Wanderlust

One of the secretaries is going on a two-week trip to Brittany, France.

As my boss has travelled to France about a thousand times, she's gone to his office in order to get some insider information on where she absolutely should go, what she can safely miss, etc.

Guess where that office is? Yup, right next door to my desk. For over an hour now, I have been hearing second-hand travel advice to Brittany.

The result, of course, is that I WANT TO GO TO FRANCE, LIKE, NOW. *whimpers*

Personally I think this counts as "cruel and unusual".

*fingertwitch* I could just drive to France instead of university this afternoon. That's only like, three or four... ok, it's Friday, so perhaps five... hours. Yes. No. ARGH.

(The scary bit is that I actually could. THIS. IS. EUROPE.)

Bits'n'nibbles, one for sorrow, two for joy, etc.

1. Ancient Chinese star-map. ♥♥♥

2. So the tit finally learned that Yes, twigs with plant lice on them are a great way of feeding oneself. I had found plant lice while gathering redcurrants and left them lying for the tit, and it actually took them and picked the lice off. FINALLY. Now we can try to release it to the relative wilderness!

3. I am attending this "Anthropology in Practice" seminar which is not, as you might think, about How To Do Fieldwork or the like but rather about What You Can Do With Your Weird Degree When You're Done Studying. It's technically aimed at the sweet little bachelors who are supposed to be shoveled from school through university to a job in three quick years, but I figured that as even I, a dinosaur from the time of Magister degrees, am now nearing my finals, it wouldn't hurt to get some options pointed out.
For the most part this has been interesting, entertaining and even encouraging. For me. For the poor bachelors it must have been kind of frustrating, because they're all advised to take more time studying (which they aren't really supposed to do - take time, that is; they are of course supposed to study), go abroad, do internships of at least three months (which they can't because of the way their curriculum is scheduled). Oh, and actually they should be doing a Master's anyway. Worse: In the humanities, most good jobs call for a Ph.D.. So basically they're being told that "Actually the way your curriculum is structured is unrealistic crap" (which they know already) "and when you're done, even though you have a degree, you will be paid very ill even for a humanist" (who will be ill-paid anyway) "because under the old system it wouldn't even be a degree. And most research jobs" (which is a good place for Anthropologists to go) "will demand a Master's at the very least, and very likely a Ph.D., so actually your degree isn't worth much".
But this is not supposed to be bitching about the German study system.
Today we had a very sweet young woman (and her baby for whom she didn't find a babysitter) from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, a prestigious society that basically hands out money to researchers if they think their research projects are worth it. And she told us about her job, and how she got it. And in the end one of the sweet young bachelors asked her whether she might be indiscrete and let us know how much she earns, roughly. And she replied that we could basically google it anyway so she saw no reason why not, and told us.

With my crappy undergraduate student job (at which I am currently being underpaid, not because I do so much but because I do the work of a secretary, who is paid waaaay better than a student) at half-time, I earn only a little less than half of what she gets. If I work full time in the semester holidays, I earn almost the same as she does.
And she - working with a prestigious research society, with a Master's degree and a Ph.D. to her name - cheerfully tells us that she is being paid well for a humanist.

I'm not in it for the money, but DAMN, that's bleak. I mean, what kind of incentive for finishing my studies is that? If I don't finish them, I know I have my crappy undergraduate job. If I finish them, I'll likely spend a few years doing internships and being unemployed earning next to nothing, and even if I manage to get a job, I'll at best get about as much as I do now. That's kind of not motivating.

At least it gives me a very original answer if, in some far-off job interview, some staff manager asks me why the hell it took me 15 semesters to finish my studies. "Want an honest answer? Financial safety."
>_>