If JM Barrie had it done it correctly, then Peter Pan would not have gone to Neverland and never grown up, he would have gone to the University of Glasgow and never wanted to leave.
This thought is prompted by those friends who glumly inform me that they are not really doing anything, other than being ensconced in the library, studying for finals. (I remember those days drinking hundreds of cups of machine coffee and eating so many bars of boost that you discover new and unexplored notches on the belt.) . The rest of their comments are as stress laced and frantic as you might expect. These conversations leave me with a slightly melancholic and empty feeling. Not simply because I sympathize with those cramming away, but because it is a reminder that it is now nearly two years since I graduated. Indeed, I do not find that a pleasant thought in the slightest. To fully explain why, necessitates a brief recap of my life since Graduation. (****Health warning*****Those who are completing, or have completed finals might want to look away now.****)

Immediately after finishing final examinations, most people will undergo a feeling of quite extraordinary euphoria. I'm done. No more crap coffee, or calculating over and over exactly what marks you need for a 2:1. No more being rude to people simply because they do not have finals.
“How was studying?”
“Fuck off, get the aids virus and die.”
And blissfully no more finals themselves. The nervous waiting outside the hall, reading over torn notes, whilst one prick who clearly knows his stuff, serenely wanders around signing “Happy People” by REM. However, after the euphoria dissipates, and the inevitable hangover clears. Another feeling appears. Emptiness. What do I do know? Where once you might have a spare hour or two to check e-mails and watch Neighbours, now you have literally days to yourself. What do you do? However, this feeling is quickly overtaken by the anxiety, if not terror of the results themselves. But they come, quickly enough actually, and you can ran the gamut emotions based upon your Geoff Hurst, your Pole, your Desmond or your Douglas Hurd. (I call a 2:1 a Pole because there seem to be a lot of them around.) Then comes graduation and it should be a great day. Providing the weather holds up, there should be happy memories of an early evening taxi home, pissed as a fart after your old boy spent this months mortgage down at Ashton Lane. So you wake up the next day and then it really kicks in. A slow creeping feeling like sweat up your back or diaorreha down your leg. What do I do now? And not just how I do fill the gap between Countdown and Neighbours? What do I do with rest of my life.

Personally, my own existential conundrum was punctuated by a debate tour around the United States. This was in equal measure, the best experience and biggest curse of my life. Fantastic, because of course I got to see the USA, speak in some great debates and be treated with incredible hospitality. However, being asked for your autograph and being informed that you are in equal measure both incredibly witty and intelligent is not, is certainly not a stabilizing effect on the ego. Neither does it equip one with a realistic view of the employment market when one does in fact return home and start applying for jobs. (Ooh look at that use of 'one', I'm like a member of the Royal Family without the genetic equivalent of a paddling pool. ) Anyway, lets just say that I underwent an emotional shift of bipolar proportions. From Mr talented debater to Mr We thank you for your application, however you did not make our shortlist on this occasion. It only gets worse the more you sift through job advertisments. I mean exactly what the fuck is a dynamic self-starter? Dynamic? Well I am not static, I am capable of the most basic of human movements. Self starter? Well someone does not have to pull my drawstring in the morning, I get up on my own (In fact I had a friend who said he could only adequately wake up after a blow job. This was of course a bit of a pain if only the family dog was in the home.) I am convinced no one actually knows how to write job ads, so they just open the paper and copy the ones that are already there.

However, after a few months I got my first opportunity. An internship with a public affairs company. It went well, well enough indeed, that it got me a trial run with a PR firm. The months trial went well and I managed to get a full time gig out of it. The problem with this however , is that I did not really like the job all that much, and I really did not feel I was very good at it. If you feel like you are pestering journalists, PR is probably not the career for you. If write press releases and they come back covered in so much red ink, that it looks like it was used to put pressure on a knife wound, certainly not for you. This was offset by the fact that I worked with some of the nicest people on the face of the earth. Indeed, the Managing Director was so lovely that I was convinced she was a robot. My day to day superiors showed incredible patience with me and I will always look back fondly at my time there.

Nevertheless, when the opportunity arose to teach 'elite' and 'talented' children and be engaged in general debating activities in Korea, I felt the sort of excitement Gordon Brown does when he sees a pension fund or Michael Jackson does when meeting a child from the Make a Wish Foundation. And things in Korea, well things have been interesting and the last forty odd posts should given a reasonable insight into the various trials and tribulations of the past eighteen weeks. So here I sit, staring at a Korean sunset, mulling over a plaintive thought. The notion that has occurred to many graduates I am sure. Are the best days of my life behind me?
Right at the end of my first year at University, I got elected onto the GUU Board of Management. The next year or my life on 'Jamie's board' was the best of my life. Every weekend had awesome nights in Glasgow's scummiest, yet best nightclub, the Hive. I met so many people, had so many good times and did it all drinking responsibly and not at the pace of the fastest drinker. In addition I did lots of debating and became involved in the youth wing of the dark church of Tony Blair. It really was just amazing banter and I can't help but feel a little melancholic when I think of it. Moreover, aside from the fun of it all, I had an identity, or a role, or whatever. I was a debater, I was secretary of this or convenor of that. Now, don't get me wrong, I recognise that in the grand scheme of it all it meant very little. A tit with a poloshirt and radio, is most of the time, just a tit with a poloshirt and radio. Yet within that little four year bubble, those little titles and jobs carried with them a sense of direction and a dash of prestige. I knew who and what I was then and I don't who or what I am now. Moreover, it has been nearly two years and I don't know who or what I want to be. I know I don't want to be teaching Koren eleven year olds how to write sentences and paragraphs in English. However, there are not many job advertisements for 'confused twentysomethings' anywhere.

Now I know things will probably work out in the end and I'll hopefully end up doing something I enjoy. Yes, there will be good times and I still have some wonderful friends. Crucially, I am aware that actually there are real problems in the world like poverty, sickness and getting slapped in the face with smelly fish. Yet, yet, that little thought remains, that once you have climbed to the top of the podium, everything is downhill from there.