I Graduated College and All I Got was this Lousy Sense of Entitlement

I have my sulky face on. In fact, it's been showing up more and more often. Today I slept in, rode my bike, practiced Japanese, swam in my pool, and sulked through every moment of all of it. It's the grown-ups again. They promised me that, if I went to college, I'd be rewarded at the end with a lucrative career. Instead I spend my days murdering dust bunnies and cursing the man who, in that smooth voice of his, claimed that the Dyson "doesn't eva lose suction." There's a reason that guy is completely bald. Damn him and damn them all!

It's all very conflicting. On the one hand, damn them all... but, on the other hand, I did just spend my day sleeping in, riding my bike, practicing a foreign language for fun, and swimming in my pool. And housewife cleaning-type things of course. The dust bunnies.

I try to enjoy my current situation, but then I feel guilty for feeling happy while other people, like Poncho, have to wake up early every morning and spend entirely too many of their precious hours working. And then I feel guilty again for not appreciating my abundance of leisure time while other people, like Poncho, have to wake up early every morning and spend entirely too many of their precious hours working.

It's a vicious cycle of shame and guilt. And it's all the grown-ups' fault.

I've been unemployed for thirteen months now. I've applied for many, many jobs.

As I see it, the following things are preventing me from joining the ranks of the employed:

1. If I'm being honest, I could have a job by now if I were willing to take one that paid me less that I'm receiving on unemployment. It's the sense of entitlement. I graduated college. I'm qualified to teach in any one of the fifty states. And, for a couple of years, I did, and they paid me well. Now the only jobs I seem to be able to get near are barely willing to pay me more than minimum wage; significantly less than I made working day care in college. At times I feel bad about taking money for doing nothing, while at other times I'm too miffed about being laid off from a government job that was supposed to be stable enough to carry me through the next forty years of my life. I could, when it comes down to it, spend all day working to get less money per week than the government will give me for doing nothing. But I'm not a moron.
2. Many, many jobs I've applied for, when I've followed-up, have given me responses which boil down to, "Just kidding! We weren't really looking to fill a position; we just like to leave job openings all over the place to taunt people like you. Isn't that funny? Ha!" And then I call my psychic friends to put a curse on them.
3. In this economy, many employers are more interested in your work experience than your education. Which is the exact opposite of what my high school counselor promised me when she convinced me to delay entering the job market to further my education. At least that's who I'm putting the blame on today; tomorrow it'll probably go back to my mother.
4. The job market is flooded with desperate people, and, as such, I am often told that a potential employer chose someone cheaper or more qualified than me. Which is the real suck part of the whole thing, because what that means is I really am worth barely more than minimum wage.

Or maybe I just plain suck and never realized it before. It's possible.

But the real tragedy in this whole thing is that I have nothing more interesting to write about in my blog. It's Nook, manga, Sims, and whining on the menu until something happens. I miss Japan.