back in Scotland
Alright... so the MSc foray is over. Handed in the dissertation on Friday, went to the pub, recovered on Monday. As you do. Final thoughts? Well worth it. Strong friendships, good contacts, feel mildly more edumacated, ready for the next step.
Which of course begs the question. Unfortunately I don't have concrete answers at this point. I am back in Musselburgh, staying with George and Yvonne (and Chris) for the time being while I sort out CVs, National Insurance numbers and various other incidentals that creep up when you're a foreign national seeking working in this bureaucratic nightmare of a country.
Yesterday I started by asking myself what I wanted from this coming year. First on paper was the 'recapture the feeling I had while on Rum (minus Annie)'; the intense feeling of being alive that comes with outdoor activity. I was happiest in that position. As I searched through mountains of office job postings, library positions, soft drink salespeople blah blah blah, I realized two things. One, if I had an engineering degree I would be making well over £50 000 this year. Two, Rum is an odd place, and it is unlikely that a lowland city could substitute for the island experience.
Now, many of you might be thinking 'Ian's lost the plot and heading back to Rum.' I can assure you this is not the case. Instead, I've done what any sensible individual would do and applied for a job in a even more remote part of Scotland... Stornoway on Lewis (a proper Hebridean isle). The position is with a mink eradication program that SNH is running in the outer isles (for a conservation organization SNH sure loves to kill off mammals in abundance). From what info I have it involves walking 10-20km a day and doing something with mink (collecting bodies?). Don't really care. It's a 5.5 month post running from Nov 17 to Mar 28th and pays about £14 000. I figure it's a sound way to recharge my batteries and pay off my student debt. So here's hoping.
Of course the job on Stornoway is far from a sure thing, despite my previous dealings with SNH, so I still plan to move to Stirling and find something to keep me busy. I'm also eagerly waiting feedback on several of my ideas from a philosophy prof at Stirling Uni, which could weigh heavily on my plans for the next several years (been several weeks now, dammit!)
that's all folks.
Which of course begs the question. Unfortunately I don't have concrete answers at this point. I am back in Musselburgh, staying with George and Yvonne (and Chris) for the time being while I sort out CVs, National Insurance numbers and various other incidentals that creep up when you're a foreign national seeking working in this bureaucratic nightmare of a country.
Yesterday I started by asking myself what I wanted from this coming year. First on paper was the 'recapture the feeling I had while on Rum (minus Annie)'; the intense feeling of being alive that comes with outdoor activity. I was happiest in that position. As I searched through mountains of office job postings, library positions, soft drink salespeople blah blah blah, I realized two things. One, if I had an engineering degree I would be making well over £50 000 this year. Two, Rum is an odd place, and it is unlikely that a lowland city could substitute for the island experience.
Now, many of you might be thinking 'Ian's lost the plot and heading back to Rum.' I can assure you this is not the case. Instead, I've done what any sensible individual would do and applied for a job in a even more remote part of Scotland... Stornoway on Lewis (a proper Hebridean isle). The position is with a mink eradication program that SNH is running in the outer isles (for a conservation organization SNH sure loves to kill off mammals in abundance). From what info I have it involves walking 10-20km a day and doing something with mink (collecting bodies?). Don't really care. It's a 5.5 month post running from Nov 17 to Mar 28th and pays about £14 000. I figure it's a sound way to recharge my batteries and pay off my student debt. So here's hoping.
Of course the job on Stornoway is far from a sure thing, despite my previous dealings with SNH, so I still plan to move to Stirling and find something to keep me busy. I'm also eagerly waiting feedback on several of my ideas from a philosophy prof at Stirling Uni, which could weigh heavily on my plans for the next several years (been several weeks now, dammit!)
that's all folks.
posted by Ian at 10:33 AM
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