Compostable Kate

I spent all of 2011 trying to get used to the fact my Dad was no longer around, having died suddenly in November 2010. It’s taken a lot of getting used to, and although I’m not altogether resolved to it, I don’t seem to be constantly reminding myself of his absence.  It’s been a long time since I lost a family member, and I definitely wasn’t prepared for Dad to go, even though he’d been ill for a number of years. He was only 65, after all. Dad and Alex, not long before Dad died. They got on extremely well!  Although I was literally incoherent with grief – after being bizarrely calm while my poor brother Damian was breaking the news to me – my awesome friends, Karen and Steve, came and collected me and my furkids, and looked after me for several days while I processed the news. As Dad lived in the UK, and I am in Australia, I couldn’t be there for my family, and I wasn’t able to attend his funeral. However, I was in constant touch with my siblings, and my Mum (who w...

Obviously, unemployment equals a lack of money, and since I stopped working/volunteering at my last job (I was only paid for 2 and a half out of the 3 years I worked there) last November, money has become increasingly scarce (while I volunteered, the organisation paid my petrol and contributed to my internet and phone costs). Being really, really skint isn't fun, but that isn't the real reason I hate being unemployed. In fact, there are several reasons why I hate being unemployed. One reason is that I'm not used to it. I have been working since my teens, and have only been unemployed three times. Once when I quit college, after having left a great job to get my university entrance qualification. It was only briefly, as I found some casual work, and returned to college the next year, doing a different course. Then I was unemployed when I returned to Australia after graduating, but that only lasted a few weeks also (and how I ended up working as a telemarketer of all thing...

I've not been unemployed for at least 10 years. There were a couple of weeks when I moved back to Australia in 1999 when I didn't have a job, and a few weeks when I had to withdraw from university in my first year, back in 1995, but other than that, I've always had a job (I haven't always been paid , but I've always had a job). I certainly didn't plan to be unemployed at this stage in my life, and as I had only been getting paid for my last job for 6 weeks, after two and a half years as a full-time volunteer, I am definitely not in any financial state to be jobless. I had already planned to take a week's break after finishing up at CH, which is just as well, considering what else has been happening, so I've only been jobseeking for a week so far. I had been hoping to find some casual, straightforward work, to fill my time and pay my rent, but without any stress or sleepless nights as a result. However, many options are closed to me now: bartendin...