Rob wins

Work, eh? It's a funny old game.

When you don't have it, all you have in your mind's eye is the quids you'll earn once you're on that precious payroll. When you DO have it, all you can think about is how to get out of it.

I really think my relationship to money is very odd. When I've got loads of it, I feel like I'd be happier with none. When I've got none of it, I feel like I'd be prepared to do anything to get some (witness my application, entirely non-ironic, for a job at McDonalds in Toulouse).

I'm currently in the latter category and my time has basically been spent pimping myself out at any rate, for any activity, in order to get some cash coming in.

The University job turned out, sadly, to be something of a non-starter. It turned out that the job advert the professor had posted was a veiled apeal for a PhD student to supervise. The first question in the interview was "do you already have a research idea or will you be looking to me to get you started with ideas?". A fair question to one all fired-up to do his doctorate in the subject he loves but one which for me, a mere Masters student with basically no idea about Economics, was tough to answer. My best selling point in the interview was that I represented a clean slate upon which no preconceptions had been written. Needless to say, I left the interview empty handed.

Another of my little plans, however, had been incubating in the office of a language school round the corner from where we live and, last week, finally bore chicks: about four months ago, I applied speculatively to the English department saying, esssentially, I'm here if you need me. Well last week, they finally did.

I start as an English teacher to a class of 15 intermediate students, doing six 45-minute lessons at the handsome rate of 20€ per lesson. (side note: here at last the pathetic pound is working in my favour, at least psychologically. 20 Euro in pre-2008 terms would be merely ok. 20 Euro when it's basically one-to-one is unprecedentedly generous! For the smart-arses or economists among you, I realise that, living in the Euro zone, this difference has no impact on my actual wealth. Still feels good though).

To top off this wonderful news (ask me again in 6 weeks time if I still think it's so wonderful (see above discussion of my attitude to work)) I bought, last week on a total whim, a lottery scratch-card. Those who know me well, know I do this extremely infrequently, and always in the knowledge that I'm paying 2 quid for the excitment of scratching off some alumiium leaf, not in the serious hope of winning anything.

So, imagine my suprise when I scratched off this:

and my further suprise upon revealing the remainder of the card:

Now, I'm not saying that winning 40€ is worth writing home about, nor am I saying that it's convinced me to embark on a life of reckless abandon, but it certainly did feel good to go back into the shop and walk out with a fistful of cash.

The phrase "Rob wins" has never been so appropriately used...

All the best,
Blog Levy