Holidays are sooooo nice

I'm having such a nice week off.  I had a fab weekend with Gideon to kick it all off and then spent Monday doing some writing.  Tuesday I spent mainly wandering about holding my head (which I believe is allowed when one is on holiday).  Today I did some more writing, wrote a couple of letters and watched one of my cats fall out of my bedroom window (he's okay, the limp was already there).

The best bit though is that I have not had a broken nail or bleeding hand all week.  All of my paper and card cuts have had a chance to heal and the broken skin about my knuckles isn't half as red as it used to be.  Think of... (Greet?) wotsit's hands in "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and you have a fair idea of what bookselling does to your hands.

I've been doing some online career tests this week, as I've been wondering what to do with my life.  I got a lecture last week on how I can't spend the rest of my life working in a shop, and they do have a point.  Gideon says that's a fair point but that I should stay "in books".  So here's a brief summary of what I should be doing with my artistic temperament:

• Journalist
• Writer
• Editor
• Interior Designer
• Nutritionist
• Rabbi (I think religion is the first barrier here)
• Detective (only if I can wear a deer-stalker and take opium)
• Executive House Cleaner (have you seen my room?)
• Political Scientist (politics and science, my two least favourite things... apart from football)

The various results also said that I should go for careers in marketing and advertising, or become a teacher.  Interestingly not one suggested I should be a probation officer which is one of the results (apart from journalist and writer) that I got in those career tests we did at school.

Anything which isn't boring and pays well would do.  What makes me so angry about all this emphasis and pressure upon having a "career" is that barely anyone I know makes a living doing something they enjoy.  Everyone lives for the evenings and weekends.  The people I know who do enjoy their jobs don't live for evenings and weekends because they don't have the money to enjoy them with.  Why is it that passion goes unpaid?