Hurray

I have been in a spectacularly cheerful mood ever since exams have ended.  I have, however, been worrying about the proposed ConDemolition government immigration cap.  It seemed highly possible that they would eliminate Tier IV conversion visas, which is the next one I need to get, and that I'd have to go back to America, which I really don't want to do.  Yesterday afternoon I was in the highly surreal position of attending a party in Parliament while the debates about non-EU immigration were going on.  There are little television screens in every room in Parliament, one green, one red, which tell you what's being debated in the Commons and Lords, respectively.  The whole time I was there trying to overcome my shyness and talk to people I don't know in order to try to find a job, I would catch out of the corner of my eye that Theresa May was speaking and that seven minutes of the debate were left.  It was unbelievable.

However, this morning, I read in the Guardian that students staying on to work after finishing a degree from a British university are exempt from the cap and that the old rules continue to apply!  Thank God!  I really don't know what I would have done otherwise.

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

I did know what I wanted to do when I grew up way back when I was still thirteen. Then I grew up and for so many reasons, it didn't work out. I gave up on it completely when I was 24 and have spent the past five years trying to figure out what else I want to be when I grow up. I think I have settled it.

When I grow up, I want to be a peripatetic metaphysical philosopher-poet. Peripatetic because the Parapatetics wandered around the different Greek city states teaching philosophy to the citizen youth and I have this sneaking feeling that I will continue wandering around the western nation-states. Philosopher because I will be teaching it (parapatetically) and I also don't think I can stop and I like it. Metaphysical because one has to specialise, and publish or perish! Poet because it is otherwise very, very hard to write metaphysics and I like poetry and I like to sing. I also like the metaphysical poets.

I think that it is one of the delightful occupational hazards of loving the study of ancient Greek that one would look to its culture in order to pick out one's career path. I'm not sure that I would want to change that even if I could and besides, it will make my newsagent into a soothsayer and who doesn't want a soothsayer to be their newsagent?

It does make things seem clearer. Teach, talk, sing and write, wander. I tend to do these things; now I need to figure out how to do these things with people and have them exchange money for it. I have a concrete plan in mind already.

The haze is clearing.

In the Papers...

I was giving the headlines a once over this morning and this story about new job support for MH people in the UK caught my eye. I was left wondering exactly what they plan to put in place and wondering, thought not through the insufficiency of detail in the article itself, whether this is a genuine or a cosmetic effort. Has anybody heard anything more substantive about this?