variety of different ways.

So, I understand why I'm sitting at some sort of "crossroads" scenario. But I don't like it.  I hate not knowing what I'm doing or where I'm going.  I have to accept the unknown and that's really hard for me.  I've always had a plan, and now really I don't know.  I have to start thinking about what I'm passionate about and what excites me.  The problem for me is that I have a need to see how it "translates" into the real world.  Doing an MA in history would appease me for the time while I'm doing it, but I'll fall into the same problems again once I'm finished.

I've created a half-hearted solution to this problem.  One, I've signed up for a free online course in finance.  If you're shaking your head, ask yourself why. Is it so bizarre for an artsie to have an interest in business? I read Canadian Business and the Economist. I have for years.  I find it a perfectly justifiable interest. Secondly, I've decided to apply to the University of Manitoba as a "special" student (meaning I'm not there for a degree, just for course work).  I'm going to take statistics in the fall and maybe afterwards microeconomics and organizational behaviour.   Not only do I think these would be good courses to gauge my interest and aptitude, but they are also the prerequisites for the Master of Employment Relations program at Memorial (MUN).  Those of you who know me from McGill know that I applied to Queens in the fall for the Master of Industrial Relations and later pulled my application based on cost (the program is over $20000 for the year).  These courses will also be good to refresh my math brain and get me back into the swing of studying for the GMAT.  If I don't do an MER, I think I'm going to shoot for an MBA.

At this point, it's a "sort of" plan.  I think that's all I need right now.