Aslaug's Axe Shed

And there I was, thinking I had it all down so well this year.

Foolishly, stupidly I thought that maybe this year, I’d actually have the kind of Christmas I’ve hoped for basically since I moved away from home. A Christmas where I could give my family and loved ones some decent presents for once…and not just junk wrapped up nicely or cheap little tidbits that didn’t wreck my strained budget (which of course always left me thinking that my family deserved far better than what I could give them, which again always left me feeling inadequate and cheap).

Not so this year, I told myself! This year, I had more money on my hands than ever before in my life and I could start buying presents in very good time…

Oh yes, this time I could do things RIGHT. I even sent off Christmas-cards for people … some of which I know have arrived safely already.

Gods help me, I even allowed the yuletide spirit to grab a firm hold of me.

I should have known better. I really should. I should have remembered that Murphy has taken up permanent goddamned residence in front of my door, and that he dumps excess workload on me whenever he comes home at night without having spoiled enough people’s lives.

Today, I got told about the application put in by the museum to hire me for four months after my trainee-time with them is done come June 1st. Four months would be awesome. Three months would be just fine too…

You see, to go from the low rate of unemployment benefits that I get, to the full rate (or more precisely going from getting 80 percent of the full amount to the actual full amount), I need three months of actual work. Not spread out over a certain amount of time, but three months of continuous, uninterrupted work. Admittedly, it doesn’t have to be three months of work at the same workplace, but if … say … I had a job that ended on the 30th of January and I had a new job waiting for me that started on the 1st of February…I would have had ONE SINGLE unemployed day…and I would have to start over counting towards those 3 months.

Now…I need to go to the full unemployment benefits once I’m done at the museum. I don’t just ‘need’ it … I NEED it! Why? Because my student loan has to be paid back, starting on January 1st. That amounts to a staggering 2.250 kroner every single month! Over four hundred dollars that I MUST pay every month. Okay, they gave me a stay saying I could pay them 1330 kroner every month until June, but that was on the explicit condition that after that, I would be able to pay them more because I would have a job, and then the full unemployment benefits to help me pay for it.

Now, I won’t have that. So now … I have to pay the full amount from January or at least february. I will have to pay bills so heavy I won’t even be able to pay for my transportation fee back and forth to work every month without getting my bank to allow me to go into overdrawn for a week every month until the money is paid back. Naturally, that too costs money … which I myself will have to pay.

It is one god damned month of work. ONE. But unless I can find a job which is LITERALLY waiting for me the day after I stop my current job, I’m completely screwed. I won’t be able to pay my bills. I’ll barely be able to pay my rent. I have NO idea how I’ll feed myself, and I can forget ANY kind of amusement on the side. No trips to the cinema, no fun with my friends unless it means no expense AT ALL, no online interaction (yes, that’s right, I may have to give up the internet … it’s THAT bad…)

And this message I got on my last day of work before Christmas. Bless my boss for trying to be cheerful while giving me the news. She tried to make it look like ‘well, at least it’s two months. You only need to find one more month of work. It’s better than NOTHING…’ and of course she’s right, but that is no consolation in a situation like this, where we had applied for more … and didn’t get it.

The museum is short on money as it is and can’t pay for that months wages for me out of its own budget anyway…

I am so utterly screwed, especially considering that the Danish economy is officially in recession and our historically low unemployment rates are likely to be bound for the history books within a -very- short while. Some of the more dire estimates suggest we’ll see as many as 80.000 new unemployed next year and mind you folks…at the moment, we have less than 60.000 unemployed and that’s counting the people who are between jobs and those who flat out refuse to work.

What are the chances of a historian getting a job when everyone has to cut down left and right?

Not great, guys.

Not great at all.

I am so down right now that I don’t even want to write. At all. Period. Full stop. End of story. For more than five years, I’ve kept myself going by always AT LEAST having my writing … and right now, at this moment, I don’t even have that.

Hopefully, that illustrates just how awful I’m feeling.

Merry yuletide to you all. I think it’s all I can give you now.