The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan

10:10AM. I sit in a run-down waiting room in a run-down part of town. It feels like a doctor’s surgery where most of the patients die before making it to see the doctor. Signs beg you not to be nasty to the staff as a mix of young people sit anxiously next to their driving instructors. It is this situation where I found myself this morning as the time had finally come for me to take my driving test. I booked it way back in August but suddenly time had had it’s wicked way and the moment had arrived. A driving test on Halloween- but would it be a nightmare?  After what felt like an hour but was actually only a few minutes, the driving examiners appeared in the waiting room. The first one seemed nice, I liked him. But alas, he was not the one. Nor was the next one. The waiting wasn’t helping my nerves. Finally a woman appeared and called for me. It had begun. I had spent a fair bit of time lately looking inside car engines and working out what all the extra buttons in car d...

Last week was the graduation ceremony for my degree course. Everyone who completed the course was there, dressed in a ridiculous gown and hat. One by one they were called up to shake somebody who likes to think they are important’s hand and collect a piece of paper. An artist’s impression of what I would have looked like if I attended graduation. And by “artist” I mean me and by “impression” I mean ‘something I quickly knocked up without trying that hard’. Well, I say “everyone”. I was not there and was working, like any other week day. I chose to graduate “in absentia” a phrase which here means without having to go somewhere and talk to a load of people who are much more successful than me. I suspect most people reading this know my story, that I did a teaching degree but turned out to be rubbish at teaching. I left with an education degree but without the qualification to teach. (More on this in my first post  An Origin Story .) It feels a bit odd to have not been th...

I must open this blog post by apologising about the quality of it. The trouble is I have what I like to describe as ‘blogger’s block’, which here means that I have been desperate to write a blog post but am struggling to think of anything to say. This is the fault of my current lifestyle. Suddenly my life has become boring. Work isn’t new to me anymore and one day is pretty much like another. For the most part I am enjoying my job but suddenly the good days feel just ‘good’ rather than ‘amazing’ and the number of not so good days seems to have increased. There’s a  Peanuts  picture for every feeling. Lucy captures my current mood excellently here. I’ve reached a point where I am not very motivated to work. The only reason anyone really works is to earn money, to live off or to spend on something they enjoy. The thing is, I don’t really need any money at the moment. I’m living with my parents and although I pay them a little for my keep it is not very much at all. My...