Mid 30's TTC - you're my BESH mate you are..... <hic hic>

Well, I'm Moany McMoanersons today, aren't I? Boohoo for me

Scorps Hope I wasn't being a patronising fuckwit...

Phd funding is a pain in the arse. I'm pretty sure that the AHRB just chuck the applications up in the air and pick the ones that land in the right spot on the carpet.

trog But you're doing it to be noble and Save the Whales, right?

Thanks ideal. Unfortunately, I've tried the volunteering route many times before in the past and it's never come to anything (except the rewards of doing the work). Jobs have come up, but I've got the same replies I always get when applying for jobs without the voluntary factor - sorry, but you've not got enough experience (despite doing the job unpaid for you for yonks? Yeah, CHEERS for that). Has been my experience that once they've had you work for them for nothing, they've fixed you in their minds as 'unpaid help' and can't or won't make the transition to accepting you as a 'proper' colleague. In the last few years, have been going to all sorts of experts that help you get jobs and so on and 3 told me (with various levels of tact) that basically at my age, with my history, I am never going to be able to get a well-paid job And now I'm hoping for a baby - making me even older and with yet another black mark against me, employment-wise, when I try and enter/re-enter the job market. Got places at TWO unis to do my PhD, but never get the funding.

Work is a touchy subject for me - I've only ever had 2 jobs where a friend didn't give me the shoe-in. And they were crap jobs anyway. Last year alone, I got turned down for over 150 jobs! Grrrrrrrrrrr. Including being turned down for one for politely refusing to eat a Maryland cookie (long story)! My inability to get a job is so marked that it's a running joke (sadly unfunny for me) that I'm jinxed.

Anyone want to give a brainy-but-inexperienced BESH a job? Gizzajob!

BTW - it may therefore surprise no-one that I intend to be a SAHM...

Red Mini Cooper S.

For the first time since I could drive I do not now Own A Car.

em, tell us about the car

While we're on the miserable train to miseryville, I sold my pride n joy car yesterday to a girl who was squealy-excited to have bought it. I fixed her with a rictus grin and took her money. Which has fallen straight into the black hole that is the moving house expenses fund.

I feel your pain scorp. Having been diagnosed with old lady disease as a teenager, the life and career I had been planning for years veered very quickly off track. Settled for another track - didn't enjoy so much, but have finally found a job which combines the two (ambition and settle-for) and it's working out ok. Nonethelss, all the people I went to uni with have much higher-flying careers and I see their names in lights in RL as well as FB.

Body is still a mess, but I got over that a while back and am kind of used to pain. It does mean I can't partake in such fun, fit stuff as cycling, riding, kayaking, climbing, running and all the interests my friends and lover seem to have. As for the gym, what's that? so I curl up with a good book, and spend far too much time on FB.

And because I have a few absoultely wonderful beshtest mates, every now and then I step off that sofa and suffer the pain, because the good times are worth it. (and because alcohol numbs it)

Now, time to stop sharing and start sparring.
I'll see you round the back of the palace in ten, gloves off and no biting

Wow, we are all in the throes of Friday misery. On this basis, I reckon we should declare it open season for venting & provision of sympathy before we all go back to our normal cynicism.

Scorps That all does suck - especially the useless doctors thing. One of my very best friends in the whole world ever has been struggling with health+academic issues for a long time, and she's just started volunteering for a brilliant charity part-time. I have NO idea what your ambitions are or how your work stuff functions, but is there a way that you could ease yourself into finding a job you love by doing an equivalent thing?

Aaaaaahhh [penny drops emoticon] Thanks scorps. You are indeed bad people

What thetroglodyte and longwee said.

It's hard to compare yourself to your peers - some of the peeps I went to university with are now earning stupid money doing stressful things, a lucky few are following their creative dreams properly, some are earning no money doing worthy things and most are somewhere in the middle. I do suffer from the enuff monster (never being good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, rich enough)but I try to give myself a proper kicking whenever I go down that route.

I guess the problem with this whole SWI lark is that it makes the enuff monster totally crazy - the fact that one friend got up-diffed in the first month of trying means that somehow I've failed because it's now month 9 and still nada. It's not like comparing jobs/finances when I can feel good because my choices and sucesses are my own. Gah. It's a proper headfuck and no mistake.

And I still want to kill the evil cow who told me that it was a good thing that I haven't managed to get up-diffed "because I'd had everything too easy until now". As if not getting pregnant was a cure for being spoiled.

Arse, I was trying for motivational and now I've just made myself cross.

[jd emoticon] - jd = Joey Deacon (well, that's what I presumed it meant). We are BAD people.

And yes, that is most random. An upgrade to FULL board at Euro Jizzney is your prize!

PPS Wow, that was whiny. My 'pologies

And two other things

1. noone has told me what [jd emoticon] means yet
2. there are two chickens outside my office window tied up by the feet. Their squeaking is putting me off. Does that win random post of the day?

PS Extreme am jealous of all EVERYONE'S FB pics and updates, incl. you

Well, seems like everyone is feeling a bit today. I can take the gold at the 'feeling everyone else has a much better life than me/I'm left out stuff' - due to getting v ill at 21, had no friends (or a few far away who I could only write to/phone now and then) for absolutely years and couldn't socialise, etc. Health crap has also meant have/will never be able to get a good job cos health record unreliable and no real job experience (this really pisses me off as was top at school for everything (except maths and science) and 'most likely to succeed'). Wanted to be a professional dancer and performance artist, managed to do it briefly, but health put stop to that too. I've had to watch life pass me by and give up on virtually all my dreams and ambitions (totally aware this is why I'm obsessed with having DC) and not have many friends and never do anything exciting, and never have any cash, etc. Although got a lot better a few years ago (when I fucking diagnosed myself, the useless Drs), it's left me lazy (used to not being able to do owt), unsocial, immature and a bit scared of the big wide world. Every-bloody-day to me is having to make myself ignore feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, bitterness, etc. Oh yeah, and the health probs make me put on weight and hard to lose it, so am slightly overweight despite barely being able to eat anything and going to gym regularly. Lurching from being teased for being so scrawny my whole life to being slightly chubby - cheers, universe. Do I win a prize? I hope it's a frying pan to the face until I pass out. Except I'd prolly just be jealous of that cos it'd be Le Creuset or summat and my frying pan has a wonky handle and my Mum bought it cos I was too skint to buy a fucking frying pan

On the plus side, I have a lovely family, the friends I have ARE ace (incl. you lot, of course), TYF is my dream man and I do have great hair.

Sorry to whine, I wasn't really trying to outdo anyone else's misery. Just felt like offloading if others were too. The jollity has fallen away and we're showing our true - miserable - selves

PS ideal - you forgot that women should be back in a pretty size 10 frock and having sex with the husband 2 days after birth. You're such a slattern!

NorkWatch: no tittypain today but when woke up, laid on my back, boobs were pointing straight up with no side-slippage ie bit like fake breasts. Now, I am still quite perky, but it's been a long time since they didn't veer towards the sides when on my back! Stood up, they also look zeppelin-tastic. Must stop driving self mad seeing any little thing as an updiff sign!

I want VAG to POAS, but that's for my excited sake. For your sanity's sake, I too think you should wait till limit of R2D2 is reached. If you can wait that long

Bah - for once I had some words of wisdom and wrote a big long reply to extreme which I lost coz we had a power cut - so this is also late as have been offline for the last hour. Have tried to reconstruct it - I think it said that it's easy to feel left out of an exciting world that everyone else is inhabiting - but the reality is that it's just not true. Facebook is a load of bullshit in that we only put up the pics we want the world to see - not ones of us having rows with partners, spending weekends doing the ironing or weeping with lack of sleep at the goddamn baby who won't sleep properly. I don?t have kids so what do I know, but from what I?ve gathered from mumsnet aside from the good stuff it?s stupendously hard work, endlessly frustrating, extremely emotional (and not in a good way) and often makes you question what the hell you were thinking of in having children. Every single one of us envies other people?s lives and lifestyles and worries that everyone is having a better time than us - and you only need to spend five minutes on other threads here to see how bloody miserable a lot of people?s lives are. I can?t help thinking a lot of people put the ?aren?t I exciting and fabulous? pictures on FB to convince themselves that they are...

and that applies to cameltoe and thedressinggown too.

ski I am going to deliver myself of an opinion.

Now I don't know you very well, despite being a prty to some of the most inimate of your thoughts, but I am the world's best observer and assimilator (and modest). I think that you have achieved wonders in your short life - it's not all about jobs or money or bin lidz but about how far you come in your life and whether you can truly say you have made the very best of the hand you have been dealt.

Tiresomely, I put myself under this scrutiny from time to time and that is how I decide what direction to pursue - my morbid fear is being on my death bed regretting something I have not done or taken advantage of when the opportunity arose. If you can say that you did that to the best of your abilities, tried to find the positives or ways to see a silver lining in the darkest clouds and put your best foot forward whenever you could, what's to be depressed about?

Lecture over.

Am annoyed with myself for sitting on my ever-increasing bottom all the time at the moment. You lot are all active and gorgeous - how am I going to get myself back to the gym? And what should I do when I get there?

camel Yes, you're probably right. (are right obviously) - well actually I have one friend who is utterly determined to drag her carcrash of a love/sex-life through her status updates and I watch with morbid curiosity - and when I fear she's going to far phone her up and give her a pep talk whilst adjusting my judgey-pants.

ski You know it's all lies, though. People are never going stick the cruddy bits of their lives on bumface. It am the home of smug.

Oh, can I just say that apart from the photo-editor who dragged herself out of the gutter (didn't even get GCSEs and is now hanging out with Mario Testino) - none, not ONE have worked for their wealth.

I met a girl in the boondocks of canada a few years ago who told me that she was envious of my life and that I'd achieved so much - when I think of her I think "yes, it's OK" - but it's so easy to be knocked down.

Wouldn't that be brilliant? Never knowing your CD, or frantically googling sore throats as a potential early pregnancy symptom