It's exactly three years ago this month that I took the train from London to a rather uninviting large town in the north of England called Bradford to sit an aptitude test for their MA in Interpreting and Translation.
At the time I felt that I'd rather lost control of my life in London, despite superficial outward appearances to the contrary.
On the surface, things looked OK - I was managing the music channel for Lycos, I had a flat in central-ish East London, and had lots of friends to go out and have fun with.
The true picture was rather different. The job left me seething on an almost daily basis, mainly owing to truly crass management. Although I was genuinely interested in online media, and it was fun organising webchats with celebrities, the idea of Lycos as a webportal was going nowhere fast and the redundancies were starting.
It was the end of a stage of my career which had seen me move from several formative years at EMI Classics (a good grounding if ever there was one) onto a sort of leapfrog through several jobs, sometimes moving on to try to 'find myself', but more often because things just became untenable.
My stint at 365 Corporation practically single-handedly launching a major website had echoes of Janet Street-Porter's debacle at L!ve TV, or Matthew's Phase experience. The calamity of launching a dud product to a hugely expensive media fanfare was humiliating, and in no way totally my fault (to put it mildly). But leaving was really the only option.
The hops from one thing to the next were becoming more frequent as my dissatisfaction with Life in General was building, and I had the feeling that my luck was running out.
More than anything I felt green with envy when I saw all these lucky souls running around doing just what they had *always wanted* to do. They were TV cameramen, newsreaders, musicians, airline pilots, interpreters. They hadn't ended up in an office getting other people to do stuff. And they sure as hell didn't get their jobs by browsing the Media Guardian.
Something Had To Be Done.
Unfortunately, I felt rooted to the spot, as my ever-profligate ways had led to me having not saved a penny, in fact with a couple of credit cards to service.
The world seemed a cruel, heartless place.
But somehow, I managed to escape. Mustering a great deal of courage, I decided that no matter how big the risk of failure was, it was still a better prospect than spending the next 30 years doing the same thing.
And so, with the buffer of a nice year spent in Germany teaching English, designing webpages and being a bit of a slacker, it was off to Bradford.
How I managed without going bankrupt is still a bit of a mystery - but let's just say that I was very lucky with bursaries, and shameless with touting my translation skills for financial gain.
And now, three years on, I feel an extraordinary sense of relief at having managed to mend a part of my life which seemed quite broken.
It's a risky business, but I would urge anyone else in a similar position to do the same. After all, who are you living for?
Posted by Eurodan at April 16, 2004 5:03 PMGood question -- and one to which you seem to have found the answer.
It's wonderful and inspiring that you've made your way into a life that suits you so well. Congratulations, you've done -- *are doing* -- us proud :)
Posted by: matt at April 16, 2004 6:19 PMIt takes some of us a lot of time to learn to believe in ourselves and our dreams. In fact the more talented and sensitive we are, the harder it probably is.
It would be nice if we could see our own abilities as clearly as those around us (you'd have become EU president or have your own TV channel by now if that was the case :-) But ultimately the route you have taken to this place is one that is right for you, which has equipped you with the experience you need and helped you to discover who you are and what is important to you.
Just remember: you are neither lucky nor shameless. Where you are now is a product of your talent and hard work.
I hope you are as proud of your achievements as I am. (Apologies for my sentimental drivelling.)