I'm feeling positive and negative at the same time these days. I can see a bright, if uncertain future ahead, and I can't wait to get there but I'm constantly worrying that something is going to screw it all up for me.

I'm setting my sights on Canada now and will be applying for an International Experience Canada visa next year to hopefully get over there for a year, if I can find temp work etc. to keep myself going. I didn't really know much about Canada until I started looking into it for this, but it looks like a beautiful place!

So far Calgary, Montreal and Toronto have peaked my interest, but ideally I want to spend a month or so visiting a few places, then settle in one for the year if I can.

After my Canadian adventure, the plan is to either come back and join the Fire Brigade, or if not that, then get a degree in something hard (some kind of engineering or science) then start taking lie seriously and get a real career!

This is the first time in my life I've ever made a long term plan and it's scary, but exhilarating!

Oh, and I bought a ukulele, which is badass.

Well, I went to the gym today.

Hated it of course, but you know, one step at a time...

So, I'm coming to conclusions about how to deal with my anger towards my place of work and even came up with a wonderful analogy.

The bullshit, lies, hypocrisy, patronisation at work is like a steam roller. Up to now, I've been doing my very best to stop it, by standing in front of it and pushing back. Obviously this is not working. The only alternative I could see was to jump on board the steam roller with the other scum bags, but that would take me in the opposite direction to what I where to go and I thought I'd rather fall and get crushed than have that happen. Now, however, I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel on the other side of the steam roller and I'm thinking, I can't keep pushing now. One slip is all it takes and it's all over for me, so instead I'm thinking - what would I do if I was face to face with a real steam roller and wanted to get past it?

I'd step to the side and let it roll past, then carry on my merry way. So that's what I'm going to do!

How do you deal with anger? How do you swallow your pride and keep your eyes on the prize, as they say?

I put a lot of thought into somehow wording this so it wouldn't just sound like a whine, but I gave up because it basically is a whine.

My situation is feeling rather shit right now. It's shit, but not hopeless - there is a positive way out, it's just a matter of getting there.

The Problem - I hate my job, as I have said here before and lately it just seems to be getting worse. The sheer amount of things that they're doing that piss us off is astronomical. I won't go into details, as it will probably come across as trivial shit to anyone who doesn't work where I do, but it's seriously getting to me. It's getting to the point where it's seriously affecting me both in and outside of work. Like, on the days where I'm not angry or miserable, I basically don't feel anything. I don't care about anything, and I really want to get away from all of this and do something that I want to do, which leads me to another problem - I don't know what I want. I've spent that long trying to like a lot of different things, that I've lost what I actually do like. I don't really know who I am any more.

I don't even look forward to going home now. I mean, there's nothing wrong with my home, I live with my mother, brother and sister, and we all get on pretty much fine (as much as can be expected of course), but that's starting to get to me as well now. I'll be twenty-seven this year and I've done nothing with my life. I still live with my mother, because I can't afford to get a place of my own/can't find another job that pays enough. I still have to deal with a nagging mother, irritating siblings etc. when I really just want to be ou living my life.

Christ, this really does sound like a selfish whine...

But I can't help that it's all getting me down. I know all of these things are really problems with me and not other people (at least the home stuff is not other people), but I don't know how to fix them.

The solution - I hang on somehow for another year, take my redundancy payout and go to another country. I really need to learn to take care of myself away from my mother, the safety net, so I can come back and feel like I've actually achieved something and am worthy of my own standards.

The trouble is, my place of work continues to get worse, in an attempt, we suspect, to sicken people into leaving early so they can avoid paying so many redundancies. I see deliberate attempts to frustrate people, deliberate attempts to upset people and to intimidate people, and I see my friends getting screwed over. My natural inclination is to speak up in our defence and to Hell with the consequences, but I know that this payout will enable me to do things I'll never get to do otherwise. It could really change my life for the better, but I'm already struggling to deal with the way things are now, so I don't know how I'm going to make it another year.